Jim Van Gelderen: Okay. But anyway, it’s been a great time. I know two days goes quickly.

I know it’ll just be a few hours, we’ll be heading home. But our burden, young people, is that God will do a really lasting work in your heart. And I’m so burdened about today’s message because many times young people make decisions.

I’ve referenced this, other preachers have, and the decision was sincere. It was genuine. It wasn’t like fake.

It was real, but you know, it didn’t last. Maybe it did for a week or two, maybe longer, but really in the long haul, the decision kind of didn’t last. And you went back living like you were before you made that decision.

So how many of you would say at least once in your life you made a serious decision and you wanted it to last, but you have to admit in the long haul it didn’t. Would you raise your hand please? I’m raising my hand.

Thank you very much. Okay, now one of the reasons that occurs is because we do not understand Bible sanctification. Now the word sanctification is a nice theological word that’s talking about the Christian life.

So when God talks about the Christian life, it’s the doctrine of sanctification, how to live the Christian life in victory and success and growth. And it’s a key thing. Now, there’s so many truths that we could talk about, and they’re all important.

And sanctification to me is like a watch, a finely tuned watch back the old kind of non-digital watches that had all those gears in them. Everything about that watch had to be working for it to be effective. And so sanctification has a lot of different truths that contribute to the truth of consistent victory in a Christian life.

and that’s where every young person ought to have a heart for God. Say, I want my life to be consistent. I wanna see God work and there’s several very important truths.

We’re gonna deal with one of those here and I honestly be honest with you, I’m definitely with the Victory Conference and with this conference, I’ve dealt with this a lot recently because God has been teaching me things and it’s been stirring me and encouraging me and I just can’t contain it. I gotta tell you some of the things I’ve been learning and in an effort to help you.

Now, if you remember yesterday, we were talking about three things that often you have to have to be defeated and in bondage to sin. Isolation, we talked about the fact that honesty really deals with isolation. If you get honest, you’re not isolated anymore.

People know what you’re struggling with. We talked about accessibility, and you’ve got to make not provision for the flesh, deal with those issues that are accessible to you so they’re not accessible anymore, or it’s difficult to go back. Okay, we talked about not making provision for the flesh.

But I passed over one, just briefly dealt with it. Passover one I promised you I’d deal with, and that is the theological one of the three, and that’s desire. How do you overcome wrong desire?

Have you ever noticed that you usually sin, can I say this carefully, because you want to? Wouldn’t it be nice to not want to? Now, I recognize that there are times you can have victory when you want to be defeated, and there are ways to victory, and I get that, and I’m grateful for that, but in time, the Bible’s telling us that there actually is a way to overcome wrong desire.

And so we’re gonna deal with that. And we mentioned the verse yesterday, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. And my guess would be that most of you, when you hear, if I were to say, okay, I’m gonna preach a message this morning or this afternoon on put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, I think most of you would say, what in the world does that mean?

And yet it’s critical to your victory. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. So I’m gonna look at a few things here this afternoon.

We’ll try to be quick, but hopefully thorough enough to give you some thoughts. So go to Galatians chapter 3. Would you do that, Galatians chapter 3?

Galatians chapter number 3, and we’re going to just show you a dilemma here in Scripture, and then we’ll try to help you understand what’s going on. Galatians chapter 3, and we’re going to look at verse number 27. Verse number 27, it says, For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.

Okay, so this passage of scripture tells us that if you have been baptized into Jesus Christ, you have already put on Christ. Okay, the verse in Romans says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. The verse in Galatians says, you’ve already put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, so who has put on the Lord Jesus Christ? And the Bible says, those that have been immersed into Jesus Christ. Now, you may not know this, you may, but you may not.

When you got saved, guess what? You were immersed into Jesus Christ. I often use the picture of a sponge.

You take a sponge and immerse it in water, guess what? Water’s in the sponge and the sponge is in the water. There is an immersion there.

And as a result, you’ve got a two-way thing. It’s in the water, water’s in it. Not a perfect illustration, but the truth is when somebody gets saved, they are immersed into Jesus Christ.

Now, obviously water baptism gives an illustration of this, but they’re in Jesus and Jesus is in them. So how many have been saved? And I’m not trying to embarrass anybody if you’re not saved.

but if you’ve been saved, just quickly put your hand up and right back down. Okay, the Bible says then if you have been saved, you’ve been immersed into Christ. And as a result of that, you have put on Christ.

