Unmasking Satan (3)

Unmasking Satan

He knows!

But he doesn’t want you to know

Good morning CHURCH!

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Let’s go to the book of Proverbs 15:9 for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

Proverbs 15:9 ESV

The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves him who pursues righteousness.

To pursue righteousness means we must recognize that we cannot please God in our sinful state.

How do we pursue righteousness?

1. We turn from trying to justify ourselves by our good deeds and instead seek the mercy of God.

2. We desire that He transform our minds and conform us “to the image of His Son.”

3. We pursue the character of Christ and desire holiness more than fleshly/self-indulgence.

4. We spend time in the presence of God in which we’ll become more aware of our own sin and shortcomings.

Today’s message title is:

He knows

But he doesn’t want you to know

I mentioned at the beginning of last week’s message that we who are born of the spirit are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Satan knows this but he doesn’t want you to know it.

And when I say he doesn’t want you to know it I mean that he doesn’t want you to intimately know it.

Because when you intimately know that God now sees you as righteous, you know that God loves you and everything God is, he sees you the same way.

And Satan knows that when you understand and know this, you will pursue righteousness.

But you say, “Pastor J, I am born again but the way I think sometimes and with some of the things I do, how can God see me like he is?

That’s how the advisory wants us to think.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

What was old that has passed away? And what is new that has come?

You in the spirit.

God is no longer counting your trespasses against you. He counted them against Jesus.

Let’s get into it.

Point #1

You are Spirit

And what is God?

John 4:24 ESV

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

Satan doesn’t want you to really know this.

Look again at:

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

And what has come along with the new?

Righteousness.

We have no ability to achieve righteousness in and of ourselves.

But we possess the righteousness of Christ, because “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Righteousness primarily describes conduct in relation to others.

The righteousness we have obtained is in relationship to God.

Righteousness is contrasted with wickedness.

Wickedness is the conduct of one who is self-centered and neither fears God nor respects man.

We are now in a righteous state with God.

Because of what Jesus did on the cross, the judgement that we would have received for sin has already been judged on him and the righteousness that he obtained in the flesh is credited to us.

So now we are accepted as righteous and treated by God just as Christ was.

I call this, The great exchange.

Our sin for his righteousness.

Pastor J I know I will be in relationship to God just as Christ is when I get to heaven but I don’t know about now.

1 John 4:17 ESV

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.

We stand in relationship to God the same way that Christ does. Not just in eternity but in this world.

Do you know how dangerous you are to the plan of Satan when you know this and share this?

Point #1 was: You are Spirit.

Point #2

You have a Soul

You are not soul. You are Spirit.

But you do have a soul.

And with regards to your soul, Romans 12:2 says.

Romans 12:2 ESV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The scripture is telling us, now that you are one in spirit with God, don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world and the anti-God way they operate.

I believe that if we are truly committed to God we will be unwilling to conform to the pattern of this world.

And we know that this world is patterned by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

This also let’s us know that we can be one with God in spirit but be so shaped by the world that we don’t even act like it.

(It would almost be like a kid in a family where all the family members act one way, and that kid acts totally different. You would say, I know that you are a Johnson, but you don’t act like the rest of the Johnson’s I know.)

Question?

Are you renewing your mind, will, and emotions so that you will look like the spiritual family you now belong to?

Or

Are you teaming up with the enemy against yourself?

What you think and the enemy’s thoughts vs. what and who God now says you are.

Point #3

You have a body

You have a body. You are not your body.

You are Spirit.

Romans 12:1 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

The Old Testament called sacrifices that God accepted “pleasing” or acceptable.

And a living sacrifice gives the since of being ongoing.

Therefore presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice acceptable to God would be using our bodies in a way that God is always pleased with on an ongoing basis.

Or we could say a sacrificial lifestyle.

And for a lot of people in today’s society, that would be a sacrifice.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV

19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

You no longer have the right to do whatever you want to do in this body that houses the Spirit of God.

Could you imagine back in the Old Testament, them taking the arc of the covenant to a worldly or pagan festival and kicking it.

They wouldn’t dare take the Spirit of God to some place like that.

We are now like mini arc’s of the covenant as we house the Spirit of God in these bodies.

That’s why apostle Paul said:

Galatians 2:20 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The life I now live in the body since I have been spiritually born again l live it for the one who gave his life for me.

Satan absolutely doesn’t want you to really know this. Not for real for real.

If you’re watching online or here in the room, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?