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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
BREAKING THE LAST STRONGHOLD
We revisit the garden to expose the first lie, reframe the cross as the end of Adam’s story, and call believers to awaken to union, not separation. We read 1 John 3:8 through the lens of influence versus identity and recast the Spirit’s role as reminding us who we are.
• why misunderstanding Adam distorts the cross and identity
• the cross dismantling deception, not just forgiving behavior
• righteousness as gift lived from, not goal achieved
• 1 John 3:8 read as mindset contrast, not salvation threat
• pressing into God versus recognizing indwelling union
• renewing the mind as the place Adam-thinking dies
• the prodigal as realization rather than transformation
• the Spirit guiding into truth and witnessing sonship
• awake to righteousness as present-tense awareness
If uh anybody wasn't here last week.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, okay. Okay. How about even if you were here, I want you know I want you to go back sometime if you have an opportunity this week. And I'm gonna do a short recap in just a minute of what we talked about last week, but I want you to go back and listen to last week's sermon before you listen to this when it comes out. Listen to it today. Don't close me out today. But before you go back and listen to it online, listen to last week's uh because you're gonna see a lot of correlation between these two. Because again, I told you the other day, I don't want to go back into this, deep into this, but God's starting to piece these things together. And he's starting to show how one week, how we need to follow up, what's next, what's the next step, you know? And and I believe that there's times that God's reading the heart, he's reading the room, and because there's sometimes I'm wanting to follow up with the next one, and God said, Nope, go back, go back, go back. And he will not let me do a next sermon. I have to go back to something else. So I believe as he's reading the heart of the people, he's reading what are people receiving, are they getting this? Is it making sense? And if it's not, we're not gonna go on, you know. So that's kind of where that's why Wednesday night's important. Uh I want to push that a minute. It's important because that kind of is a gauge to uh let us know where some people are sitting at and what where people's at in their thinking and understanding. How far do we need to go further? Do we need to go back? Do we need to review a little bit? You know, just tells me a lot. So, just a quick recap. Uh, this is gonna be really quick. You can go back and look online and see it. But I just want to bring back to your remembrance uh some of the things that we did talk about last week. Uh we talked about how misunderstanding Adam can lead to misunderstanding ourselves. And that's not somewhere we go a lot. We don't compare ourselves a lot to going back to looking at Adam. But really, if you misunderstand what happened in the garden, it'll lead us to a misunderstanding of ourselves, but more importantly, it'll lead us to a misunderstanding of the cross and what the cross actually meant. We saw that Adam hid from God, but God never hid from Adam. Never. The fall didn't change God's heart toward humanity, it changed humanity's perception toward God. Sin created shame, it created fear, it created a broken identity, but it never created distance between us and God. That's the crux of the message that we're trying to push across and get people to just open their mind up a little bit and just just, I'm not telling you to believe it, I'm just telling you to entertain the thought that there's a possibility that God was never separated from us. I make that statement because I believe it. But then I try to come back and show proof of that through scripture. Because I don't expect you to believe it just because I say it. But I want to come back with scripture and show you things like that. Because that sin created shame and fear and broken identity and stuff like that, but it never created distance. Jesus, the last Adam, came to heal that identity problem, to restore what Adam lost in his own mind and reveal the truth of who we've always been to God. Not anything new, it's who we've always been. I know we talk all the time about new identity and new creation. It's new to us, it's not new to God. He created us for that identity. He already knows who we are. So when we say that, we're not, you know, it's not like God's looking at us one day and saying, well, who is this new person? No, God knows who we are. The new identity is something that we walk in. Why? Because we walk out of what we've always been and we step into something different. So it's new, it's a new identity to us. So Jesus never went to the cross to try to convince God to change his mind about us. This was not a transaction. This is something that people will argue this. People who teach uh traditional message of the cross will argue with me on this, and that's okay. I'd love to argue right back and talk about it biblically. Because what's taught a lot of times is it was a transaction. That humanity fell, they sinned, we were bad, we were distanced from God, and Jesus had to go to the cross to do what? To bring us back together with the Father. That's the message. I mean, I can stand up here just with hand motions and teach that message just with hand motions. Okay? That's what we're teaching in the traditional church. But Jesus never went to the cross to try to convince God to change his mind about that bad, those bad people down there, that bad humanity, those people that fell. He was never trying to change God's heart about us. He was trying to change our perception about the Father. And let us know he never left you, he never distanced himself from you, he was always there. So he was simply trying to change our minds about God. So today I want to take this just a little bit further.
