Learning How To Die Daily - (part one)

I first heard this from Paul, when he stated, that he dies daily. Dying to the flesh, dying to self and dying to the world.  This dying of ourselves on our crosses, must be crucified and put to death.  

This dying must be done daily until self has been totally eradicated and moved out of the way. This message, I taught in a three-part series, be sure to listen to all three parts.  If your desire is to die daily, this message will bless you.

Transcript

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 0:04

Tonight this evening rather I want to uh uh go over something. Uh I think the last time that I well one of the last times I talked about this was uh according to my records that I keep in my my laptop uh back in 2013 and I think I uh uh also spoke on it again in 2014. Uh but here we are tonight in 2022, and it still got some more meat on it. So it's some more meat on the bone. We're gonna we're gonna try to get the rest of the meat off the bone tonight because thanks to God, I cannot, I cannot stress enough the times that we live in. We are living in times that no other generation has ever lived or seen. But we are here in the Jesuit and we are seeing the signs of the times that we live in. And that being said, my job, part of my job is uh being called by the Lord, is to do my best, my best according to the ability that he has given me is to make known the word of God that applies to us in this generation, that we may be better prepared for what we may have to face, what we may have to deal with, what we may have to encounter. Now, no, I don't know everything, but what God gives me, I want to share that with the people of God. Uh, and they can add that, or you all can add that to what you already know in your in your life with the Lord, walking with God. So we're gonna um attempt to add to what you already know, and and hopefully it'll be a blessing to you uh and your life. One thing about what I want to talk about tonight is for us to know this. In order for us, we got to know that everything that has to do with God is spiritual. We must worship, even our worship must be in spirit and in truth. Our understanding must be of a spiritual perspective, a spiritual understanding about things that we do not see in the tangible or in the physical, natural uh world or state of being, if you would. There are things that are going on and materializing in the spiritual that we need to be ready for, and it all comes down to our connection, our true connection with the Lord concerning these things. Now, in order for us, I'm saying this because in order for us to uh get to where we need to be and to tap into the connection with God who is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. We also, before we can even tap into the spirit, hear me, hear me good now. Before we can even tap into the spiritual, even the spiritual uh connection of God's word, we must die naturally, uh spiritually, if you would, to the things that we are doing in our lives that are a hindrance to us becoming all that we need to be for the Lord and for his kingdom in the spiritual. We got to die spiritually to sin, is what I'm talking about tonight. And we need to stop fooling ourselves and deceiving ourselves, thinking that we are all right with the Lord. Because if any of these things are still in your life and you're still living according to the ways of the world, you have not completely died. I don't care how what you think in your mind. I don't care what you have convinced yourself, if you are still performing certain sinful worldly acts, your attitudes, the way you live, the things you do, you are not completely dead. But thank God now, there's hope. Because I'm gonna show you with the word of God how all of us, all of us who have a mind to be like Jesus, how all of us can die daily. Some part of you need to be dying daily till you all the way gone. Other words, your uh until all your ways, how you think things ought to be, is totally dead in you, you still need to do some more dying. If you still got some of your ugly ways in you, you still need to do some more dying. If you get mad at the drop of a hat and have a uh a mean streak in you, a hateful streak in you, uh funny acting ways in you, you need to do some more dying. Now, I'm gonna start off because I don't want to hold you long, but I want to get this in here. I want y'all to hear me tonight. Because I say this, and y'all gonna say, y'all, if y'all don't never see me no more, y'all gonna say that Pastor Dixon always said the word of God is the key to this whole thing. The word of God. Hear me. The word of God is key to this whole thing. When I say the whole thing, and our very existence with our Lord and Savior, our very existence with God, our very existence if we are to obtain eternal life and forever be in his kingdom of heaven with him for all eternity. The word of God is the key. Now the Holy Ghost wants to teach us through the word how to get there and how we should be living right down here. So if we don't, but if we don't take heed to the teaching, if we don't take heed to the word, if we don't take heed to the truth, it will do us no good. And I have to tell you that if we are not living according to the word of God and what his instructions are for us in how to live toward him, we might as well get heaven out of our mind. Because you ain't going. They go for me, they go for you, they go for your mama, they go for your dad. We are not going to heaven to be a part of God's kingdom if we have not lived in accordance with his word while we were on earth. I don't care how much the the the preacher uh put you in heaven at your funeral. No man can put another man in his heaven, only God can do that. And he has specific instructions for us to follow. So, first of all, let me just give you a foundation of what Paul said when he was talking to the saints of God in the city of Corinth. When you find that in 1 Corinthians, he said, I protest, listen in it, I protest by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die daily. It's Paul talking. If there's gonna be any rejoice, see, we get we rejoice over a lot of things. We rejoice over, oh, I done got a new car. Oh, Jesus, I done got a new house. Whole lot of folk will rejoice when they got them stimulus checks. But I'm here to tell you all that, and you're getting at me if you want to, but I'm here to tell you, all that is false. False rejoicing. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah. If we are going to rejoice in anything, hallelujah, while living this life of the Lord, you need you and I need to be rejoicing that we are dying daily to the sins of this world. Who knows? Hallelujah. You remember when I told y'all, you you remember when Jesus sent out the disciples two by two, and when they finally come back, they were just hoes rejoicing and and so glad, Lord, the demons are subject to us in your name. Ooh, this happened and that happened. Jesus said that listen to him sitting at first. Ooh, Lord, we did this. And you know, he told them, he said all that all that false rejoicing. Uh he said, be more glad that your names are written in heaven. If you're gonna rejoice about something, rejoice that your name is written in heaven. And we need to rejoice that Lord, if you see, see, a lot of us don't want to see ourselves. A lot of us don't want to admit about we got some bad habits. A lot of us don't want to admit we got some bad ways, but let me tell you this about yourself. You know you better than anybody. Because you are with you everywhere you go. 24 hours a day, there's somebody with you 24 hours a day when nobody else around is you with you with yourself, and you know what you do, you know the things you say, you know the things that you think when you let those evil thoughts come in your mind, you know how you feel about other people. Oh, you can lie to other people, but you cannot lie to yourself. You know the truth about you, so you know when you begin to start dying to those things and those ways that you are, you ought to be glad when you Lord, Lord. I see my my foul mouth dying. Hallelujah. I don't talk ugly like I used to talk. That's a sign that something is dying in you that needs to die. I'm gonna tell you why it's so important for us to die daily. And that's what we're talking about tonight: learning how to die daily. That's what we we know. We're gonna we got to learn how to die. Because we see the flesh don't want to die. Spiritual, we don't want to die to the thing. Because the flesh like what the flesh likes, and the flesh won't what the flesh won't. But he's gonna die tonight. We we're gonna learn how to die. One reason why it's so important for us and our ways to die if we're gonna live this life for God, is that Paul also tried to try to tell, he told this to the church in Galatians, you have to read it when you get a chance. One reason why it's so important to die daily is the sooner you start dying to your ways and to the things that you are doing that's ungodly, the sooner Christ, more of him, can begin to come alive in you. So you can't handle both ways. You can't live for the world and then tell you convince yourself you're living for the Lord, too. No, you're lying. And you're lying to yourself because the two can't agree. One got to be put out in order for the other one to move in. That's what the Bible means when talking about put off that old man. Y'all know the Bible talks about that when they put off the old man, put on the new man, and I'm gonna show you not the word of God say the new man is created in God, and God ain't finna come in when the old man still is presiding at your residence. You still got the old man hanging around the premises, you still interacting with some of the ways of the old man. You know why? Because he ain't dead. You never did kill him, you never did die to him. Paul says, I protest by your rejoicing that which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. That's what my rejoicing is, Lord, to see myself to become more and more like you each and every day. What I didn't die today, I pray that God killed it in me tomorrow so that I can eventually get rid of all this junk. And the reason why it's a continual dying to the dying uh spiritually is a continuous thing, is because we got a lot of junk in us that has been placed in us because we were born in sin. And some of us done gone 20 and 30 years before we got saved. That's a long time for a lot of sin to really take up roots and residence in your temple, and it's gonna take a while for all that to get out of you. But I'm here to tell you, I'm finna show you how to die, teach you how to die, so that you can allow the Lord to start living in you. Something got to change. Something got to change. Listen to the word of God. Jesus even said, if any man come after me, y'all know, y'all know the the word of God, the gospel. If any man come after me, let him deny himself. Follow me, but before he right in between, he said, deny and follow me. Luke put it like this. He said, Take up his cross daily. Now come on, let's y'all always want to talk about the cross. Let's talk about the cross. I'm gonna finish you about the cross. The cross has always been a symbol of death or something dying on it. That's one reason why the Roman government chose uh one of their main uh forms of capital punishment was