Today, we are going to take a posture of peace by being ourselves.
Posture is a short, audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything.
Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
Oh, I've got so much good news today. I hope I can make it brief.
Okay, let's start in Galatians chapter 5.
It says in verse 1, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
In last week's episode, we talked about the heavy burden of self-protection,
really self-righteousness. And what is this burden that Paul's talking about here?
So let's go down to verse 4 where it says,
you who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ.
You have fallen away from grace.
Interestingly enough, he's not talking about a scandal here.
He's not talking about a behavioral misstep.
He's not even talking about a sin issue.
He's saying you and calling that a fall from grace.
He's saying you who have been trying to be justified by the law,
you're trying to find your righteousness somewhere outside of Christ himself.
By doing something instead of being one with God,
leaning on the finished work that Jesus did, you've fallen away from grace.
You've alienated yourself from Christ.
Let's go down to verse 16 where Paul says this.
He says, so I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
So many of us, I get a lot of DMs about this, about the sin issue, my sin nature.
Am I really no longer a sinner if I've been saved,
if I'm following Jesus and I still sin?
I just want to do the right thing.
I get all these types of messages and that comes from a good heart, guys.
There's no mocking that. That's not a bad thing.
But the question that I often get is how do I start living this life that God promised,
this life that I've been called to?
How do I live for my identity in Christ?
This is what Paul says.
Walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
He doesn't say focus on not being this way and you won't be this way.
He says focus on this instead, life in the spirit.
Let's go down to verse 22 so we can see what this life in the spirit looks like.
It says,
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh and its passions and desires.
Since we live by the spirit, let us keep and step with the spirit.
So much of this is spoken as it has been done already.
We belong to Christ, so therefore we've crucified the flesh.
And we live by the spirit, so let's keep and step with the spirit.
This is the truth, let's be true to it.
I think one of the biggest cons the enemy ever pulled
was trying to get us to focus on external behaviors
so that we would not be focused on the person of Jesus who is living on the inside of us.
Religion disciples us this way.
Religion disciples us to high standards and complicated systems
and wants us to believe that our security is found within organizational structures.
And I'm not, I'm talking all religion.
I'm not just talking about Christianity.
But the standards and the systems and the structures, they change, don't they?
They fluctuate as time goes on.
Sometimes they split apart.
Sometimes they completely break down.
And then what?
We feel duped.
Many of us feel let down.
We feel disillusioned.
Many of us feel abandoned.
And so then maybe at best we find another church or another religion
or another denomination with an expression of faith
that makes us feel safe again, that makes us feel at peace again.
But at worst, which I know that many of us are witnessing
or maybe have experienced ourselves, is we leave the faith altogether.
We deconstruct or we self-destruct.
We walk away from God or we try to walk away from God
because we think he is the one who let us down and abandoned us.
God, I did what you told me to do.
I reached the standards.
I followed the systems.
I lived within the structures and it didn't work.
My life still sucks.
This is the cruelty of religion.
It masquerades as God himself, promising us things only God can give us.
Protection, provision.
It promises us an identity if we just do what it says.
But what it says, the rules, the rituals, it's not what God required.
And much of it is man-made to try to control behavior.
Now, I know this
This is a lot, but guys, I told you at the beginning
of season seven, I said we are going after
this abandonment issue, because it is a big issue.
So many of us who love Jesus believe that we are always
on the verge of being abandoned by Father God.
That we are one step away, we are one behavior away,
we are one belief away from him completely
leaving us behind.
I said at the beginning of season seven,
we're gonna really focus on identity.
Together we're gonna become more and more aware
of who God actually is and who we actually are in him.
Because there are so many things that we all want
out of life here on earth.
I mean, maybe you came to this podcast because like me,
you really wanted peace.
You wanted stability in a chaotic world.
Like me, you wanted relief from the stress
and the pressure and the burnout.
You wanted rest from the hustle.
Guys, I know we want love, we want joy, we want patience.
We want the fruit of God's spirit, his nature,
his character, him, we want him.
It's a deep desire that we all have in us,
but we think we have to go find him,
we have to figure him out.
But if we come to his word, we will find again and again
in scripture, we already have him because of who Jesus is,
what Jesus did when he died and rose again.
He made us one with God again, there is no separation.
And we are now identified in Christ.
And your identity in Christ is not fluid.
It's not a religious system or structure.
It doesn't come and go.
It doesn't change based on your behaviors
because it is fixed in Jesus.
Romans chapter six, did Christ die as you?
Yes.
When he died, did you die also on the cross?
Yes.
When Christ was buried, who was buried with him?
You.
And when he rose again to newness of life,
you rose with him.
This is the gospel.
The gospel is not go follow these rules
and you'll be right with God.
The gospel is Christ died as you
because you needed to die.
And you rose as him.
So you're not only right with God,
you are now one with God.
So why does that feel true one day and not the next?
Why does it feel fluctuating and fluid?