So I got a simple theological question for you. Now, obviously Romans 13 is written to Christians. It’s not written unsaved people.

When God says put on the Lord Jesus Christ, he’s not saying get saved. So why would God tell us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ if we already have? That’s the theological question.

When you study theology, you’ll probably understand why God does that. He often says, this is who you are. And then he says, you need to do it.

Now, let me give you a little clue. There’s a verse of scripture in the book of Galatians that says in Galatians chapter number five, for you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. Okay, God’s saying this, you used to be darkness.

Now you’re light. You know what the next part of the verse says? Walk as children of light.

So he says, hey, you used to be in the kingdom of darkness. That was your essence. You were dark, you’re darkness.

Now you’re light. You’ve been saved. You are in the light of the Lord.

Now here’s what he says. Live like it. Walk as children of light.

So when God tells us to do something, he bases it on essence. Now I don’t want to be too complicated here, but maybe this will help you in theology. Action or essence precedes action.

In other words, what the Bible is saying, gang, and I don’t want you to miss this, the Bible is not telling you to do and you’ll be. What God is telling you is because you are do. And when you get a hold of that, essence precedes actions.

Your actions then come out of a faith in who you are in Jesus Christ. So actions come out of essence. In other words, being who you are.

And we find this in a Greek verb, and I don’t mean too technical, but some of our students understand this. The indicative mood is the mood of reality. And that is often what precedes in Pauline Epistle, the imperative mood, which is a command.

So what God is saying is, this is who you are, live like it. And there in Ephesians chapter five, we saw it real quickly. You used to be darkness.

Now you’re light. Walk as children of light. Live in the reality of who you are.

Now here’s the problem. Most of you do not know who you are in Jesus Christ. So as a result, how do you put on the Lord Jesus Christ?

You’ve already been saved. So when God says, when you were baptized into Jesus Christ, you put on Christ. Now he’s saying, live in that reality.

Live in the reality of your union with Jesus Christ. Now, okay, so we’re going to kind of, we talked about that. Now we’re going to talk about something else.

Okay. They relate. We’ll get together in a moment.

Now, this platform is probably too low to really make the illustration a little bit more perfect, but we’ll use it anyway. And some of you that were in youth group, I think I did this a few months ago, but I’m going to repeat it for those that were not here. So I’m gonna say that this platform is what we’re gonna in just a moment call the unseen realm.

And I’m gonna make the carpet that I’m walking on the seen realm. Now you probably know there are two realms. In one realm is the realm of God.

In that realm, which I’m gonna make the platform, in the unseen realm, it is timeless. Can you imagine living in a realm that has no time? God lives in a realm of timelessness.

You know why? Because that’s who he is. He inhabits eternity, which means God lives in every moment of time at the same time.

I like what commentator John Phillips said, God lives in the everlasting present tense. His name reflects that, the I am that I am. He’s not the I am that I was.

He’s not the I am that I will be. He is the I am that I am. I tell people not the greatest English, but phenomenal theology.

God lives in the everlasting present tense. Why? because he lives, we’re gonna call this above the line.

He lives in the timeless realm. It’s an unseen realm. You and I can’t see it.

The Bible says the things that are eternal are not seen. So it’s also the eternal realm. So it’s eternal, it’s timeless, and it’s unseen, which is hard for us in our finiteness to comprehend that kind of world.

Now you say, oh, God’s up there, but I’m not up there. The truth is you actually are. The Bible says when you got saved, you were put into Jesus, Jesus is put into you.

Guess what? That’s where he lives. He lives in the timeless realm.

So the moment you were put into Jesus, you became so unified with Jesus, you’re distinct and yet unified. We’re not God. We’re not becoming God, but we’re in union with God.

Okay. So as a result of that partakers of the divine nature, we’re in union with God above the line. And that above the line simply means there’s no history.

Have you ever thought about that verse in Revelation, it seems a little bit puzzling. It says that Jesus, the Lamb, was crucified before the foundation of the world. So when was the Lamb of God crucified?

And the answer is, well, 2,000 years ago. That’s different than the foundation of the world. So you say, well, preacher, when was Jesus crucified?