to be crucified. Because not only was it a painful death, it was a slow death. Because you hang up there all day, probably as part of tomorrow, the next day, dying slowly in agony and pain. And for some of us, our spiritual death is gonna be with a lot of agony and a lot of pain, not because you don't want to die, but because the flesh don't want to die. The flesh don't want to give it up, the flesh don't want to stop doing it, the flesh don't want to leave it alone. So the Lord is gonna have to really put you through something very strenuous in the area of spiritual crucification in order for what's in you to die, because Sola's got some very strong spirits when it comes to holding on to stuff, when it comes to not letting stuff go, you just about gonna have to beat you to death before you stop doing it. He just about gonna have to let you hang on that cross a long time before you die to that thing. It's why Jesus that takes up his cross daily. If you got to hang yourself on your cross every day, get up there and hang yourself on it. Now I'm serious about this because if we don't hurry up and get this stuff straight, we ain't gonna be ready, y'all. We wasting time. Jesus is on his way back, and we still got a whole lot of dying to do that we have not done. But we play that role of faking and jaking and pretend to be dead, but all we're doing is doing is a whole lot of playing possum, especially when we come to church, and especially when we're around other church people. Because we want them to think, we want them to know or to assume that we all dead, and what we really is is all nothing, because we are not all dead. But Christ said, take up his cross and die daily, every day. Now, this this ain't no party. This ain't no uh festive gala or event, the lifestyle that we have been selected to live. It's time to go through and suffer so that we can get this stuff out of us because you ain't taking it to heaven. Every day, we should take on the frame of mind that Lord, whatever I need to die to this day. See, I know I get up a lot of times every morning say, Lord, give me this day my daily bread, give me the strength I need to fight whatever fight I got to fight. But I'm gonna have to start adding more to that and say, Lord, whatever I are in my life I need to die to today. Let me die to that thing. I don't care if it's a simple simple simple thing as rolling your eyes and having attitude before me. That's ugly. Stop being ugly. Jesus got a sweet spirit. Some of us still, let me say 20, but still get attitude with our husband. Get attitude with our wives. Children still hard here. We act as big a fool at work with our co-workers as they do. We messy, we have no compassion, but we still get up and testify like we say and running for the Lord. Well, I'm gonna tell all that down. I'm gonna do like Jeremiah. The Bible God told Jeremiah, you got to first tell down before you can build up. I need to tell down something before I start building. And we need to get sincere about our soul. And here's the thing about it: all you gotta do is just be truthful with yourself. Just be true, tell the truth to God. I ain't saying you gotta go around telling the truth and let folks know. Be real with God, and you can be real with yourself, Lord. I ain't where I ought to be. I ain't I ain't I know I ain't dead in this area. Because every nine days it fly back up, and then I find myself doing it all over again. Hallelujah. But I need your help, Lord, to put me on this cross so that this thing can be crucified, so that this thing can be put to death. Because if I don't die to this thing now, I will die a horrible spiritual death, eternal death. And in hell, I'm gonna lift up my eyes. And whatever I'm doing, Lord, that I haven't died to is not worth my soul, and it's surely worth me jeopardizing my soul to go to hell for. If you ain't died to the things of the flesh. You know why I say that? Because you're not gonna want to. You're not gonna want to follow Jesus when you still got an appetite for doing wrong. You follow Jesus, you got to be holy. You follow Jesus, you got to be right. You got to want to do right. You ain't gonna follow right when you still got an appetite for wrong. You're not gonna follow a lifestyle of godliness when you have an appetite for ungodliness. You cannot follow Jesus. Because he ain't the one you want to follow until you die to those things that's holding you back from becoming what Christ. Hallelujah. Want you to be. One reason why we need to know we got to die because we got to follow the example that Christ laid for us. He was willing to go to the cross on our behalf. And we need to be willing to go to the cross on his behalf to be like him. He took on the cross on our behalf because of the sins that we had committed. And he went there gladly. And he nailed, they nailed him to the cross. Okay. Now we need to be glad to go and bear our cross to become the righteousness in him that he requires us to be. Let me read something to you. It's something Paul also said to the church in Colossae, to the saints of God that in the city of Colossae. You find this in the book of Colossians. He says, He's talking about Jesus. He said, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. See, we had a we had a writing against us, y'all. We had a contract out on us. The wages of sin was death. Somebody's gonna have to die. And we had this handwriting ordinance against us by God. But here comes Jesus, the Bible says, blotting it out. Jesus blotted it out. How he did that? Because he went to the cross. Let me read to you. So you can get a proper understanding. He says, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, against us, just