SPEAKER_01:If Jesus ended the narrative at the cross, now listen to this.
SPEAKER_00:If Jesus ended the Adam story, the Adam narrative, if it ended at the cross, and I believe it did, then why are so many Christians still seeing themselves through Adam instead of through Christ? Why? Why do we preach like the veil is still up when the Bible tells us the veil's been torn? Why do we pray like God is still far away when he said, I'm in you, I'm one with you, and I'll never leave you nor forsake you? Why do we still pray like he's way off somewhere? Why do we come in here every Sunday morning and worship in a way like we're trying to convince him to come into our building when he's already here to begin with? Why are so many living like righteousness is some kind of goal that we're gonna reach and obtain someday instead of a gift that's already been given to us, is what the Bible says. We're living and trying to behave in a way that we reach a place of righteousness. He said, I've already given you righteousness. But every day we're teaching people to try to obtain that. Here's the truth, and this truth is going to be really uncomfortable for people who have just a little bit of a religious mindset left. It'll be a little bit uncomfortable, but here it is. Adam is dead, but Adam thinking is still alive. We need to get that. Adam is dead, but Adam thinking is still alive. Thankfully, the only place that it lives is in our minds. That's it. That's it. The devil has never, I've never seen the devil put any obstacle in front of me. I've never physically seen the devil come out and do anything, create a situation for my life, put me in a bad situation, cause something bad to happen in my life. I've never seen it. But I've heard little things whispered to me. I've had thoughts about not being good enough or not being holy enough or not being whatever. Those little thoughts get planted in my head, and it makes me start doubting what my identity of who I am. I know who I am. And I don't need you to know who I am to convince me of it. You should know who you are regardless of whether somebody else confirms it or not. So I know who I am, and it's those little thoughts sometimes that get in there and saying, are you sure? Are you sure that's what God said about you? Today's message is titled Breaking the Last Stronghold. And you may be asking, what is that? Some people, their minds automatically go to death. But it's not really death, it's the lie of the mind, the lie in the mind that many of us believe every single day. We've got to understand that Jesus didn't just come to deal with sin. And that's the number one answer that people's giving when you ask them what was the purpose of Jesus going to the cross? What was the purpose of the death on the cross? Everybody automatically goes to he died to forgive us of our sins. Now listen to me, because I am in no way, shape, or form saying that is not the truth. That is the truth. But it's not the whole truth. There's more to it. Who was it used to say, let me tell you the rest of the story? There's another part of the story that we're leaving out. Why? Because it doesn't align with my traditional belief. And a lot of people don't want to teach it because I don't want to get in there and study it out and see what it really says. I'm just going to keep teaching what tradition has always taught me. I got to get away from that. Because if I keep teaching what tradition has taught me, I'll stay on a certain level of ignorance. I don't want to be ignorant anymore. I want to understand what Jesus was really trying to tell me. I want to live the life that He said you have the ability to live right now on earth, not one day when you die and get to heaven. I want to reach that place right now. Sissy does too.
SPEAKER_01:She's crawling up here all the way to the altar. Look at that. So today's message is breaking that stronghold.