2,000 years ago? Or was he crucified before the foundation of the world? Can I tell you, in this realm, he was crucified 2,000 years ago.

In this realm, he was crucified before the foundation of the world. Why? There’s no time.

So in this realm, everything’s in the present tense. Are you guys tracking with me? I know this is a little complex, but it’s phenomenal if you get a hold of it.

In this realm, so here’s the point. You ever heard that verse, I am crucified with Christ? Have you ever struggled with that?

Well, Jesus crucified 2,000 years ago. How can I be crucified with Christ? I mean, that was a long time ago.

Well, in the timeless realm, that can absolutely happen because the moment you got saved, you’ve got to put in the union with Jesus Christ, which means there’s no time up here. So it means that 2,000 years ago when Jesus was crucified, you were there too. And you were crucified with Christ in a very real spiritual sense.

I can’t explain totally because you and I don’t live, you know, as far as our physical bodies in this realm, but we do spiritually live there. So right now, young person, I don’t care how bad you feel because some of you really do struggle. You are seated.

The Bible says, according to Ephesians chapter one, in the heavenlies. So right now you’re seated with Jesus at the right hand of God. You’re seated in the heavenlies in this timeless realm.

And as a result of that timeless realm, there are certain things that have already occurred with you. You are crucified with Christ. You’ve been crucified.

He’s been crucified since the foundation of the world. It’s always been. It’s in that timeless realm.

And you’re a part of that. Now in this union with Jesus Christ, that part of you that is in union with Jesus Christ is what we might call your spirit. Now you hear about spirit.

Now, when you got saved, something dramatically happened in your spirit. Now, if I can just, again, I’m trying to be as untechnical as I can, but before you got saved, have you ever heard of the terminology, you were called the old man? Okay, the old man, before you got saved, was your unregenerate spirit.

And the Bible says this about the old man, it’s corrupt according to deceitful lusts. So before you got saved, your unregenerate spirit was constantly, that’s the, I don’t have time to go into the passive voice, present tense, but you were constantly being corrupted by deceitful lusts. Can I say this?

People going to hell aren’t getting better, they’re getting worse. The Bible tells us that. That’s their old man, their unregenerate spirit.

Now, remember, sometimes you would say, well, preacher, I thought before I got saved, my spirit was dead. Well, it was dead to God, but it wasn’t non-existent. Do lost people connect with the dark spirit world?

And the answer is all the time. You see, their spirit is, it’s not non-existent. It exists.

It’s just dead to God. Unsafe people cannot connect with God unless God reaches down and connects with them. Okay, so we are through Holy Spirit conviction.

So we understand that your spirit before you got saved was really bad. And it was being corrupted constantly. I don’t have time to go into it all.

I go through this in another message I probably have preached it here, where the plowing the wicked is sin. And let me just simply say this. Isaiah once said, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

You ever heard that verse? I used to think it said, all of your righteousnesses is filthy rags. I thought Isaiah was saying, okay, you rascal, unsaved people out there, you try to do good things, try to earn your way to heaven, it’s filthy rags.

That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying God’s people, he says our. You know what he’s saying?

God’s people, when you endeavor to live in self-dependent righteousness, your righteousness is as filthy rags. Now, don’t miss this. If you and I are saved people and our self-dependent righteousness looks to God like filthy rags, what in the world does unsaved people’s self-dependent righteousness look like?

See, before you got saved, you couldn’t do anything but not sin. Even the things you did you thought were good were absolutely self-dependent and self-dependence stinks in the nostrils of God. before you got saved, all you could do was sin.

Oh, it’s all you could do. The Bible says it, you were being corrupted. Now, when you got saved, and by the way, before you got saved, Brother Miller mentioned this last night, you had a father, spiritually.

You had spiritual genetics. And the Bible says, Jesus said, ye of your father, anybody know, the devil. And the lust of your father, you will do.

Before you and I got saved, our spiritual father was the devil. And that was our spiritual genetics. You know, not a really good picture, is it?

Now, when you got saved, you need to understand this, because some of you got saved so young, you may not remember a lot of things, but I will say this. When you got saved, something radical happened in your spirit. The Bible says, the old man died.

Romans 6, verse 6 says, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. So the moment you got saved, guess what? you were put into Jesus in the timeless realm.