you and I, which was contrary to us. It was against us. Here comes Jesus. And this is what Jesus did, Paul said, and took it out of the way. What Jesus did took it out of the way. Because it was blocking our way or our connection to God. And there was no way we were going to ever get back to God as long as this was blocking our way. As long as this was separate, keeping us separated from God, it was we would never have gotten to God. Because that was the sins of mankind was so great. But here comes Jesus, blotting it out, and then not only blotted out, the Bible said he moved it, took it out of the way. So that now we, if we just do what we're supposed to do according to the word of God, we have access to the Lord God Almighty Himself. Now we would not ever have had this testimony had not it been for Jesus. For man to have a connection with God, do you know how holy God is? You couldn't even come before the throne of God. You couldn't even come into the presence of God. Only special people at special times had the privilege to come before God. You couldn't even go in the holy of holies. Moses had to be the one to go to God for the people. They couldn't come in there. And the only reason Moses could go, because Moses was God's anointed. Because that's just how great God is. You cannot dwell in his presence as simple and raggedy as our lives are. But here's somebody that came along. God, let me tell you about God's sacrificial lamb. I'm talking about Jesus. He came and fixed this thing once and for all. He blotted it out, he took it out of the way. Now I'm gonna tell you how he did that. I'm gonna friends read the scripture. He's gonna tell you. He took it out of the way. How you do it, Jesus? The Bible said, nailing it to his cross. I want that to soak in. Listen to what the book just said now. The book did not say he nailed it to the cross. The book said he nailed it to his cross. His cross. Colossus, that's Colossians 2 and 14. He nailed it to his cross, which opens the door for us to have a clear understanding. If he nailed what he had to nail to his cross, guess what now? What you got to do, you're gonna have to nail some things to your cross. I'm gonna have to nail some things to my cross. We all gonna have to nail things to our own cross in order for us to become the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus, just as He did it for us. What is it so? What is it so important? What is it so uh meaningful to us that we we can't let this stuff go? That we can't stop living and doing the things that we're doing. When it comes to who is asking us to give it up. Anything Jesus has to do, y'all, we ought to be glad to do. When you understand and have a clear understanding of all that he has done for you and I, we ought to be glad to say, Yes, Lord, I'll let that go. Because see, his spirit in you simply ought to turn your desires from worldly desires to godly desires. Just having Christ in my life, I don't have them desires I used to have when I was out there in the world. I just and I know I did some things. I know I love the cigarettes, but all of you, I don't even have that desire no more. I don't want that. See, when Christ comes in your life, he cannot be in you, he cannot be living in you and your life stay the same. You are going to change all because his spirit in you brings change, it causes change. Not for the worse, but for the better. He changes your life for the better. But before we can start reaping the benefits of this life that he has awaiting us, we are gonna have to learn how to die daily. Now I don't know and cannot say how long it's gonna take for another person to die, because what's in you is gonna be what's it different was in somebody else. Well, I know this much. The Bible teaches that we should die daily, and you know what you need to die to, and I like it just as well as I know what I need to die to. In order to make it to the city, in order to make it to the kingdom of God, I know what I got. I got to die to just as well as you. I would be truthful with yourself. Taking up our cross daily is to die on it. That means it's gonna be some days of suffering. That means it's gonna be some days you're gonna have to fight to keep the old man dead, to stop him from coming back by, to stop him from hanging out with you. The cross of Christ is a symbol of suffering, it's a symbol of death, it's a symbol of a symbol of shame. But people are gonna talk about you when you're gonna live right, people gonna think you won all. That's all right. You know what the Bible said? Jesus, he despised the shame. So you're gonna have to despise the shame. Let them talk about you. Stop being so soft and sensitive, take it. You ought to be glad, like Paul said. I'm my rejoicing is the fact that I die daily for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm glad to suffer for him. Because people ain't got no heaven hell to put you in. Take the shame. But see, when you understand what's going on, you can take things better. If you understand why you're gonna be ashamed and who you've been shamed for, how are you gonna let that hurt your feelings? It's for Jesus, it's for my Lord. It's a symbol of shame, it's a symbol of ridicule, it's a symbol of rejection. And Lord have mercy. And a symbol of self-denial. But let me go back to rejection because so many people still got a hang hangups on. They can't not stand to be rejected by other people. Lord have mercy. Because we want to be popular and we want to be known. We want people to like us. Don't get me wrong, that's fine if they like it, but if they don't, because you live in holy, because you live in saved, and they're rejecting you, that spirit in them want