Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting from Malvern, Arkansas, where we are this week at the Gospel Light Baptist Church with Pastor John Horton, and we are gonna be conducting War of Special Forces in the Christian school, as well as doing some revival services through Tuesday. So we would appreciate your prayers if you listened to this podcast early in the week, and we are trusting God to do a great work in hearts.

Well, it’s good to have you back here on the Thee Generation Podcast, and I trust you’re enjoying the different podcasts that we have. I, from time to time, will hear great reports of how the different podcasts are ministering to hearts. And right here at Gospel Light, I was encouraged with some testimony about the Satisfied podcast being a blessing. And so that’s a real encouragement to me to hear that God is using this in hearts. And we do encourage you to let us know if God particularly is using this to help you in your Christian life, because we do believe that this generation, God has a unique. plan for you to reach your generation. But it’s only gonna be through that faith, that dependence on God. And each of the podcasts is designed in some way to educate your faith in a certain sense. We obviously don’t have blind faith. It’s based on the word of God. It’s based on the character of God. But also trying to nurture it by your just having confidence in God and in his word.

Today I’d just like to talk about something that’s a little more theological. I’m thinking a lot about it because in just a few weeks, we’ll have the Victory Conference at Falls Baptist Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. This year’s theme is Rise Up. And it really has the idea, based on what we know about who we are in Christ and the provision of victory we have in Christ, we need to obey. We need to rise up, follow the Lord, and trust him to enable us to do what he’s called us to do. Certainly excited about the conference, and I realize largely the audience of The Generation are younger, but if you can make your way to the Victory Conference at Falls Baptist Church, I would encourage you to do that. And it’s always starts and ends, it ends on the first Thursday of March. So I believe the dates this year are completely in the month of March. Starts on a Monday, ends on a Thursday. Don’t have those dates right here. but would encourage you to get online, find the information there at Falls Baptist Church, Victory Conference, and we’d love to see you there if you’re able to come, and I know the conference will be a great help.

But as I’ve been preparing for the conference, I have been struck. Again, I’m also reading a book called The Complete Green Letters by Miles Stanford. I read the first of those books years ago, I think I’ve read it a couple of times, always a blessing. I came across Pastor Bill Lytell down at Gospel Baptist Church in Bonita Springs, Florida, and he told me there was a complete green letters. There was a third, a second book, third book, fourth book, and so he gave me all four of the books in one volume. It’s called The Complete Green Letters, and I’ve been reading through that. My heart has been stirred. I really do thank the Lord for Brother Bill putting me onto this, but one of the things that has struck me is of this issue of the new man.

Sometimes it can be ethereal or mystic and we don’t really get solidly what happens. But young people, I want you to understand something here today. The moment you got saved, something radically happened in the center of your being. I’m now putting on a chalkboard, kind of a dartboard. There’s a center and then there’s another circle and then a third circle, kind of like the Target symbol you’d see at the store called Target, not that I shopped there, but anyway. In the center is the center of your being, it’s your spirit. And even before a man gets saved, he has a spirit, but it’s dead to God. His spirit is dead in the sense that it’s dead to God. Now it’s not non-existent, because we all know unsaved people can connect with this dark spirit world and do. Many third world countries have animistic religions that are very demonic, and they connect with the spirit world.

So you have that part of the being, and then you have the soul. mind, will, and emotions is how I define that. And then you have the flesh. Now, I’m not in this way, I’m talking about the immaterial flesh. Certainly, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. I think that’s talking mostly about our human frame, our human flesh. But I believe there’s an immaterial part of the flesh that the Bible talks about, which is a downward pull. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, spirit against the flesh. That’s talking about. There’s something inside of each one of us that tries to pull us away from God. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and the list goes on with some pretty dark things that man gets into. That flesh is constantly trying to pull us into sin.

And the Bible even says, dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. So that outer ring wars against the next ring, which is the soul, mind, will, and emotions. But in the center is the spirit. Now when you get saved, that spirit is regenerated. I like to say it’s “re-gened.” And you become a new man created in righteousness and true holiness. And that is not just theology or theory, it’s reality. Verse of scripture in 1 John 3 that may have puzzled you, because I think it has sometimes been misinterpreted. But verse number nine of first John three says, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, that’s God’s seed, remaineth in him, you’re born again. And he cannot sin, notice it says it twice, because he is born of God.

When you get born again, you’re regained, you’re born of the spirit, born again. Your new man is created in righteousness and true holiness and I’m just telling you based on the word of God, that part of you. cannot sin, that which is in union with the Holy Spirit, obviously God cannot sin, we’re in union with the Holy Spirit, that part of us cannot sin. That’s why a million years from now when you’re in heaven, you won’t sin, why? Because the flesh will be gone, and you’ll have who you really are will be left, and that part cannot sin.