You became attached to Jesus so that when he died, you did too. And the old man died. Now that’s a good thing.

You know why? Because your spiritual genetics died with the old man. So when you get saved, guess what?

The devil’s not your father anymore. You get, don’t miss this, born again. So when you’re born the second time, spiritually speaking, who’s your father?

And the answer is, well, God. you got new genetics now there’s a word for that in the bible it’s called regeneration or theology i should say regeneration i’ve said this before here but i want you to get it it’s not original with me but i can’t improve the definition to be regenerated means this you get re-gened you get a new set of spiritual genes you’re born from above you’re born again born of the spirit and.

something happens at that moment you get a new man now the new man now god’s your father and the new man, the Bible says, is this. It’s created in righteousness and true holiness. That happened to your spirit.

And when that happened to your spirit, the Holy Spirit moved in, and don’t miss this. Your regenerated spirit cannot sin. You say, but I do sin.

I know I do, but your spirit doesn’t. Because could I ask you a question? How much does the Holy Spirit sin?

And the answer is, not at all. Now listen to this verse of scripture. I’ve said it before, but I love to quote this verse or read this verse, whosoever is born of God.

This is 1 John 3, 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed, that’s literally God’s seed. In other words, we’ve been regenetic, spiritually speaking.

For his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. Your regenerated new man can’t sin. That’s your spirit.

Now, have you ever wondered why the Bible says, never says, I should say, the Bible never commands you to love God with all your spirit. Have you ever wondered why that? It tells you to love God with all your soul.

It tells you to love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength. But it never tells you to love God with all your spirit. You say, preacher, why is that?

Because you already do. Do you know right now your spirit has no trouble loving God? In fact, that’s what it does.

that’s the realm of God. That’s where you are. And that part of you is above the line.

It’s in the timeless realm. If you’re saved, in a very real sense, you’re seated right now at the right hand of God in the heavenlies. Read Ephesians chapter one, heavenlies.

That’s what it’s talking about. You’re right there right now. And the Bible says that’s where he blesses you with all spiritual blessings, above the line.

Now, the problem for many of us is above the line just seems ethereal. It kind of seems fuzzy. It doesn’t seem real, but here’s the thing you’ve got to get a hold of.

It is real. And when you get a hold of that’s who I really am and I live above the line, you’ll understand something about above the line. Above the line doesn’t move.

Do you know that above the line, like I said, doesn’t sin. It doesn’t get angry. It doesn’t cuss people out in your heart.

Doesn’t think dirty thoughts. Above the line, there is no movement. You’re stable.

You don’t, that part of you, doesn’t sin. I mean, that part of you is completely, it has no change. It’s unchangeable because God’s there.

It’s the God who’s in, who said on the same yesterday, today, and forever, you’re in union with. So that’s how you are above the line. Now, I know this kind of sounds like theory, all this kind of stuff.

Now, don’t miss this. Problem is we live below the line. Now, I don’t want you to miss this.

When you got saved, guess what happened to your spirit? It got totally saved your spirit you don’t have to worry about it it’s all saved so so i’m going to give you three things that are hopefully just i’m going to go past this but your spirit this is just for those of you that like to think about anthropology and i know that’s many of you but anyway um uh your spirit has been saved your soul is being saved and.

your body will be saved the resurrection your body is going to be your body causes you a lot of trouble mine does too we all understand that And obviously there’s that immaterial part of our body we call the flash that is pulling us away from God. That one day will be gone. Our body will be rescued.

And one day we’ll be glorified. So we can simply say salvation, the spirit gets saved. Sanctification, the soul gets saved.

And in glorification, the body gets saved. Okay, now I’m just trying to help us think this through. So what are we talking about?

The soul. Now, the soul is a part of your humanity. Have you ever noticed this about people?

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this. People are weird. You know what I’m talking about?

People are just like weird. And if you don’t realize that, just go to Baptist College of Ministry and have a couple of roommates. You’re thinking, man, what do you do there?

You are so weird. You know what I’m talking about? Like, why are you, I mean, what is that?

Okay, you know what I’m talking about. Some of you are freshmen and you’re getting used to the fact people are weird. Okay, but anyway, now that’s the soul.

People are unique. You know, people have personalities. They like certain things.