SPEAKER_00:And if we we got to get away from the idea that he's just dealing with sin. He didn't just come to deal with sin. Here's the rest of the story. He dealt with the lie that leads to sin. It's easy just to try to put it in a nutshell and say, boom, he died for sin. Yes, he died for sin. But not just that, he died for the mindset that caused and created the sin. That's going deeper. That's going in and saying we don't want to just fix the sin problem. We want to fix the identity problem. Because it's the lie that causes me to have a false identity. The sin just makes me have shame and guilt. I do something wrong or whatever, you know, I feel guilty about it, I feel shameful about it. That causes guilt and shame. But it's the lie that's in my mind that causes me to believe I'm not good enough. It's the lie in my mind that causes me to believe. Did he really say? Did he really mean that? Did he really mean that he loved me that much? Did he really mean it when he said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you? Did he really mean it when he said, I've already given you the gift of righteousness? Did he really mean it when he says, I'll always be there no matter what? See, those lies try to get in there and tell us he didn't really mean that. You're misinterpreting what the word said. Jesus didn't come to simply remove sin, he came to destroy the deception that empowers sin. That is that is that statement right there is so powerful. He did not just come to remove sin, he came to destroy the deception that empowers sin. I want you to look at this verse with me. I wasn't going to use this, but I want to go here. 1 John 3 and 8. I want to go here because I want to show you the conflict that's going on in the church of how we believe something because we read it and it's passed down a certain way, but then we're going to dive in and really look at what it says.
SPEAKER_01:He who sins is of the devil.
SPEAKER_00:Now, if I was an evangelist in a tent, I'd stop right there and say, you better come right now. And I'd be scaring you to get to the altar. Because if you're a sinner, if you have sinned today, if you think you're going to sin tomorrow, you are of the devil. According to this verse, according to the way it's taught. Man, that makes you feel good, don't it? Makes you want to come back tomorrow night to a revival. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the very beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Let me stop right here. There's a lot of other verses we can go into with that and add on to it, but let's just take it a little piece at a time. The Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. Now listen, here's the number one thing you've got to realize in this scripture right here. John is not questioning salvation. This verse is being used to question people's salvation. Because you may be saved, you may have been saved for 15 or 20 years, and you may have been used to be a pastor or taught Sunday school or you might be whatever in the church, but if you sin, you are of the devil. And the boy that point that finger at you and wiggle it.
SPEAKER_01:You're of the devil. Don't make you feel real good.
SPEAKER_00:I don't want people to come into my church, into this church, and the first thing I tell them is they're of the devil. They're probably not coming back. So what is this really saying? John is not questioning salvation. He's not looking at these folks saying, Well, you thought you were of God, but you're really of the devil. He's contrasting two different mindsets right here. You can go back and study this on your own. I ain't got time to go into all the study on it. He's contrasting two different mindsets. One is a sin mindset, and one is a righteous mindset. Two different things he's looking at. Traditional thinking, traditional teaching would tell you, will interpret these words, of the devil, like this. Unsaved, demon-controlled, or possessed, or spiritually dead. That's the way, listen, in most traditional churches, if somebody looks at you and tells you you are of the devil, the other people in there who don't think they're of the devil is kind of looking at you like, I wonder what he did. Because it's a negative thing. That's the way we're teaching this. That is not what Paul was talking about. That is not what Paul meant. I can prove, I'm gonna prove it to you. When John says of the devil, he's talking about behavior that flows from deception. How do you know? Could be just a guess, could be just because I studied it, or it could be that I like, this is what I like to do. I like to say, give me an example that Jesus showed. Why? Because Jesus is our prime example. So I'll look and I'll say, is there anything in the Bible that Jesus done that can show me what John's talking about right here? And you can find it. It'll pop right up. When Jesus told Peter, y'all remember this? Get behind me, Satan. Y'all remember when Jesus said that to Peter? This was his disciple he was talking to. Really, really close to him. And he said, get behind me, Satan. Do you think that he was calling Peter possessed? I mean, his own follower, his own guy that he was calling possessed. No, he was saying Peter