Building YOU Part 1: Your Beginning
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11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
Thank everyone who helped in the special services.
Continue Sunday morning on tonights thought.
Sunday afternoon Youth service (dating and relationships among the youth)
Communion first Sunday in March
Introduction
Introduction
One of the most difficult things to deal with as a pastor or minister is a person who believes they are a victim. In other words, they believe that life has conspired against them to make them specially marked out for trouble.
Roy Sullivan
The first strike went down in 1942, and cost Roy the nail on his big toe. Roy was in store for six more strikes that went down in ‘69, ‘70, ‘72, ‘73, ‘76, and ‘77. In that time, he suffered injuries to his shoulder, ankle, and chest. The strike in ‘72 even caused his hair to catch fire, and in ‘73, he was struck again, causing him to lose the very hair he had just regrown.
(He didn’t die from it, he commited suicide)
An economic example is Marxism.
“I’m a victim of (blank) so I must look out for myself, do what is best for me.”
Now we have psychological marxism.
Social media feeds are full of pseudo-scientific names for victims that allow you to class yourself as whatever you want to be, and you don’t even realize you’re being manipulated by memes and cute pictures to buy products to cover up a thirst that cannot be quenched by an material object.
We do not believe we are victims.
The Bible teaches us that whatever condition you are in, whatever state your mind is in, or your body, you are not a victim of your circumstances, but your life can be changed so radically that you will be a victor in this world and live eternally in the next.
Abraham
Moses
Rahab
Mary Magdalene, the woman at the well, the woman who washed Jesus feet.
Legion
Paul
Bro. Branham
You and me
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
I want to show you what the infallible, inerrant Word of God says about YOU, the individual.
Christ never sent me to build organization. Christ sent me to build individuals to the stature of Jesus Christ, that they might be the powerhouse and the dwelling place of the Spirit, by His Word. 62-1014M - "The Stature Of A Perfect Man"
You’ve heard all the psychology, you’ve heard your parents, you’ve heard your friends, you’ve heard facebook, now hear from God.
Look what he told Jeremiah:
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
He is God, His foreknowledge is not limited to prophets.
1 O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
Past tense
2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off.
3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways.
You surround me, you lay siege to my path of life.
4 For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary 139:2–4
Before the psalmist could frame a word on his tongue, the LORD was thoroughly familiar with what he was about to say.
5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, And laid thine hand upon me.
You have arrested me. I am under your control.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; Even the night shall be light about me.
12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; But the night shineth as the day: The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
13 For thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
You protected me, personally, before I was born.
14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvellous are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well.
I am not a victim, I am made. I am not an accident, I am created. I am not a mistake, I am a masterpiece.
15 My substance was not hid from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; And in thy book all my members were written, Which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
He goes back even further into God’s mind, which is eternal.
18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: When I awake, I am still with thee.
He didn’t start protecting you when you were conceived, you were a protected thought from eternity.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
This is your beginning. this is the real you.
Did you know that your being here never originated just at a myth or a thought? Everything was all preplanned by God, before the foundation of the world, that you would be here.
The infinite God knowed. And to be infinite, He had to know every flea that ever would be in the earth, and how many times it would bat its eye. That’s infinite.
You, our little minds, cannot fathom what infinite means. The infinite God, He knowed all things. Therefore, there’s nothing out of cater. 65-1205 - "Things That Are To Be"
Now we are a part of God. You always was. You don’t remember it, because you were only an attribute in God. You were only in His thinking. Your very name, if it ever was on the Book of Life, it was put there before the foundation of the world. He knew what you were.
I’m only saying this, not to mix up doctrine, but to straighten it out, that we might get away from this fear and scare. You don’t know who you are. You are not going to be, but now you are the sons of God. See, you always were the sons of God. See?
For when God had you in His thinking at the beginning, you have to be, some part of you, your Life that’s in you now, had to be with God before there. Well, when He, before He even become material here on earth, before there was anything, but God, you were one of His attributes.