And some of you, like Brother Bousler talks about technology. He doesn’t have foreign language to me. And for some of you, he is speaking your language.

Like you get that technology stuff. Well, I don’t. It’s just not, that’s not who I am.

And I was raised in a different generation. I’m grateful for those of you that are, but that’s not my thing. Others of you, you know, you like certain things.

Some of you, you know, I saw three ducks out in the pond. I haven’t seen a duck in our pond ever. I thought it was polluted.

I thought they’d die if they were in there. But anyway, and so I’m just teasing with all three ducks out there. And you know what I immediately thought of?

I got to take a picture and send it to Wiedica. Yeah, Wyatt Eker would love to see that because he’d love to kill them. Okay, but anyway, now I don’t know about you.

I don’t have a thrill of killing a pretty duck. I mean, just let them live. You know what I’m saying?

Don’t take them down. Okay, everybody’s soul is different. Yeah, I mean, all of you have different desires.

You have different things. The Bible calls that, you know, the soul, but mind, will, emotions. I call it your humanness, and there’s much more we can talk about.

And I think the mind is a part of the soul. I think that’s clear. The will is certainly a part of the soul.

And so the soul is where the action’s going on on planet earth. The problem with the soul is, the spirit is completely stable, but the soul’s not. Have you ever noticed you can wake up one morning, feel really close to God, and the next morning feel like a heathen?

Have you ever noticed that? Like, where’s God? I thought he was close.

And your soul is erratic. It moves around. Now, why?

Okay, your soul is in the midst of a battle between two enemies. The spirit, we already said, is, I mean, that’s stable. That’s God.

I mean, that’s where God is. It’s not God, but it’s where God is in our being, where he’s moving. And then we have the flesh on the perimeter.

Now, the Bible says something about both of these units, okay? It says in Galatians chapter number five, it says this, the spirit lusteth against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit. And these are contrary one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would.

Now, what’s that saying? It’s saying that your spirit and flesh have different desires. The word lust in the Bible is simply a translation of a word that means strong desires.

Now, in our English language, if you don’t take and consider the Bible, in our English language, we often think of lust as only negative, and it often is in our American English, but not in the Bible. The word lust is actually a neutral word. It means strong desires.

You can have strong desires that are bad, and you can have strong desires that are good. And what the Bible is saying is the spirit and the flesh have strong desires. Can I say this?

The spirit and the flesh are very opinionated, and you’re not going to change their minds. They have very strong desires, and the Bible says this about those strong desires. They’re contrary one to the other.

Can I say this? There’s no common ground between the flesh and the spirit. but they’re absolutely antagonistic one to another in every area.

They have strong desires. Now, what depends on what happens in your life? And the answer is who your soul says yes to.

Now, remember, a part of your soul is your will. And on one side of your soul is the flesh. Now, the Bible says this about the flesh, Dearly beloved, abstain from fleshly lusts, which bore against the soul.

So the flesh wars. And the spirit on the other side, I’m not gonna fully deal with this, but you all know this, the spirit woos. What happened to Elijah when he ran from Jezebel in fear?

We’re gonna come to that in a moment. When he ran from Jezebel in fear, what happened? He went down to a cave, there was an earthquake, there was fire, there was a tornado, but God was not in any of those.

So how did God speak to Elijah? Those of you know the Bible pretty well. He spoke to him in a…

Yeah, so the spirit woos. Now, can I say that war is loud? Have you ever watched a video, a live video, or an old World War II clip of those newspaper guys that were embedded in the, and you listen to war and it’s loud?

Now, I’ve never been in warfare. The closest thing I’ve ever been into is living on the South Side of Chicago. Okay, but anyway, and I will say that about a week before the 4th of July, I don’t know if it’s this way anymore.

I’ve got a few South Siders in here, or maybe it is, but about a week before the 4th and about a week after the 4th, when I was a kid, it sounded like a war zone. Because although in Illinois, I mean, when it comes to fireworks, nothing’s legal. I mean, except for dumb stuff like snakes and smoke bombs.

That’s about it. All the good stuff is illegal. And I remember as a kid, that didn’t stop Chicagoans.

Illegal never stopped Chicagoans. I don’t think it still does. Okay, but anyway, you get the idea.

But so about a week before the 4th and about a week after, it did sound like a war zone. I mean, you’d hear a cherry bomb. Well, that was a cherry bomb.

