Unmasking Saton (4)

Unmasking Satan

You Ain’t No Different

Good morning CHURCH!

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Start your timer.

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

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

Proverbs 18:19 ESV

A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.

A strong city means that it can’t be overtaken. It will stand as is and there is nothing you can do about it.

Someone offended is just the same way. There is nothing you can do about it.

Only they can break the walls of the offense.

So, don’t be easily offended. Don’t give in to the reasons you think someone has said or done something you don’t like.

Today’s message title is:

You Ain’t No Different

Last week:

You are spirit.

You have a body.

You have a soul.

Because you are in right relationship with God there should be some advantages to you in this life.

You should be different.

But why is the reputation of a Christian that a leopard can’t change its spots or a zebra its stripes?

Point #1

Why Can’t I Seem to Change?

Satan wants us to have this thought in the back of our mind. I haven’t changed much since I became a believer.

I pray for change.

I read my Bible looking for scriptures that speak out against my sinful ways.

I go to church on a regular.

Do any of you get mad at yourself when you fail and continually miss the mark in the same areas over and over again?

That might just be your problem right there.

When the scribes and Pharisees caught a man a woman in the very act of adultery and they brought the woman before Jesus, did he get mad at her and judge her by the law?

John 8:5-7 ESV

5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

John 8:10-11 ESV

10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

The scripture doesn’t give us the details of what became of her, but I would imagine that she was so overwhelmed by the mercy shown to her, that she left the life of sin and became a follower of Christ.

The reason I feel that way is because of what Jesus said just a little bit later.

John 8:31-36 ESV

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

How have we been set free from sin?

Yes of course we know by what Jesus did at the cross.

But what that did was free us from the effects of the law.

Romans 6:14 ESV

14 For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace.

When you constantly beat yourself up or when we beat others up about their sins, it just makes them more aware of them and makes them feel like if they don’t perform perfectly God doesn’t love or accept them.

And then as soon as we or they miss it again Satan jumps in and tells them they will never stop sinning.

And then they feel as if God can’t really love them because of this habit they have of sinning.

And that’s just not true.

There is nothing you can do to stop God from loving you.

Romans 8:38-39 ESV

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 Thessalonians 3:5

“May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.”

God is so in love with you, and he is patiently waiting for you to feel the same way about him.

So, now that I realize that I need to stop beating myself up because I’m no longer under the law, how does real change happen?

Point #2

Change Just Happens

If you have a desire to be Christ like there is nothing God wants more than to see that desire, come to pass.

When you get to know God through spending time with him in prayer and in his word, you will literally have to stop yourself from changing.

Mark 4:26-29 ESV

26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

You don’t have to focus on trying to change.

You focus on God and getting to know him and being in relationship with him and change is automatic.

You literally have to stop change from happening by getting in the way of the natural process.

On the other hand if being Christ like is just not a desire of yours, then you will hear what I’m saying and try to figure out how worldly you can be and still feel like your really saved.

Mark 4:18-20 ESV

18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

The lust of the flesh and of the eyes and the pride of life will cause the natural process of change in your life to prove unfruitful.

But that’s not what our God desires for us.

2 Peter 1:4 ESV

by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

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?