to reject you, let it reject you. Come on, let them reject Jesus. We are like, I know God got us into this generation, but I don't see more in this generation of weak back saints than anything. When the Bible tells us, be strong in the Lord. And then the power of the money. I mean, you gotta be you gotta be able to take some things. And one reason why we're so weak is because we won't, we don't, we ain't been through nothing. We won't let ourselves go through nothing in order to make us strong. Say what you want to say. I know for a fact, suffering makes you strong. Spiritually, I'm talking going through what makes you stronger. Suffering will make you stronger. Suffering will teach you some things. Did y'all know the Bible said Jesus He learned obedience through the things he suffered? He learned something through his now. How you think we're gonna learn too? We're gonna have to learn through the things that we suffer, not running from it, not trying to avoid it, not whining and having pity for it. Why me, Lord? Why not you? You say you saved, go through something then and shut your mouth. Jesus went through it. Never complained, never murmured, but he took it because he loved us. He despised, he Bible said he endured the cross and he despised the shame. Because there was a joy for the joy that was set before him. Read your Bible. He endured it because there was a joy there, and I'm here to tell y'all, we ought to see the joy. When our lives finally get to where God wants us to be after we done learned how to die daily, we're gonna have a joy that we never thought we ever experienced. And you're gonna be probably upset for yourself. Why in the world was I trying to avoid this all the many years when I could have got to this level of joy in the Lord? Because the devil didn't want you to experience, he didn't want you to know about it how good it can really be when you get in the Lord. He didn't really want you to know how happy you can be being saved. He didn't want you to know that that was a level of joy that you have never experienced. And he was glad when you was trying to avoid it, he was glad when you was running from it, he was glad when you was whining and complaining. Because he knew as long as you allow that stuff to go spirit to come over you, you were never gonna achieve or accomplish the level that God had waiting on you. But now you see, huh? I see this thing here, this thing works. And all I gotta do is suffer for my Lord. And here's the thing about it, when you suffer, He's gonna, God don't supply the strength that you need to get you through the suffering. If you but trust him. Come on now. A lot of the members of the church be past couple of son, I've been hearing a lot, trust him. They talk about trusting the Lord. All you gotta do is trust him. When you how when your back against the wall, trust him. When it seems like everybody against you, trust him. Now hit this this is a place where some of y'all have never been. When you are in your darkest, hallelujah. When you when you feel like you're in your darkest place, you're in a place that you ain't never been before. Trust him. When you go to experience things uh in the fight, when you fight a good fight of faith that you never experienced before, trust him. Because is there anything too hard for God? Is there any, is there ever been a time where God ran off and left his people? No matter how hard it got, no matter how dark it got, no matter what they were going through. My Bible tells me, he said, when the winds blew, when the storms came, when the earthquake shook. He said that house stood. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. When the waves beat, the Bible said vehemently against house. He said, but it was sounded on a rock. When your life, when you, your, yours and my life are continuously anchored in the Lord. It don't much matter what happened, it don't much matter what come. There is nothing can move. Y'all remember something in my message? Talking about cheap number 100? And Jesus said, There is no man that will be able to pluck you out of my hand. When your life is anchored in Jesus, there is nobody and nothing, no situation that's gonna be able to pluck you out of the hand of Jesus when you live in according to his instructions and you find yourself being obedient to what he done said. God loves obedience. My Bible teaches me, obedience is even better than the sacrifice. God loves when you do what he said do, he rewards that obedience. When we as believers take up our cross and follow Christ, we deny our own selves. You even stop listening to your own self, you stop satisfying your own self, you stop leaning to your own understanding, and you commit yourself to, I got four areas hands up, there are many more. You you you could you submit yourself to four areas of struggle and suffering. I'm finna tell you about these four areas, and listen to me good when I read them to you. You have to yield yourself to suffer for the Lord. You better get like Peter, well, I'm not Peter, Paul and Silas. They were glad to have counted themselves worthy to have suffered for the Lord. After they just got a good beating. They didn't look at the beaten as getting jumped on and whooped. They looked at the looked at the fact that it was suffering for the Lord. And they was glad, not for the beaten, but they was glad to have suffered for the Lord. Now listen to this. Number one, we suffer in a lifelong battle against sin by crucifying our own sinful desires. Let me tell y'all something. Them sinful desires got to go. And that's a that's a sure sign that you need to die some more when you still have an appetite for sinful desires. And you know what your sinful desires is. So let me go to the book on you. You know what your sinful desires is. I ain't got to ask you, you ain't got to tell me. You know, God know, and the devil know. But let me give you a little book just so you know I ain't just just talking and ain't crazy. My Bible says this. Hallelujah. Every man, that's the other word man, if you finally read that in James, that means mankind, which includes men and women, because we're all mankind. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust. When you get the time, read that first chapter, James. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust. That means all of us done had our thing, whatever our thing was when we was out there in the world. Them two or three things that we just got more joy out than anything else. And you know what that was. I ain't got the answer, you ain't got 10. You know long as you know, but you also know if those things are either dead in you or they're not dead in you, and they yet need to be crucified. We must get rid of and crucify those sinful desires, and some of us got some horrible, strong sinful desire that we should not need to put two nails when we nail that thing to the cross. It's got to go because it's keeping you from becoming what the Lord wants you to be. It has some things have become a hindrance. The Bible also says some things are sinful, but then there are some things that have become a weight. Not necessarily sin, but they weighing you down or slowing you down from running this race or from living this life you ought to be living. In any case, you need to get rid of all of it. Sin, weights, hindrances, stumbling blocks, all of it need to go. So that you can be freed up to truly live for your Lord and Master. Number two, we suffer in a war against Satan and the powers of darkness as we advance the kingdom of God. The devil is gonna be fighting against us because his kingdom is against the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom we are for. Which means he's gonna try to attack those who would be God's soldiers, those who would be God's workers. We experience both the hostility of the adversary with his demonic host and the persecution that comes from standing against false teachers who distort the true gospel. Spirits and other people are gonna be against the very spirit of God that's in you and I. They ain't got to know you. We see people every day, we don't bit more know, never have seen before in our lives. But I guarantee you, spirits recognize spirits. You might not know the person, but that spirit in them know their spirit in you. I keep telling y'all the Bible, the key, the word is the key to everything. Why y'all think, I told y'all this before, why y'all think a lot of times when Jesus would go into the marketplace and around just touching and healing folk, if anybody that had a bad devil in them, that devil would go to talking. Is you gonna come to torment us for all the time? But that devil in them recognized the Spirit of God in Jesus. And you couldn't hold his peace. Sometimes Jesus would have to tell him, Come out of them and shut the mouth, hold the peace. Nobody asked you nothing. But the Jesus in you and I also is gonna be recognized just as clearly as they recognize the Jesus or the Spirit of God in you. Because they're gonna see you as a threat against the kingdom of their master, which is Satan, while you serving the kingdom, the master of the kingdom of God, which which in which you serve. So we're always gonna have that. They're gonna always be fighting against us, and we all need to develop a spiritual eye so we can notice these things, but you can't notice these things with the spiritual eye of God when you're still trying to live according to the world. Being in the world and being in sin blinds you to what you can see properly in the spirit. You can't see in the spiritual realm when you still your lifestyle is still darkened by sin and iniquity. Get it right and you start seeing some things. Number three, we suffer the hatred and ridicule of the world by testifying that its deeds are evil. We stand up and say, call wrong, wrong, and right, right. People of God don't stand up for the truth. I don't care if they have that, they're standing by themselves. They're not gonna take sides. I was had a friend of mine, my best friend. Oh, me and him go back all the way back to the seventh grade, but he live, him and his wife live in California. But we was on the phone talking last night, and we were talking about the thing that's going on in the world, but I said, Man, his name Pat Patrick. I said, Pat, whole lot of things go on this world. I said, but I said, I tell you this in one thing is I am not and do not intend to allow myself to fall into agreement with everything the world is doing. I just can't do it. I fall under what God said and not what the world says. It's gonna be a whole lot of things come on the world that they're gonna expect y'all to become a part of, to agree with, and everything else. But I want y'all to know this there are things that's going on in this world that the Lord do not want us to be a part of, nor do He wants us to agree with. Now, I ain't got to be specific because I don't have the time. But just know, everything in this world is not meant for you to jump on the bandwagon with the ways of the world. This is not our home. Abraham wanted us to understand that we are like pilgrims, we are strangers on the earth. The Bible says that. We're not here to promote what the world is doing, we are here to promote what the kingdom of God is doing. And we need to get that clear. We suffer the hatred and ridicule of the world by testifying that his deeds are