Yeah. Oh, that was an M80. An M80 is fourth stick of dynamite.

Your generation knows nothing about fireworks. But anyway, Hando, that was a pack of firecrackers. Oh, that was a bottle of rocket.

I mean, you got used to the sounds and it sounded like, again, like a war zone and it was loud. Now don’t miss this. That’s how the flesh fights you.

Have you ever noticed that the flesh is really noisy, really dominating? Like, look at this. You’ve got to look, man, let your parents have, man, your siblings, let them.

Have you ever, Have you ever experienced the flesh warning against the soul? And the truth is all of us have all the time. Your problem with your soul is it gets influenced real easily.

It’s just erratic. And part of that’s your humanity. Part of it’s not bad, but it can be bad.

Because your soul’s quickly influenced by outward stimuli. Have you ever noticed that? You can go from complete victory to defeat in just a few moments just by the sensory realm tempting you.

Like where did it come from? Because your soul’s erratic. on one side the spirit’s wooing he’s not very he’s still small voice and over here you got the flesh was screaming and yelling at you and most of the time unfortunately we listen to the flesh and let me give you an example of what the flesh can do because.

the flesh is again partly partially it’s our humanness part of it obviously can excuse me our flesh our soul our soul part of it’s our humanity but we can very clearly listen to the flesh and then obviously we’re into sin but you’re some of the reactions of your soul are not necessarily wrong but they can become temptations if we don’t deal with it correctly. And one of those things is fear. You know that fear is not always wrong.

It’s sometimes the very response we have to life. You’ve been walking across the street and all of a sudden realized there’s a guy coming 100 miles an hour down that street and fear grips your heart. And generally, you know what that fear does?

Motivates you to get out of the road as fast as you can. Now that fear is not wrong.

God made you that way now fear can debilitate people and it can become wrong but it’s the initial one is not wrong because it’s just what it is i was telling some of our students my wife and i had the privilege of going to hawaii i’ve never been to why we went there a few months ago we did it on the cheap but.

anyway while i was there i learned to snorkel i’ve never snorkeled before i thought it was the coolest thing actually literally swimming with the fish i mean you know the ones you see the tangs the Mostly it was yellow tangs. There were no blue tangs, but there were all kinds of yellow tangs. And you’re swimming with all these aquarium fish that are bright, you know, and you’re in the reefs right there.

And it’s really a remarkable thing. And I’m swimming and just in, oh, man, I’m just enjoying looking at these sea creatures. And all of a sudden, out of the rocks, out of the coral, comes a seven-foot eel.

Now, I’m going to be honest with you. When that eel came, fear gripped my heart. I know what eels can do, you know, like, whoa, I got to get out of here.

I was motivated to get out. Now that response is not necessarily wrong. And you understand if a snake comes running across the ground, which by the way, there are no poisonous snakes in Wisconsin.

That’s one of the great benefits of living in this state. No poisonous snakes, but unless somebody transplants one in. But anyway, but you know, there’s certain things that fear grips our heart, not necessarily wrong.

It’s what we do with it. Now I mentioned Elijah a moment ago because I want to help you with this. You know, Elijah in chapter 18 was living above the line.

In other words, he took on 450 prophets. I mean, he took them on single-handed. I mean, God obviously had clearly ministered to him.

He told him in 1 Kings 18, 1, it’s going to rain, which means revival’s coming. He went there with a confidence God was going to intervene, and he did. Elijah must have been a man’s man.

He killed 450 prophets. mean that had to be i mean that’s hard work i’ve never killed anybody i don’t plan on doing it okay but anyway he he knocked off 450 prophets that had to be hard work and you think man he’s living on the top of the world of course god sent the rain we all know about it but you know what happened the next day a woman no offense ladies a woman wrote him a letter and.

here’s what he said about this time tomorrow you’re going to be just like those prophets you killed and you know elijah did man he got out of parchment man he wrote a wrote a scathing letter back and said jesse you’re done you’re toast god’s got this thing i mean you’re out of here man why you won’t you won’t threaten the man of god wasn’t that a great.

letter he wrote wasn’t that you remember that you guys remember that he just marched into the throne room let her have it remember that you guys remember that you don’t remember that do you yeah yeah that was in a different version of the bible yeah okay yeah okay yeah wasn’t in the king james okay yes we all know that’s not what he did now what’s his fear legitimate?