was being influenced. Peter is still my man. But, dude, you are being influenced by what other people are telling you. Get behind me. Because that doesn't align with my thinking. He wasn't saying that Peter wasn't his follower. He wasn't saying that Peter's no longer a disciple. How can somebody who's of the devil be a disciple? He was just saying you're being influenced. And I tell you, there's people in the church that's being influenced. All of us. No, we're not pointing fingers at one and this one and that one and excusing the other ones. All of us get influenced by words, by things people say, by things we hear. We all get influenced. So John is not dividing the world into two different groups. He's not saying the good guys who are saved and the bad guys who are of the devil. He's not dividing people up. He's not a God of division. So the people who are speaking for him is also not going to cause division. Okay. He's saying that when we live from Christ, then we manifest righteousness. If we live from the mindset of Christ, we manifest, we push out righteousness. Okay. If we forget who we are, if we lose sight of our identity, then we act from a place of deception. And we say things and do things that what does not align with Christ. We act and think and do from a place of deception. Jesus came to destroy the lie that we could live from our true identity, that you know that we were separated and we could never understand who we are. He came to destroy that lie. He came to tell us you can live from your true identity in Christ. Jesus never came with the intent of destroying people. Come on, we need to hear this. Jesus' purpose was never to come to destroy people that did not align with him, that would one day I'm going to cast you into hell so you'll burn. That's destroying people. Would you agree? Okay? He never came with the intent to destroy people. He came to destroy the lie that holds people in bondage. The lie that you're not good enough, the lie that you're separated, the lie that you're not holy enough, the lie that you're not righteous enough, the lie that you're just an old sinner, the lie that you're this or that. He came to destroy that lie. And when we talk about the devil's work, I love what it talks about here. He says, He came that he might destroy the works of the devil. That's important. And when I read that, I had to ask myself the question what is he talking about? The works of the devil.
SPEAKER_01:What was the devil's first work?
SPEAKER_00:It wasn't murder, it wasn't addiction, it wasn't immorality, it was deception. He came to destroy the works of the devil, which was deception. Remember in Genesis 3:1, he said, has God really said? He was trying to deceive Eve. Eve said, This is what God said. And she said, Did God really say that? He was trying to deceive her and make her believe that she was not really understanding who God was. The first temptation wasn't about behavior, it was identity confusion from the very beginning. The war that we talk about sometimes, it was never about a fruit on a tree. Never. We can call it an apple, we can call it a pear, we can call it whatever. It was never about a fruit on a tree, it was about the lie in the mind.
SPEAKER_01:It was the lie that they believed. Well, they ate a fruit. Why?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, they ate the fruit. I'm not denying that. I'm not denying the story of the Bible, but I'm not worried about the fruit. I'm worried about the lie that caused them to eat it. How do we not eat the fruit anymore? We take care of the lie that led us to do it in the first place. God bless Nancy Reagan years ago when she came out and says, say no to drugs. Wonder how many times that actually worked with a full-blown addict. Looking at somebody who strung out and you walk up and say, put that down, that ain't good for you. And they probably didn't work like that. Good message overall. We want to say no, so I'm not knocking the message. But what led the people to use to begin with? When you get down to that, that's when you change the addiction process. Same thing right here. It's not about the fruit that was ate, it was about the lie that led them, led them to do it. So the cross did not just take away sin. I'm gonna keep repeating that. It took away the lie that sin had changed who we are. The church has preached a saved soul, but a lost mind. I want you to hear that. The church today has preached a saved soul, but a lost mind. Think about it. Much of the church has told people they are saved, but they never teach them how to think saved. They teach them how to get saved. I love, you know, apostle, he used to say it. It's not about getting saved, it's learning how to live saved. I kind of change that up a little bit. It's not about just getting saved, it's learning how to think saved. That's a big difference. Because I don't care how many words I say at an altar, if my thinking don't change, then words mean nothing. Now that's gonna hurt somebody's feelings because somebody's saying, oh, he's saying my experience don't matter. No, your experience matters, but your thinking matters more. Your thinking is what's gonna pave the way to how you live out that