Who are you walking with?

Who are you walking with?

THAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH, BUT AFTER THE SPIRIT.

FOR THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE FLESH DO MIND THE THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE SPIRIT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

FOR TO BE CARNALLY MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE.

INTRODUCTION

Well good evening, it is great to be back home and to be here in worship with you guys. But can I tell you that our family in Idabel is on fire for God.

We have a wonderful weekend with them. We had a great Saturday training and our team here did an excellence job. Thank you guys who went and pour into our family at Idabel.

Sunday Morning was great, their worship was awesome and we have one of the biggest crowd, I think we had around 80.

Three saved and altar full. Sister Becky was there and God strength her Saturday after our prayer with her. She was feeling great and looking good.

Praise God, He is the healer!!!

I got to be in worship with one of my old staff member, 90 years old. Brother McDonald.

I am excited about where God is taking us here at Southpointe!

Now let’s get into the Word of God tonight!!

And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.

FOR THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE FLESH DO MIND THE THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE SPIRIT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.

FOR TO BE CARNALLY MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE.

You know the story, look at me just a minute, these boys were competitive. Each of them were wanting the birthright. The birthright belonged to Esau. One was a hunter, one was a momma's boy. One was a manly guy, the other was a sissy.

You know the story, look at me just a minute, these boys were competitive. Each of them were wanting the birthright. The birthright belonged to Esau. One was a hunter, one was a momma's boy. One was a manly guy, the other was a sissy.

One was hunting and came home one day and he was hungry and even starving. He smelled the beans that Jacob was cooking, and he said, "I would sell my birthright. I would give everything, everything, for this pot of beans you have." He said, "You promise?" He said, "I promise."

So he grasped it, that is why Jacob means grasper. He received the blessings of the father. You know the story of how later he went in, and his father was old and blind, and he deceived him into thinking he was Esau, and he took the inheritance that belonged to the older brother for himself.

And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.

In Genesis chapter 27 and verse 41 again, because of this, we read there was strife and there was tension, there was bad blood between them. Ultimately all of this led to the threat of death by Esau to Jacob. Jacob had to flee from his wrath.

The years have passed, Jacob becomes wealthy, very prosperous. He meets his wife Rebekah and wife Leah, and the handmaidens that work for him.

He has many, many children and flocks and herds. He is wealthy and powerful, but one day something begins to say, "You need to restore your union with your brother. You need to make reconciliation with Esau."

Now, even as wealthy and powerful as Jacob was, he still is not a man of war. He knows that his hunting brother is coming at him with a 30-30.

Jacob is still kind of a quiet little tricky nerd of a kind of guy. Esau is a quarterback on the local football team, he has a gun on the gun rack on the back of his pickup truck - now that is what it says, just read your Bible. That is the trouble, you don't read it.

In we read of their meeting. There is a hug, there is an embrace, there are tears, there is weeping, there is emotion.

Please, my lord, go ahead of your servant. We will follow slowly, at a pace that is comfortable for the livestock and the children. I will meet you at Seir."

Now they depart from one another and Esau said, "Look you go back home, and I will go back later and I will come to see just a little bit later on."

As far as the scriptures are concerned he never went to Jacob's house. They never really saw each other again. In truth they were never reconciled together. That is the story.

I am telling you that I believe there is an element which we have simply failed directly, in our preaching and in our teaching and in our ministry in the contemporary church, to such an extent that we have not counted the power of it to destroy us. It is simply the issue of my own flesh.

You see we don't want to face up to the capacity of my humanity for tremendous evil.

For example, A man came into a Pastor’s office who had had affair after affair and affair after affair in his married life. Some of them were caught, some of them were not caught. Now it was to the point of a divorce.

Now tears are streaming down his cheeks and finally he turns to the Pastor and says, "Pastor, I believe I have a spirit of adultery. I want you to cast that spirit out."

Here you have the great Charismatic cop-out. When the spirit of adultery may be nothing more than an undisciplined, uncrucified flesh.

Esau is the flesh man. In studying his life we can see some ways of our self in his life. Now it may make us uncomfortable.

It may be like the four year old boy who said to his dad, "Hey dad, you want to see a clown? There is a clown in our yard." His dad said, "No, you are kidding." It was nighttime. Kid said "There is a clown in our yard. Come and look at our clown. Quick dad, do you want to see it?" and the dad said "Yeah."

So he took him to the kitchen window, it was night outside, of course the light was shining inside. He pulled back the curtains and of course what he saw was himself, he was the clown.

Now, nobody likes that. Come on, say a good "Amen".

Now listen to me, even in Esau's weeping, even in his remorse he could not change. He was listed in the Bible as a failure. I ask you, why couldn't he change?

Why does a guy go on and on in drugs knowing that he is going to burn his mind out, he is going to burn his body out, or he is going to end up in jail? Why does a person continue having an affair, time after time knowing it is going to destroy their marriage, it going to hurt their family, and completely destroy their life.

I ask you, why does a lady who is causing trouble, confusion, and discontent, unrest in the church, why is she unable - in spite of her weeping and praying at the altar - to find a place of repentance? I ask you, why does this exist in the great American church?

