Sermon Tone Analysis

*/Living above the Line/*

*/ /*

 

*/ /*

*/ /*

*/ /*

*/A Celebration of Who We Are In Christ/*

*/ /*

*/Rev Greg Byrd/*

*/ /*

*/Faith/**/ Temple Baptist Church/*

*/ /*

*/Poetry Texas/*

 

 

Living Above the Line - Who Are We

/“Our Mind and the Pendulum” /

 

   Do you ever feel as though your life is like the old proverbial pendulum; one day one extreme the next the other extreme.

Those of us who have two year olds know it is not even day to day but moment by moment swings.

Well I have found that the Christian walk is this way for many.

On one side of the pendulum we find ourselves living out the thoughts and feelings of the old self, and on the other side our new LIFE IN CHRIST.

We discover that within us, we can be two places: on the one hand against God and the other responding to God.

And the question is how.

Because it is obvious what living out these old thoughts and feelings will do to us.

Look at *Hebrews 4:9*, /So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

/

/ /This is where far too many Christians are; in their works, still doing the old self thing.

.. Are You? …Are you still doing for God? Do you think that you do this and that and God will always bless you?

Do these things and God will give you nice, warm feelings?

Then you are like I was for way to long.

Not knowing union with Christ Jesus.

If we have entered into God’s rest we cease from our own works, as God did from His. Look at *verse 12*, /For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit/, …Now this verse may not speak to you if you do not understand the “/of/ /joints and of marrow/,” part, unless you a doctor, and what else “/and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”/

Let’s look at this, when the Spirit of God spoke to us, through the Word, our spirit caught it.

See, our thoughts and intentions are two different things.

In one area of our soul are our thoughts and emotions, which we still experience as Christians; in another part of our Soul is another place, our spirit.

We had this mind before we became Christian; we have a new spirit but the same mind.

Now I knew that since I was saved my mind was now fixed on God and the intent of my mind was for God.

Even as my life continued to peak and valley my intent was on the things of God.

But I found that I still had thoughts and feelings that were different from the intent of my mind.

It was when I began to understand this that I came to the conclusion that I was experiencing the reality of spirit.

I had a consciousness that made a difference in my life.

Now after years of living life IN CHRIST myself, IN THE Spirit that is, I have come to a conclusion; very few Christians know the difference between their Soul and their spirit.

Why do I say this; because so many Christians are confused.

They think who they are is who they think and feel they are.

They base their reality on thoughts and feelings.

But who we are is who we are in spirit.

And the reason this is such a problem is that our thoughts and feelings are much LOUDER than the intentions of our mind.

They have not experienced the Living Word of GOD to separate the mind from the spirit.

The Living Word of God that the Spirit speaks into our mind is sharp, like a sword, and it divides, making a sharp distinction between mind and spirit.

We are not just feelings and thoughts.

We are spirit beings.

God is the Father of our spirit, *John 3:6 */That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

/*Hebrews 12:9 */Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.

Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?/

Our spirit is one with Him, *1 Cor.

6:17 */But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

/Our spirit lives in union with Him.

But that union of spirit is so quiet that it does not cause the same uproar within us that our thoughts and feelings do.

If we do not know the nature of spirit, the outburst of our minds can confuse us.

Then we begin to think, that must be the real me.

Those thoughts and feelings must be the true me.

Then we start thinking we have two natures.

We have these thoughts and feelings that we do not like, and our conclusion is that part of us must still be bad.

I have these thoughts and feelings off and on all day long.

Don’t you? …Our thoughts and feelings can be all over the place on any given day.

So what do we do?

We start battling the ones we don’t like, trying to get rid of them.

And the harder we try the more power they have over us.

* *

*   To experience union with Christ, the Holy Spirit has to give us revelation of two absolute truths.*

*    First,* we have to have a revelation that we died in Christ that we are dead to sin, dead to the law, and dead to ourselves as our point of reference.

*Second,* we have to have a revelation on the difference between mind and spirit and how to manage them.

Until these two truths become fixed in our spiritual consciousness, we are never truly going to live out our union.

The devil will keep on telling us, the old you is not really dead.

What you think and feel is the real you.

You should be ashamed to be such a dirty rotten sinner and to have such dirty rotten thoughts.

We have a body, it contains a soul.

That soul is to us what air is in the atmosphere.

It fills up all our inner being.

It contains a mind and a spirit.

But our spirit, at least in the Christian is that which is born from above John 3:6, it is our true identity.

The condition of our spirit defines who we are to God.

The mind is changeable, the spirit is fixed.

For a Christian the spirit is joined to Gods Spirit in Union.

It is secure.

It is safe.

Why because our spirit, once joined in union with God’s Spirit operates in the unseen, eternal realm above the line where things simply are.

It does not change, there are no variables.

It is in union with God and God does not change!

Most of the time we pay little attention to our spirit.

And in a since we can do the same with God.

Not because we become complacent, but because we know we can always depend on Him.

He is secure, He will not let go, He will never turn loose, we belong to Him, and we are His possession, for whom He gladly gave His life.

*Now, the mind, which includes our thoughts and emotions, and our body*, which includes our 5 senses, which are our physical aspects; exists only in the seen and temporary realm below the line.

Unlike the realm of the spirit, the mind is not unchanging or fixed to anything.

It changes every second.

Just as soon as a new thought or feeling pops into our head.

Anything beyond the union of God’s Spirit and our spirit belongs to the natural order and is external to the spirit reality.

So why not just get rid of the mind.

…Because the mind has a purpose.

It was designed to communicate with God.

God is Spirit.

He does not talk, He communicates Spiritually.

But the mind fluctuates between thoughts and feelings we like a lot and thoughts and feelings we don’t like at all.

And we do not like these fluctuations.

If we do not know spirit all we know are the wild fluctuations in our mind.

Most Christians do not know God’s rest, the full grace of God, and how to live out our union, so we try to stop the mind.

Because what is happening in our mind is unpleasant and it seems as if God wants us to stop it.

We think that our maturity as a Christian is how well we control these fluctuations in our minds.

So we try to make the mind concentrate on the things of God.

But that is impossible.