There are times in life when we need a reset in our spiritual walk with the Lord. There are times when we need to reset in our devotion and our dedication to God, when we're not acting right, when our spiritual life freezes up on us, when we're moving slower than normal. Can I suggest to some of us today that I need a reset? Can I tell you before I can look at anybody else, I need to realize that I where I am and what I need to do in my own life. Then I'm telling you I need reset. Y' all can act all holy if you want to, but we all stand in the need of being reset.
[00:50:15]
Can I suggest to us this morning that the many strongholds that have hindered us on this past year was not due to doctrinal issues, but more due to personal issues amongst each other. Y' all gonna have to help me preach this. It's not doctrinal issues that's keeping us away from the church church, but it's our relationship with other believers that is causing us to walk away from what God would have for us.
[00:51:50]
There's a difference between a knowledge of Christ and knowing Christ. I can know of him, but it's different than an intimate knowledge of. Can know he exists, but when I truly know who he is, it makes a difference in how I walk, talk, and live. There are many folk who who know of him, but there are a few who know him.
[00:53:41]
Paul says that when you've been converted, you ought not think like those who have not been converted. There ought to be a difference in how you approach situations from a believer standpoint and an unbeliever standpoint.
[00:55:25]
To learn Christ means to have a personal relationship to Christ so that you get to know him better every day. I know Donnie McClurkin said we fall down, but we get up. But if you falling down every other day, something wrong. Every day you get stronger in the. Your muscles that you not falling down as much. If you see somebody walking in every four step they fall, you gonna say something wrong with him.
[00:58:03]
If we know Christ, then every day we ought to be building up our spiritual bank account that we're not on the verge of being bankrupt, but we're. Warren Wiersby says that the unsaved man is spiritually ignorant, while the Christian is intelligent in the things of the Word. And the unsaved man does not know Christ while the believer grows in his personal knowledge of Christ. Day by day we have believed the truth, we have received the life, therefore we will walk in the way and not walk after the example of the unsaved world.
[00:58:50]
Peter says, we have been chosen to be a peculiar people. We've been set apart. We ought not look like the world look. We ought not talk like the world talks. Respond in the way that the world act and respond. Been taught the truth. The truth is that we need a savior that will change our perception. It's a sad indictment when the church looks like the world.
[00:59:52]
Folk come to the church in order to have a different experience than what they get in the world. And if we are treating them like the world treats them, then what's the point in coming to the kingdom? But when you got God in you, there's a conscious commitment that when I accepted Christ into my heart, I made a conscious commitment that God, I want you to be Lord and savior over our lives.
[01:00:38]
If God is king and lord over your life, that means you don't control your own situation. Folk don't like to hear that we want to be in control. But when you let God order your steps, he may take you to places you don't want to go. He may introduce you to things you're not comfortable with. He may tell you to do stuff that don't make no sense. But it's about him and his will.
[01:01:28]
Think of it like a prisoner who is released from prison but still walk around in his prison clothes and acts like a prisoner and not a free man. You know, when they let you go from jail, they typically give you the clothes that you came in with. But you don't walk around in your prison orange as though you're not free anymore. Now you might be in a time warp depending on how long you've been in there. Your clothes may not be fashionable no more, but you're not walking around in the clothes that you wore when you was locked up. The first thing to tell that a person is free is that they should put on some new clothes.
[01:02:57]
When you came to Christ, you took off your old clothes and you put on some new clothes. He's not speaking to unbelievers. Watch this. But he's speaking to those who have learned and have committed to Christ. So Paul is saying that we need to reset and go back and act like we did when we got saved.
[01:04:21]
Can I tell you, sometime the devil will wreak so much havoc in your life that it causes us to put down the new man and pick up the. But it needs to be the other way around. When you know what God has done, then you have to stay connected and committed to the word and the way of Christ.
[01:05:12]
I tell folks all the time, stop saying they almost made me put my religion down. If you could put it down mean you ain't have a good hold of it it in the first place. If folk calls you to act the way you did before you got saved, Paul said, you need to keep your new clothes on and not go back to the way that you were when you were unsaved.
[01:05:40]
Can I tell you the problem is that many of us keep going back, getting clothes out of the clothes. Are old, that are worn, that are useless, and it's because it makes us feel comfortable and secure. Anybody like me, I got an old T shirt that's about to fall off, holes everywhere, and a little tug is just gonna come loose. But that's my favorite shirt. Now, I done had it for about 15 years, but when I want to feel safe and secure, I go put. New shirts that I could be wearing. Of us, the new man is uncomfortable, but the old man makes us feel secure.
[01:06:12]
The putting off of clothes is symbolic. What used to define us and leaving them where we used to be and not taking them to where we're going. When blind Bartimaeus was on the side of the road and you know, he cried out, lord, have mercy on me. You know the story. And Christ said, bid them to come here. And you know, to keep them quiet. Committee they are. The disciples said, no, hold your peace. But the scripture said, when he got up from where he was, he took off his own clothes. He left them where he was and.
[01:07:58]
Paul said that this conversation of the old man is corrupt and he desires lustful activity. There is nothing righteous in this old creature. There is none righteous. No, not a one. The old creature was jacked up. That old creature was corrupt. That old creature didn't want to know what. Thus said the law. Doing it their way and nobody else's. But when God came into your life.
[01:11:02]
The reason we need to reset is because we have a tendency to fall back into the worldly ways of life. We need to get back to the pureness of the love of Christ when we accepted him. Think back to when you accepted Christ. Think back to when he came into your life. Think back to when you said, I surrender all, all to him. Oh, sin had left the crimson stone, but Lord, you washed it white as snow. Think back to when you connected with God. The devil don't want you to feel like that. He'll try to throw stuff in your life to take that feeling that you once had.
[01:12:19]
Paul says that when you reset, you need to be renewed. And it starts in the spirit of your might. It's not by a psychological change, but it's a spiritual change. Paul says that we need to be renewed. And renewed means to be renovated by an inward reformation. Renovated. You know what renovation means, don't you? Anybody ever renovated your house? And the stuff that you're changing, the house and the foundation are the same, but you want to make some stuff look new, he said. Paul says renewed. He said you need to renovate the inward reformation of your life.
[01:14:30]
When we are renewed, we are being reset by the Holy Spirit. When I surrender to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit Causes me to acknowledge where I am and what is messed up with me and how to do a hard reset and to go back. Me with the blood of Christ.
[01:16:09]
When you do a hard reset, y' all remember what I told you in the introduction? When you do a hard reset, it takes your phone back to the state it was when you first bought it and took it out the box. Can I tell you remember those causes? I told you why a phone needs to be reset? It ain't acting right. It freezes up, moves slower than normal. Watch this. A lot of that is because of user error. Y' all missed that. It's not that the phone is defective. Much junk on it and it ain't.
[01:16:41]
What good would it be to take a shower and to put the same dirty, stinky clothes. You coming in funky and mustard. The same dirty clothes. So when folks approach and experience you, they'll never know you took a shower because they're still smelling the same old stint. Change the way you think about yourself.
[01:18:12]
Verse 25 said, Therefore, putting aside the lie, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor. Because we are members of one another.
[01:20:52]