And the answer is, yeah, you know, if the queen writes you a letter and says you’re toast, you’re dead meat, that might bring fear to your heart. What do you think? Of course, we don’t have queens, you know, and we’re grateful that we don’t.

We live in a different kind of society. But if you did live in that kind of society, whoa, that’d be a little rough. The fear was legitimate.

The problem is what he did with the fear. You know what he did? Don’t miss this.

He moved from living above the line to living below the line. And you know where he started living? He lived based on emotion, based on his soul, based on outward stimuli.

And it began, it almost seems incongruous, like how can 1 Kings 19 follow 1 Kings 18? Like this doesn’t make sense. And it doesn’t.

So you say, preacher, what are you getting at? Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ. Can I tell you above the line, above the line, your spirit does not lust.

Your spirit doesn’t get angry in a carnal way. Your spirit doesn’t talk back to your parents. Your spirit doesn’t doubt God.

Your spirit doesn’t worry about the problems in your life. Your soul does, but not your spirit. And your soul is constantly being barraged by the flesh.

And the Bible says, for the works of the flesh are manifest, which of these adultery, fornication, and cleanness, lasciviousness, and the list goes on. Long list of sin.

Your flesh, just like your spirit can’t sin, all your flesh can do is sin and i’m just trying to keep it simple and your soul is in the middle and that’s got the control center that’s the one who says yes so if the flesh is tempting you you say yes guess what happens you take your body body parts bible calls them members of roman 6 and.

you you carry out the sin if you say no what are you saying is no i’m living above the line That’s who I am. That’s who I’ll be a million years from now. That part doesn’t change.

I’m in Jesus. Jesus is in me. And as a result, I’m dead to sin in Jesus.

I’m alive unto God. Old things have passed away. All things have become new.

All of those verses are true above the line. That’s where they’re true. So the question is, do you live believing who God says you are?

Or do you live believing what your soul says you are? Your soul ever said you’re a loser? Your soul ever says you can’t live the Christian life?

Your soul ever says you don’t got it? You see, your soul is influenced by your flesh, and obviously we hear and think a lot of things, especially when we feel afraid or we feel intimidated or we feel tempted or we feel down or we feel discouraged that’s all soul. That’s why at that point you have to make a decision.

You say, what’s that? Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ. Live in the reality that is not who I am.

Who I am is in union with Jesus Christ. And my flesh is lying to me. And your control center, your soul, has to make a decision.

Going to live by all the outward stimuli, all the temptation? Or are you going to live based on above the line? The timeless realm, the eternal realm, the unseen realm, the realm where Jesus is seated on the right hand.

That’s who you are. So, well, preacher, why don’t I live there? Because you don’t believe it.

You will never live there until you believe it. Well, say, preacher, I don’t feel it. Well, it never works that way.

You don’t feel it and believe it. You believe it and you’ll feel it. And I hate to use the word feel.

You’ll experience it maybe as a better way in time. So when we all know that our soul is really noisy, like there’s a series put out by Dr. Jim Berg called Quieting a Noisy Soul.

Now I think I understand what he meant by that. And I want you to understand every young person in this room, when you’re living above the line, you’re in union with Jesus Christ.

That’s where victory is. That’s where you meet with God. That’s why your time with the Lord is so important.

So your inward man is renewed day by day. That’s what happens above the line when you, when you begin to spend time memorizing the word of God and trusting Lord Jesus Christ and spending time in prayer, what are you doing? You’re learning to live above the line.

You’re learning to believe that’s who you are. That’s why it’s so important every day to meet with God. So you can get yourself adjusted and get back above the line.

Instead of living down here where there’s so much variation, so much temptation, and so much even your own soul just going crazy with life. So I just, my challenge to each one of you, if you want victory in life, obviously those first two things are very important, but probably of the three, this is the most important, not that any of them are unimportant.

That is dealing with desire. How do you deal with desire? Live above the line, live in the reality of who you are in Jesus Christ.

Recognizing that when temptation comes and when you feel overwhelmed by temptation, that that is your flesh lying to your soul. And you have to make a decision.

You’re going to listen to the still small voice? Are you going to listen to the flesh that’s warm?