evil, and the world ain't gonna like when you tell them they're wrong now. The world don't like when you tell them some of the things they're doing is evil, but that's alright. They're gonna be haters of the truth, which means they're gonna hate you for even speaking the truth. So just get ready for that. Just accept it. Let them hate you. The Bible even tell us, Jesus, we know if they hated me, they're gonna hate you. See, you don't know what the words say, we won't let certain things bother us because the word done already said it. He said, by separating ourselves from it both morally and spiritually, gotta separate ourselves, y'all. We gotta have a moral code that's godly. We gotta have a moral integrity that's godly. And anytime you stand up for anything that's godly, your morals are gonna differ from what the world considers morals and standards. And by refusing, another thing you gotta do, you're gonna have to refuse to accept its standards or philosophies as your own. I don't agree with anything. I don't care if it is President Biden. I don't believe anything he said. I don't believe nothing, nothing. Tell you truth, let me just do say it like this. I don't agree with hardly nothing, no politician say. Because politicians try to please the people instead of trying to please God. Now, if the Bible, the Bible says we are ambassadors. Now, I like ambassadors better because ambassadors don't come and tell you what who sent them said. And we are here on this earth to tell the world and the people what does says the Lord and what his word doesn't say. Not our own opinion, not our own philosophies, not our own way of thinking. It's what God said. I don't have no opinion. I'm gonna tell you what the book said. I'm gonna tell you what the Lord said. What does the law? Because see, if we're trying to learn how to die daily, you got to die to your even your own mind. You can't trust your own mind. I know I don't trust mine. Because see, we don't have no control over our sins. But see, when your mind has become the mind of Christ, come on here. Let this mind be in you. You ain't supposed to have your own mind no way. You ain't supposed to think your thoughts no way. My Bible says, bring every thought into captivity, into the knowledge of Christ. You ain't supposed to even have your own mind. You ain't supposed to think like you want to think. You're supposed to allow yourself or yield your mind to think according with the word and with the spirit of God, based on what my Bible teaches me now. He said, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. It's never gonna read well, it's to have your own mind. And then on top of that, when you read 1 Corinthians 10 chapter, we said, bring every thought into captivity. You need to let your thoughts be captured. If you ain't thinking like Jesus, you need to, they need to be locked down and put in captivity and brought into the knowledge of Christ so that you won't exalt yourself or the flesh above God. This is what it said. And by refusing to accept its standards and philosophies as your own, this world's way is not our own. Because you done died to it. If you done died to it, this world's way not your own. Oh, it's gonna be it's gonna mean on many days where we're gonna be talked about because we don't go along with what other people are doing. So be it. His will be done. Number four, and I hope I'm not taking too fast. Like Jesus, number four, like Jesus, we may also suffer ridicule and persecution from the religious world. Uh-oh. Now, Pastor Diddy, come on now. You saying we may have to suffer persecution and ridicule from church folks? You said the religious world. I'm here to I'm I might as well tell y'all something. Some of your greatest adversaries and some of your biggest fights are subject to saying it's gonna happen, but I'm saying they subject to come from the very folks in these churches that we go to, or these folks that call us brothers and sisters. I had a preacher one time almost pushed me out the pulpit. He showed me so, if I had to caught myself, he showed me so hard in my back, I was almost I was headed that way until I caught myself, but he would push me out the out the pulpit. I I don't been through all that, y'all. Don't bother me when I own. I just know that spirit in him, I don't care if he calls us a preacher. Everybody with a title ain't come from God. Didn't the book tell us there's gonna be false teachers, false preachers? A lot of folks gonna care the title, but we just so gullible. Every time somebody says they're a preacher, every time somebody says they've been called by God, we believe it. No, not not not Ricky D. Dixon. My book said try the spirit and see whether they be a god. Yeah, I hear what you said, but I'm watching you. I got my eye on you. Because if you really possess the spirit of God, and y'all believe this or not, it's up to you. If you really possess the spirit of God, the spirit of God in you, hallelujah, hallelujah, and the spirit of God in that other person, they're gonna agree. You might not have never met that brother or that sister before. But if they really live in the life and have a spirit of God in life, your spirit gonna pick up on that. That they real or they false. Or you might not know what it is, but you're gonna say, uh, it's something about that. I don't know what it is, but it's something. But if they're true, you ever met somebody in your spirit of grieves? Two people that's really trying to live for the Lord, it's just as pleasant and sweet as it wants to be. That's how you know the difference. And that ain't your doing, that's the spirit of God. Because wherever the spirit of God is, and whoever the spirit of God is in, it's