salvation experience. We keep preaching forgiveness while ignoring identity. We keep telling people about a heaven they're gonna get to someday, but never teach about transformation today. I don't care about someday. I want it, I want today. I want to know how I can live this now. Redemption of the soul is a great message. Most churches, traditional churches, that is the message of the church. You see, some of these pastors, and I'm talking big-time pastors. You know, the grims and the you know, people like that on TV that's got millions and millions of followers. And their message, and I was watching the commercial the other day on what's the name of Jeremiah. Uh I can't think of his name. Big pastor. And his thing was, he said, I don't want to just tell you about heaven. I want to take as many people with me as I can. Great message. Nothing wrong with that. I understand what he's saying, but there's more to it than that. So redemption of the soul is a great message, but not if we keep leaving out the renewal of the mind. Because the redemption of the soul is not, listen, how am I going to live redeemed if my thinking is messed up? I can I can ask him to forgive me. I can ask him to come into my life. I can I can say, Lord, I want you to be my Lord and Savior. But I also have to change the way I think. For that to truly manifest, those things to manifest in my life. I'm not saying that it wasn't true and it didn't happen. I'm not knocking nobody's salvation experience. But I know a lot of people who had an experience that it don't mean nothing to them today.
SPEAKER_01:Because their whole thinking never changed. Okay?
SPEAKER_00:We're creating people by doing this and by teaching and leaving these things out. What we're doing is we're we're creating a people who walk up an aisle, they repeat a prayer, but they leave with the same adamic mindset that they came in with. Some of y'all may not have called that adamic.
SPEAKER_01:Adam. Didn't cuss. Oh, he cussed in church. The Adam mindset.
SPEAKER_00:You come through the experience, you say your prayer, you get, you get a little bit of, we pull some more on your head, we do all that, and you leave with the same mindset that you walk in with.
SPEAKER_01:That's not that's not success to me.
SPEAKER_00:It is to some because they can say we got 25 out of the grasp of hell this morning. And that's the words we use. We we poured 25 people out of the fire of hell today. But did you change their thinking? Are they gonna stay out of hell? I'm going on their message now. I know what I believe, but I'm saying I'm going on their message. Just because we let them in a prayer, did we change their thinking any? Did we help them understand who they are? So we're creating people who walk an aisle, repeat a prayer, but leave with that same mindset that they came in with, still feeling unworthy, still believing God is distant, still carrying shame and guilt, still thinking like a sinner instead of thinking like a son. When somebody walks out like that, even if they just left the altar, that is not a success to me. That's my opinion now. I want more than that for somebody. I want them to experience more than just an altar experience. Not saying it wasn't true, not saying they wasn't sincere in it, but it's gotta be more. It's okay to tell people what Jesus did for them. But shouldn't we also tell them what Jesus did to them? We should tell them what Jesus did for them and to them and not what he did for them on the cross. Listen, most Christians know the story of the cross. We know what Jesus done for us. But see, I want to know what he done to me. I want to know what he gave me the ability to walk in. I want to know that that authority that he carried, I want to know for sure that he said in his word, you have the same authority, even greater things will you see because I'm going to the Father. And because I'm sending back a comforter to live on the inside of you. Even greater things will you see. Not a good place to be. They're loved, but they're still afraid.
SPEAKER_01:They're children of God, but they still think like children of Adam. Here's the good news the gospel.
SPEAKER_00:The gospel is the good news, and I'm talking about the real gospel. It's not about just getting you into heaven, it's about getting heaven into you. It's not just salvation of the soul, it's renewing the mind into the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_01:One more verse I want you to look at with me is Ephesians 4 and 23. Because this gives us the directions right here. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
SPEAKER_00:Pretty simple. This is just verse 23. If you truly want an understanding of this, go back and read the verses before and the verses after. I'm just pulling this out because this is just talking about the being renewed in the mind. We know this. And why is this so important? Why does this matter? I mean, why can't I just go to the altar and get some oil port on my head and say a few words and say, A done deal. That's great if that's all you won't. But why does it matter? Because the mind is the only place that Adam thinking survives. If I want to take care of Adam thinking, I have to renew the mind.