Why does my identity in Christ feel like it comes and goes
day to day or moment to moment
or circumstance to circumstance?
I think it's because we don't know what to do
with this identity that we have been given.
We have been given it.
This new creation identity,
it's like we don't know what to do with it.
We don't know how to be ourselves
because we are so used to earning every single thing.
We're so used to striving to be something,
someone significant here on earth
through our work, our jobs, our relationship,
our networks, our skillsets, our awards, our trophies,
our ability to articulate ourselves,
to communicate well, to show up in big places,
doing big things.
We are so used to our identities being defined
by the way we think and feel and act.
Or should I say this?
We are so used to our identities being defined
by how the world around us interprets or appreciates
how we act, how we feel, how we think about things.
We have let the world tell us who we are and who we are not.
Now, some of you maybe will relate to this illustration.
Have you ever shown up in a social situation,
maybe with new people you've never met before,
and you just don't know how to act
because you're trying so hard to navigate the newness,
you're trying to figure out people's personalities,
the cultural nuances, like what jokes they'll appreciate,
where the humor boundaries lie,
what the social etiquette is for the situation,
and you're so busy reacting to it all,
how you think that they want you to act,
so you don't know how to be yourself.
Like you're not even focused on who you are
because you're trying to be
who you think they want you to be.
I think for many of us new creations living here on Earth,
it's like we don't know how to be ourselves.
We are so busy trying to react to the external circumstances,
the people around us, the news that's swirling,
the things that are going on, the world events,
instead of being activated by the word of God
who resides inside of us, Jesus.
You do not become a new creation
by first changing your outward behavior.
That's not how you came into salvation.
You simply believed on what Jesus did.
So you don't now live the lifestyle of new creation
by trying to change your outward behavior.
discover the person you already are in Jesus
and you act accordingly.
You walk in that direction.
Romans six, chapter four says,
"'Therefore you have been buried with him
"'through the baptism into death,
"'that just as Christ was raised from the dead
"'by the glory of the Father,
"'even so we also should walk in the newness of life.'"
And that word walk is the same word
used in Galatians 5.16 that I read earlier.
Walk by the spirit, walk in newness of life.
And I looked it up and in the Greek it means this.
It means to walk, to move, to live it.
So how do we do that?
What do we do with this identity?
How do we start to be ourselves?
How do we walk in it?
Well, first we have to understand this.
Your spirit, which is one with God,
has no limitations, no disabilities.
No, nothing is inhibiting your spirit
from being one with Christ, nothing.
Now, maybe you're dealing right now
with some physical disabilities
that are inhibiting you from maybe feeling
like you're living in peace or joy, for instance.
Maybe there's an imbalance happening in your body.
Maybe there's things happening in your mind
or even your soul, your mental health.
Maybe there's neural pathways happening in your brain
that are locked in habits or in ways of thinking
that you feel you cannot break no matter how hard you try.
And I'm not here to deny any of those facts
or pretend they aren't real.
I'm just saying that you are not subject to them.
Even if your mind and your body are broken right now,
your spirit is not, and this is good news.
Because so often, we're focused on the tangible,
what's happening in my body, what's happening in my mind,
what's happening in my emotions,
and we're allowing those things to be the evidence
for what the word of God says.
Or it's true or it's not because I feel this way,
I think this way, I'm experiencing this in my body.
Instead of being focused on what is happening in my spirit,
what is happening in your spirit is the Godhead,
Father God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit,
they are cultivating newness of life within you.
And that newness of life is gradually taking over
every area of your being as you agree to it,
as you receive it.
Everything in the kingdom is received, it can't be earned.
Romans 6 says, consider yourselves dead to sin
and alive to God.
Receive it.
We agree to this.
Now, here's what's frustrating.
Often, it's happening one area at a time.
And because we're experiencing it in one area over here
and not in this area, we think it's not real
or it's not true or it's not my reality.
But slow learning is great learning
and this is the beauty of practice
because practice makes permanent.
So how do we practice this truth today?
I wanna give you something that I'm doing.
Pick a fruit and walk in it.
Allow who you are in Christ to rise.
Just pick one fruit, one area today.
Don't try to do all the things.
Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you
in one of the things today.
You don't have to rush this process
because it is who you already are.
You're just becoming more and more aware to it.
So here's some questions you can ask yourself today.
Maybe the fruit you pick is love.
What does love look like in this place of hurt?
Maybe the fruit you pick is joy.
What does joy look like in the middle of this conflict
or in the middle of this diagnosis?
Maybe it's patience.
How does patience act at this dinner table,
at this boardroom meeting?
Maybe it's peace.
How does peace feel when watching this news story
or having this conversation with a friend?
What does kindness say to this Facebook post?
It's not your behavior that makes it so.
It's who you already are because it's who he is in you.
You are just becoming aware and aware
and you're agreeing to it more and more.
The practice today is being true
to the truth that is already in you.
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