Now I believe an old man is corrupt according to deceitful lusts, that an unsaved man, that’s all he does do is sin. The plowing of the wicked is sin, that’s all they can do. I know I’ve dealt with this in some of the previous podcasts, but it’s been freshly kinda put upon my heart this reality of who we really are in Jesus Christ.

In fact, in Romans seven, it’s very interesting that in that particular passage of scripture, we have the apostle Paul talking about his struggle. And if some of you may be familiar with this, he says, for that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Okay, that’s that new man. Now notice what he says, now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Okay, what’s he saying? He said the new man’s not doing it, but it’s sin that dwells in me, dwells in my members.

Then he says, of course, verse 19, for the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it. but sin that dwelleth in me. I find that a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. That inward man is that new man. It’s that unity with Jesus Christ, that’s where you delight in the law of God. But the Bible says here that it’s not I that sin. In other words, it’s not the new man that sins, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Now that doesn’t mean we don’t take personal responsibility, we do, because the soul is where you have the will. That either makes a decision for you to find your identity and who you are in Christ and take steps of faith toward victory, experiencing the grace of God, or the will makes the decision to say yes to the flesh. We’ve all done it. So we’re responsible for the sin we commit. But when we commit sin, we are doing that which is not who we really are. And the apostle Paul in Romans seven is trying to help us understand this.

We all understand making decisions and not keeping them. Or we all understand, say I’m not gonna do that and then doing it. Or I really know I oughta do that but I don’t. And some of you understand that, you’ve been in despair at times because everything you know you oughta do or ought not do, you end up doing that which you shouldn’t and not doing that which you should. And the reason is, the apostle Paul is saying it, you’re obviously being defined by the sin in your members. In other words, you’re saying yes to the law of sin which is in your members. And that’s that… that constant pull down by our flesh, which is tempting us to take steps toward disobedience, yielding our members to unrighteousness.

And so what God is simply saying is, that’s not who you are. Who you are is what happened the moment you got saved, and your will has to make that decision to align itself with the new man. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is in with me, bless his holy name. Okay, your soul has to make the decision. I’m going to bless the Lord. I’m going to embrace who I am in Jesus Christ. That’s what defines me. I’m going to take steps of obedience, yielding my members as those that are alive from the dead, believing that I’m in union with the resurrected Jesus, and thus have the grace to enable me to do it. I’m gonna yield those members to obey Jesus, trusting him to strengthen me.

Now, it’s a simple truth. Some times seems profound. But you might say, boots on the ground, what does it look like? And I would simply say that what it looks like is when you and I are tempted to sin, we simply say, that’s not who I am. In Jesus, I’m dead to sin, alive unto God. That part of me doesn’t sin. And so I’m gonna yield my members as those that are a union with the resurrected Jesus. We’re not yielding our flesh. In that dwells no good thing, verse 18 of Romans seven says. What we are doing is yielding ourselves as those that are alive from the dead. We’re yielding that part of us that is in union with the resurrected Jesus, the new man, and we’re yielding ourselves as those that are in the resurrected Jesus, and that’s where the power is, that’s where the resurrection is.

So boots on the ground, it might be, okay, here it is, we get tempted, and we say, that’s not who I am in Christ, and we begin to praise God that I am. in Jesus, dead to sin, alive and to God. So I’m gonna take steps toward obedience because that’s my new master. Righteousness now runs the show and he can enable me. And one of the things that accompanies that, and we’ve talked about this in previous podcasts, is praising God.

Man, when things go haywire and you’re tempted, God, you got this. I’m trusting you, you’re working this together for good. And it’s a faith perspective of who we are in Christ and that God is working things together for good. So it’s a focus on the fact God, is working things together for good, and he has not left me out here without a provision of victory. He has radically changed the center in my life, and that means that victory is not only possible, it’s where God wants me to live. And as we learn by faith to trust in the reality, that changes our life.

I know I’ve said it before, and I just had a fresh burden to share it with you and trust that someone will be helped by the fact, you don’t have to sin, he’s not your boss anymore. You’re in Jesus Christ, and he is in you, and that new man is who you are. Even if you’ve had past failure, and even if you find yourself extremely defeated, do not allow yourself to be defined by your failing past or by your flesh, but by who the Bible says you are in Jesus Christ. And that, my friend, is really what total surrender is all about.

Total surrender to who God says we are, and it depends on the fact that in Jesus we are. We have been regenerated, re-gened, and victory is not only possible, it, my friend, is exactly where God wants us to live. May God bless.