SPEAKER_01:I can't just say some words.
SPEAKER_00:Have to renew the mind. We've preached forgiveness, but people get upset when you talk about waking up to their true identity. We'll talk about the word for, we'll say the word forgiveness all day. And they love it. They'll clap and they'll hallelujah and amen you. But when you say you need to wake up to your true identity in Christ, they get offended. I don't understand that. We're okay with telling people try harder, but don't dare tell them they need to wake up. We've preached, pray until God comes. Until instead of reassuring them, God's already here.
SPEAKER_01:What are we waiting on to come? The church knows how to confess sin. Believe me, we've taught the church very, very well how to confess sin. But not how to confront the lie behind the sin.
SPEAKER_00:That's what we're doing now. We know how to confess sin, but now we're stepping into another level and we're saying, let's confront the lie behind it. Let's go deeper.
SPEAKER_01:Let's go deeper into it. This is why believers still struggle.
SPEAKER_00:They're forgiven, but they're not awake. They're saved, but they're not renewed. They're free, but they're not aware. As long as the mind believes the lie of separation, Adam's always gonna feel alive. As long as we think we're separated, that lie from Adam is still present. Let me hit on this real quick. Because this is the meat of the message, the last stronghold. I want to challenge you with this. If we still imagine God as distant, as disappointed, as being triggered by our bad behavior, as waiting for our repentance before he responds, then we're still living the lie that Adam believed. Somebody needs to hear that. If you're still living in a place that you're distant from God, or you believe that God is disappointed in you, or you believe that God is always triggered because you made a mistake, or that he's waiting on you to repent before he will actually love you and accept you, then you're still living with the lie that Adam believed in the garden.
SPEAKER_01:You still have the lie in you.
SPEAKER_00:Adam hid from God because he believed a lie. He literally hid from him in the garden. There's a lot of believers today that's still hiding. They're just hiding now with a little bit better religious vocabulary. What do I mean by that? We call it in the church, we call it pressing in. Come on, this is gonna step on some toes because I've used these words too. We call it pressing into God, we call it getting right with God, we call it seeking his faith.
SPEAKER_01:Oh man, it sounds so anointed. Amazing. But the truth is, how can you press into a God who's already in you? How can you get right with a father who you've never been wrong with? How can you seek the face of somebody whose face has never turned from you? It's a lie. Those things sound amazing.
SPEAKER_00:They sound spiritual, they sound almost super spiritual. Because I can remember, man, we used to get in first community, cut the lights down, cut the music up, and we would press in. I mean, I'm telling you, we would press in till we seen crazy stuff in there. So I'm not knocking the I mean that there you can do that. But I'm talking about the way we're using the vocabulary to stay stuck in a life.
SPEAKER_01:That's all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00:That's not Christianity, that's sanctified Adam thinking. Sounds good, but it's the thinking of Adam. So I want to give you an invitation this morning. Not the invitation to repeat a prayer. Hopefully, all of y'all don't, nobody in here needs that.
SPEAKER_01:It's an invitation to see the gospel for what it really is.
SPEAKER_00:It's an invitation to stop striving and start seeing. Jesus' invitation was never become something new. He never said that. It was see who you already are. That was it. So many times I've heard the prodigal son story taught as transformation. And I kind of felt a little convicted when I started writing, because I said, you know, I think I've taught it as a transformation story. But you know, when you really go back and look at that story in light of what we're learning right now, the prodigal son story was never about transformation, it was about realization. He realized. Not something new. He realized what was already there. I am a son. I'm not becoming a son. I'm realizing I stepped out of my true identity, and now I'm gonna step back into it. So it wasn't a new creature, a new creation, a new man. It was the same man that realized who he was. So the the story of the prodigal son is not about transformation, it's about realizing who you are. Nothing about the father changed. The father was there the whole time waiting on the son. Only the son's awareness changed. He was finally, what did he say? He was finally aware. He said, I come to myself. How can you come to yourself? How can you come to something that's not there? So he came back to the reality of who he really was.