gonna be the same in you. My spirit of God in me ain't gonna be different than the spirit of God in you. They both gonna be sweet spirits, they both gonna be godly, and they go both gonna be trying to die daily to the things that's in their lives that's being a hindrance to them being more what God wants them to be. Like Jesus, we may also suffer ridicule and persecution from the religious world. And see, that's that's another. Let me just sideboard him, just for a few minutes. We got to we gotta stop being gullible. Ever just because somebody say they are religious, understand this, y'all, please. Just because somebody claim that they're religious and say they're religious, religious don't always mean godly. You can be religious and not godly. Because you can just be going through religious rituals, have just religious ways that we just been doing them this way in the church for a hundred years. That don't mean you're godly, and that don't mean God is in what you calling religious. Now that may have somebody seriously, but I got to give you the truth. Because we think we're religious. I got religion. That means I'm right with God. But religion and being religious don't always mean that you got anything to do with God. Some things are just, you'd be surprised. I mean, certain religious churches, religious cults got their own dogma, got their own way of doing things that has nothing whatsoever to do with the word of God. Because they done established their own church, and these are their church rules, and these are their churches' beliefs, and this is how we do here at this church. I said, I went down south going toward Nexus. I passed by a church, it said this is the cowboy church. A cowboy church? I said, What is that? They'll just make up all kinds of things, but I'm here to tell you. The book said, Be not deceived. God is gonna honor, only gonna honor his word, and that word he will honor if his word is what's in you. Now, if anybody else's word in you, he ain't honoring that. God only honors his word. Well, they good people and they they always uh they always trying to help somebody. I don't mean no harm, y'all. I don't mean no harm, but I ain't never read nowhere in my Bible that you make it in heaven just because you was a good person. Lord Jesus, help us. But they ain't living for the Lord. You got atheists do good things, but they don't believe in the Lord, and they ain't gonna speak his name, but they do good things. We gotta stop being so governed, get down and understand the word of God, don't be so easily drawn in by foolishness and things that are not gonna be what helps us to die daily to become more like God. But if you stay on this path, if you stay with the Lord and what his word teaches, it will get you to a place when you totally die to self and crucify self on the cross. I'm here to tell you. You're gonna the Lord is gonna reveal some things and show you some things that can only be seen when you have totally died to yourself and the things of the world. When we get sin out of our life, when we get sin out of our minds, when we get rid of wickedness and go ahead and die to the things, I'm not gonna be able to get to the rest of the learning how to do this next on the next time we do Bible study. I'm not gonna finish. But I wanted to get to that point where the Bible is gonna teach us you got to some things got to be purged out of you, they got to come out because they've taken up room where God's spirit won't abide, and a lot of us can't make room for God because we have not been purged. Other words, certain things ain't been brought up out of us. Some things that need to be crucified have to first come out of you for you to nail it to the cross. That lying, cussing mouth you got, that's got to come out of you. That need when you get angry to want to hit somebody or slap somebody, that's gotta come, that's got to come out of you. That need to always want to be hateful, instead of showing love, that's got to come out. That gets that's got to die, and got to be crucified. That need to want to lie and deceive others, and to pretend you're something you're not and insist on being a hypocrite, that's got to die. And if that is in us before we can even attempt to experience what Christ wants us to bring, we've got to stop lying to ourselves and say, no, if that's in me, that ain't Jesus, that's the devil. Stop calling right wrong and wrong right. If you wrong, say, Lord, I am I am dead wrong. But I need to be dead to these things that's making me wrong and making me do wrong so that I can become alive. Paul said, I'm dead. He said, but I live. He said, but it ain't me. It's the Christ that's living in me. Now we need the Galatians 2 and 20 when you get some time. He said, I'm dead, but he, I but he said, Yes, I live. What he was really saying, I live, means that that's Jesus living in me. He said, This is the Christ. He finally, Paul finally got to a place in his life where he had died spiritually to himself and his ways. He was not the same person he was when his name was Saul. Was uh I mean a hundred degree turn when he let Christ came in his life. But when he got to that point where he knew he was completely dead, he had a testimony that he can now say and was glad to say he was dead. But he said, Yet I live. But it's the Christ now, all you're gonna see living in me is Christ, all you're gonna see living and speaking to me now is Jesus because he has saved me and loved me and gave himself for me, and I was willing to die for him. Thanks to God, I'm not gonna finish. I'm gonna have to do this, I'm gonna have to do the I'm gonna have to do the rest of it next time. Um, but I thank you. Hold on just a second.