He knowed what your name would be. He knowed the color of hair you would have. He knowed all about you. The only thing happened is when you, being a sinner…
Many of you can fellowship with me on this thought. When you was a little boy, or a little girl, you would walk around and there would be certain things that would just, where it wouldn’t bother the other kids, it seemed like there was something in you that cried out.
There was God somewhere, yet you were a sinner. You remember that? Certainly. Now what was that? That was that little form of Life in you then.
And then after a while, you heard the Gospel. Maybe you went to church, you picked out this and that, and went from denomination to denomination. But one day, you being part of God, you had to be part of the Word.
And when you heard the Word, you know where you come from, you knowed what was the Truth. You were always, the seed was in you always. The Word seen the Word that was in you, that was before the foundation of the world, saw the Word and you come to It. 65-0119 - "The God Who Is Rich In Mercy"
(Eagle story)
And that’s the way it is with every born-again believer. You can hear all the theology you want to, and all the man-made discrepancy; but when that Word flashes out there, then there is something takes a hold, you come to It.
“You who were once dead in sin (that life) has He quickened.” There has to be a Life there to quicken to, first. God, by His foreknowledge, knowed all things.
And we were predestinated to be sons and daughters of God. “Ye who were once dead in sin and trespasses, wherein we all had our times past, but hath He quickened.”
Look at Paul, when Paul was a great theologian. But when he come face to face with that Word, Jesus, it quickened. He come to Life right quick, because he was ordained to be that.
13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:
14 And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.
He was part of the Word; and when the Word saw the Word, it was his nature. All the clucking of the hens, in the orthodox churches, didn’t have no effect upon him; he had saw the Word.
It was part of him. He was an eagle. He wasn’t a chicken; he was just in the barnyard with them. But he was a eagle, to begin with. 65-0119 - "The God Who Is Rich In Mercy"
(Duck Story)
That’s the same thing the believer is. There is something in him, that, when he meets God face to face, he comes to himself. That seed is in him, and it’s quickened. My, that’s right, and he flies away from the things of the world. They become dead to him.
My, I remember, we all had our life, in the past, in those things of the world. But once we got a hold of that real Thing, something that quickened us, a little seed that come to Life, then all the things of the world rotted right there. We had no more desire of it.
“He that’s born of God, doth not commit sin. The worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sin, no more desire to sin.” The sin question is over. You become a part of God, in Christ. Christ died to redeem you. 65-0119 - "The God Who Is Rich In Mercy"
9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
[Sister Bruce says, “But I’ve never had an experience that I have been filled the Holy Ghost, that I could put my foot on.”—Ed.]
All right. Notice this. Ordinarily, a human being is born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world, speaking lies. That’s the nature of a human being. [Sister Bruce says, “Yes.”—Ed.] That was your nature. It changed once. But what changed it? [“Christ.”] There you are, sister. See? That’s it. 64-0705X - "Private Interview"
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
(Man who went from church to church)
I said, “There’s not a thing, nothing you can do.” I said, “You told me for the first forty years of your life, that you didn’t care about God, but you picked up a little piece of paper that said, ‘Where will you spend Eternity?’ and Something said, ‘That’s got to be settled,’ you couldn’t get over it.
Now, you were going down a road this way, and all at once you started back this way. You didn’t care for God, you started back hunting for Him.” I said, “Right there, where you made your turn, that’s exactly what changed you, right there.”
He said, “Then I’ve had it all the time?”
I said, “Certainly.”
He said, “Well, praise be to God!” 61-0211 - "Abraham"
It never started on any day. You wasn’t saved on any day. You was always saved. Amen. Jesus just come to redeem that; but you was saved, from the beginning, because you had Eternal Life, to begin with. 64-0802 - "The Future Home Of The Heavenly Bridegroom And The Earthly Bride"
Conclusion
Conclusion
Illustrate: Counting steps (fitness)
4 Doth not he see my ways, And count all my steps?
This is how God is building YOU, the individual. It began in His thoughts. Will you believe that? You are not a victim, he counts your steps.