SPEAKER_01:The father never said, Now that you've repented, I love you again. He said, You were always, always my son.
SPEAKER_00:Awareness is the real awakening of the gospel. So Jesus didn't come to change God's mind about you. I'm saying this again because I want you to see what I'm talking about now. Jesus didn't come to change God's mind about us. There was nothing to change. He came to change our minds about the Father.
SPEAKER_01:Let this hit you this morning. We need to get this. If you still see God through Adam's lens, then you'll still see yourself through Adam's lens. But I love what Paul said.
SPEAKER_00:In Colossians 2, he says, you are complete in him. In 1 John 4, he says, as he is, so are you in this world. In 1 Corinthians 2, he says, we have the mind of Christ. So you're complete in him. As he is, so are you, and we have the mind of Christ. So the question isn't, when is Jesus coming back? That's the question of the church. That is the question of the church. When is Jesus coming back?
SPEAKER_01:Is that really the question we need to be asking? Maybe we could ask this. When will we believe he already is? Just a change of mindset. Not denying that something else may happen one day.
SPEAKER_00:But I'm not worried about one day. I'm worried about now. Because if I take care of now, then I don't have to worry about one day. What do they say? Oh, if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready. If I worry about today, I ain't got to worry about one day. So I want to be ready today. I want to know that I'm walking in authority today. I want to know that I'm loved today. I want to know that he's with me today. I'm not trying to get ready for all that one day.
SPEAKER_01:I want to know it today.
SPEAKER_00:The Holy Spirit's ministry is not con. This is going to mess with you here. I'm going to end right here. I got to end on this one because some of you are going. Y'all may leave. The Holy Spirit's ministry is not conviction of sin.
SPEAKER_01:We just tore up the Holy Spirit in most churches.
SPEAKER_00:Because we're taught that the Holy Spirit is going to convict you of your wrongdoing. He's going to convict you of sin. Is that what most of us was taught? I was taught that. Holy Spirit's ministry is not conviction of sin, but conviction of true identity. The Holy Spirit's there to bring you back to the remembrance of what? Not what you did, but who you are. Now, do we get convicted sometimes and we our minds go back to, yes, of course, you're human. But the Holy Spirit's job, purpose, and ministry is not to come to you every day, and I say come to you, while that's old traditional teaching. He's not coming to us, he's in us. You can't come to something you're already at. He's already there. So his job, his ministry is not to, every day when I wake up, to tell me how bad I am. And remind me of every negative bad thing I've ever done in my life. But his ministry is to for me to wake up and realize who I am in Christ. That's what he's bringing to my remembrance. So the ministry is not conviction, the ministry is identity. John 16 and 13 says the Spirit guides into truth, not guilt. Y'all thought I was just gonna say that's my opinion, didn't you? The word says that. He guides into truth, not guilt. Telling me how bad I am brings guilt. That's not the Holy Spirit. Well, he convicted me and it made me. That's not the Holy Spirit. That's your own conscience. Holy Spirit will never guide you into guilt, he'll guide you into truth. John 14 and 26 says the Spirit reminds, not condemns. I'm just giving you straight scripture right here. He reminds. And how do you remind of something that was not there to begin with? You can't remember something that was never membered to begin with. Re means again, back. So if he's bringing me back to the remembrance of it, then it was already there. So he's bringing me, he's reminding me, he's not condemning me. And the last verse here, Romans 8 and 16 says he's he witnesses to our sonship, not to our failures. Those three verses right here we could preach the next three months on. On identity. He witnesses to our sonship, not to our failures. The Spirit's voice sounds like this. You want to know the difference? Some people say, Man, I heard this loud, booming voice. And I can tell you, that's happened one time to me. One time where I like literally, I was sitting in first communion right by myself, and I heard it so heavy, I turned around to see who was behind me. But most of the time it's just a just a still small voice. But I'm never gonna question how the Holy Spirit does it. I mean, I know he does it in all kinds of ways.