Listen to me closely. I am going to tell you Why?

1. The flesh person idealizes his own appetite.

We often want to identify flesh as some kind of sensual lust, or lust for food. It may be an appetite for attention and affection.

Esau who is the flesh man, he identifies his appetite for power to control, to have authority. Now this appetite always makes the same response, "I want." "Oh preacher, I know what you are saying, but still I want."

The Esau man, the flesh man, always overestimates, I want you to hear this, always overestimates the demand of his appetite. "I am starving to death," Esau said.

Esau said to Jacob, "I'm starved! Give me some of that red stew!" (This is how Esau got his other name, Edom, which means "red.")

Do you honestly believe that? He was living in Isaac's house. He was living in his father's compound. His father was wealthy. Do you think for a moment that his father would let him starve? But he overemphasized the appetite of his flesh.

Do you honestly believe that? He was living in Isaac's house. He was living in his father's compound. His father was wealthy. Do you think for a moment that his father would let him starve? But he overemphasized the appetite of his flesh.

I have heard it, if one time, a thousand times, "But you don't know how I feel. You don't understand what I am going through. You just don't understand my needs. I am starving for attention, I am starving for power.

You see the flesh man always sees the situation as being of huge importance.

We overestimates the power of our own appetite, and underestimates the power of God's ability and willingness to meet our needs.

Phip 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

God says all my needs.

God is not horrified by my flesh, God is not shocked that I am a greedy human with my appetite.

You see God made me as a sensual human being. God made me as a person with dreams and drives and ambition. These things were folded into my clay vessel.

For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

The Psalmist says that God knows my weak frame, and remembers that I am made from dust.

The angel looks down and he sees us make a mistake and he says, "God, did you see that?" God says, "Easy now, you are just an angel, you don't understand. I made him out of mud, what do you want?"

In fact Jesus did not come to earth as an angel. Jesus did not come to earth as an idea.

He did not come as a concept, or some spirit floating in space. He came incarnate. He came in the likeness of flesh, He came in real flesh.

God can meet my needs. God can meet me, oh listen to me, at the point of my appetite.

I have got to believe that God can meet my flesh situation. I am saying to you, somehow we have got to figure God back into the equation.

2. The flesh always wants the immediate.

Esau wants immediate gratification while God says, "If you sow now, you will reap later." God says, "You wait now and I will renew your strength."

God says, "You sow now and you reap. The flesh says, "Now," but you gratify the flesh and you will pay later.

So your little child, the four year old child, it is 7:00 in the morning, he says, "I want a chocolate candy bar." You say, "No, you have got to eat your breakfast. I will give you one later on in the day, but not now."

He pushes himself back in his high chair, hits the back of his head on the floor and screams and kicks, "I want my candy bar, I want my chocolate candy bar, I want my chocolate candy bar."

You say, "Oh, I am sorry. I didn't realize the depths of your need. I feel that delaying your gratification will damage your psyche and I don't want to do that.

By all means, here is you chocolate candy bar." Is that what you do?

No, your grab that little rascal by the nap of the neck and you damage his little psyche all over the house. Why? It is not because you hate him, it is because you (love him).

If you don't teach him that he cannot have that chocolate bar at 7:00 in the morning this year, in years to come, you won't be able to teach him to keep his hands off someone else daughter, off your car, or off your bank account, or off your life.

The demand for the immediate, "I will not wait," it is the spirit of the age. It is called credit card living, it is called fast food, it is called McDonald land religion.

The demand for the immediate, "I will not wait," it is the spirit of the age. It is called credit card living, it is called fast food, it is called McDonald land religion.

The flesh man will have nothing to do with endurance that is necessary to learn a lesson.

Buddy, if you don't get the orange juice now you can be sure they will shop at another church mall. It is the spirit of the age that won't wait.

But I have found that sometimes when God is doing His greatest work it is in the time of drought in a church. Churches go up and down, up and down.

You let a church have a little drought and they will leave you overnight. They will run where there is another fire. Boy, this is good preaching.

The flesh man will have nothing to do with endurance that is necessary to learn a lesson.

That is why they make the same mistakes, I used to think they made a lot of mistakes, but these people don't make a lot of mistakes, they just keep making the same mistake over and over and again because the flesh doesn't have the endurance to learn the lessons of life.

The flesh man lacks the endurance to learn the lesson the flesh person is weak, unable to stand up to peer pressure. The flesh man is unable to do the right thing. The flesh man will never take a stand because he hasn't time to learn how to stand.

Walking after the flesh is easy, but walking in the Spirit requires discipline and committment.

I mean it is kind of like the Roadrunner. Some of you feel like Wile E. Coyote who keeps getting run over by the Roadrunner as he goes by, "Beep beep," you know.

What type of appetite do you have? more of God, or more of Self?

The next time he sends a truck, and bang - "Beep, beep" - and it goes on. Here comes another truck "Beep, beep" bang, "Beep beep" bang, "Beep beep" bang.

I mean God has got a whole fleet of trucks, you are going to have "Mack" written right across your forehead.