SPEAKER_01:But the Spirit's voice is gonna say things like this you're mine. You're righteous. You're not who Adam told you you are. Wake up, wake up. God loves you. He's one with you, you're in unity with him. Any voice that says you're distant, you're dirty, you're disappointing, it's not the spirit. It's the echo of Adam. Some of us has got to quit listening to echoes. So the call to the church is real simple.
SPEAKER_00:Stop preaching Adam and start awakening to Christ. People don't need a message about how bad they are, how sinful they are, how unworthy they are. They already believe that. Especially if they already believe that they're born with a sin nature. I don't believe you're born with a sin nature, but some people do. So if you're born with a sin nature, then you already know all the bad stuff you did. You're already aware of it, you already believe it. You think it's part of your nature. And you know the bad thing about something being part of your nature? You can't escape it. If it's part of your nature, that means it's part of your who you are. You can't escape it. That's why I don't believe that being born in sin is part of your nature.
SPEAKER_01:Because I can't escape it. I have escaped it. Adam taught religion has told people this.
SPEAKER_00:They're bad, they're they're they're unworthy, they're sinful. See what what people need is a message that confronts the lie behind all the lies.
SPEAKER_01:You were never separated.
SPEAKER_00:This is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, 34, he says, awake to what?
SPEAKER_01:Righteousness. Again, you gotta understand this.
SPEAKER_00:I'm ending right here, but you gotta see this. Awake to righteousness. He didn't say try to become righteous or work toward righteousness. He said, awake. Because righteousness isn't something you strive for, it isn't something you earn, it's something that you wake up to. So just a just a prophetic challenge to you as you leave today. If the veil is gone, if you believe the Bible, not me, if you believe the Bible and it said the veil was rent, the veil was torn, if you believe that, and if you believe the separation is gone, and if you believe that the sin identity is gone, and if you believe that Adam's dominion is gone, then the only thing left to destroy is the lie.
SPEAKER_01:The lie that's in our minds. That's it.
SPEAKER_00:So here's the question God is asking the church today. Will you finally believe what I have always believed about you? Will you finally believe what I've always believed about you? Not will you pray more? Not will you try harder? Not will you behave better, but will you wake up? Will you walk in union? Will you dare to receive what the cross actually accomplished? Because the truth is really simple. Adam's story, it ended at the cross. There's plenty of scripture to show that. It ended at the cross.
SPEAKER_01:Your story started at the cross. Adam ended, you started. It's time we live like it now.
SPEAKER_00:It's time we let go of Adam. It's time we let go of the lie. It's time we let go of everything that's pushing us into this mindset that we are not like Christ. And we actually live out the reality of what happened on the cross. Believe it, live it, manifest it. And I'm telling you, our whole life will change. I'm gonna bring something next week. I'm gonna go ahead and tell you what I'm probably gonna bring unless it changes. I'm gonna tell you what I'm bringing next week. I I I put this in, I've researched this, and I I wanted to see what problems traditional believers would have with this message.
SPEAKER_01:And it was scary.
SPEAKER_00:And I started looking at all the ways that traditional teaching would totally contradict everything I just said. Really bad is when you say that what I just said comes straight out of the Bible. So if you're contradicting this, you're contradicting the word. You may not see it that way. I mean, you may not be purposely doing it. Don't get me wrong. But you can do it without knowing. You can do it ignorantly without knowing that you're contradicting. If you don't know what the Bible says in context, then it's easy to contradict it. But that's I'm gonna I may not do the whole sermon on that, but we're gonna look at it because I want you to see the difference, why this matters. I want you to see what traditional people are believing, what we're teaching now, and the lie that's in the middle that's separating the two. There's a lie there.