I Have Overcome the World

Confusion because I know the Bellers learned what Interstate 4 was this morning. So I know they were playing, but I didn't know if they wanted to do special music coming in at the last minute. But we do appreciate the last minute of last minute you doing that. A couple announcements I forgot to make. Remember last week we mentioned that there were some leftover bookmarks from the Night to Be Much Observed that Patti Meehl put together, from our study that you put together on the three days and three nights and the resurrection.

Patti did make more of those, so those are back on the information table if you'd like to have one of those. And I should mention, because whenever we change times in Jacksonville for Sabbath services, invariably someone shows up at 11am. But tomorrow, if you're going to be in Jacksonville for any reason, services are going to be at 1pm. 1pm in Jacksonville tomorrow, not the usual 11am start time. Well, it literally just seems like yesterday that we were observing the Passover, commemorating Christ's death, remembering and the sacrifice that He made for us and that all things are possible through Him.

We've spoken about, on the first day of Unleavened Bread, about remembering everything that God has taught us, remembering and how valuable that is in our lives, what it is to eat the unleavened bread. And I hope as you've eaten the unleavened bread this week, you've remembered about what God instructed Israel, let the law be in your mouth, and you remembered the eating the unleavened bread, and it becomes part of us through this week. And hopefully you've developed a taste for that unleavened bread during this time.

And here we are on the last day of Unleavened Bread. And anytime the Holy Days and Holy Day seasons end, it's kind of sad because it's special. Even though we weren't together with one another on each of the seven days of Unleavened Bread, it's sad to see those days come because we know these are special times to God. And He's teaching us and He's working with us, and it's just kind of nice to have that. So it'll be a little sad tomorrow to know that unleavened bread is over, even though you don't have time to go out and buy unleavened bread tonight. So there's another day to eat unleavened bread, I guess.

But you know, as Israel, as we remember the example that God set for us of Israel, when they left Egypt after the ten plagues, after the Passover, and they were told by Pharaoh, get out, get out quickly. And on the 15th of Abib, they left. They left Egypt. And they probably, as we talked about, breathed a sigh of relief, and they had to remember what it was that, you know, what God had done, the whirlwind they had been through.

And they thought their past life was over. They thought Pharaoh and all the trials and tribulations of Egypt were behind them. And so they were wandering through the desert for a few days, and they had some challenges, and what were they going to eat? What were they going to drink? Well, what they didn't realize is that Pharaoh, Pharaoh was not behind them. He wasn't in the rearview mirror. While they were wandering away, and as they were headed toward the Promised Land, Pharaoh had other ideas in mind.

While he was eager to have the people leave before they left, as he thought about it, he was going to come after them with a vengeance and get them back. Let's turn back to Exodus. Exodus 14. Israel is going to learn a lesson, but the lesson is for us today as well on this seventh day of unleavened bread. As we have put sin out of our lives, as we continually do that throughout our life, but as we put the leaven out and as we've eaten the unleavened bread, our battle isn't over yet, just like Israel's wasn't over.

Exodus 14, verse 5, says, So the Egyptians pursued them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and they overtook them camping by the sea beside Pah-Hah-Hiroth before Bey-Lzaphan. And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them.

So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to God. You can imagine what they were going through. We thought we were free. We thought that was all behind us. And now we turn our back, and we're camped beside this Red Sea, and Pharaoh is here, and he's got vengeance in his mind. I will get those people. And so they did cry out to God, and they panicked, just as you and I would do if we found ourselves in that situation.

And they said to Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, if you've taken us away to die in the wilderness, why have you dealt with us this way to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you? Saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.

Moses said to the people, don't be afraid. Words that we would do well to remember as situations that may confront us, like this, like the one that they confronted them. Moses said to the people, don't be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. Pharaoh was back. He was back with the vengeance. And now Pharaoh is going to be overcome and put away once and for all.

The Lord will fight for you, Moses said, and you will hold your peace. And the eternal said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. Lift up your rod, stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.

And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they will follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Eternal, when I have gained honor for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen. Now that happened, we say, on the last day of Unleavened Bread. On the last day of Unleavened Bread. And here, as we're on this last day of Unleavened Bread, having completed seven days of eating Unleavened Bread, if we found leavening in our homes during that time, I trust we've thrown it out post-haste and not harbored it at all.

But on the seventh day of Unleavened Bread, we learn something. The Egyptians weren't through yet. It took seven days before God was going to defeat Pharaoh once and for all, and they were completely free of that. On the seventh day of Unleavened Bread. You know, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, before he was arrested, if we go back to John 16, among the last words that he said to his disciples before he gave his prayer in John 17.

In John 16, verse 32, he said, Indeed the hour is coming, yes has now come. You will be scattered, each to his own, and you will leave me alone. And yet I'm not alone because the Father is with me. These things I've spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. I have overcome the world. At the end of his physical life, Jesus Christ could say, I have overcome the world. None of us are at the end of our physical lives yet. All of us have put sin out of our lives as we see it.

All of us have gone through the repentance. All of us have gone through the principles that we observe in the days of Unleavened Bread. But none of us can yet say, I have overcome the world. You know there's a time coming, and we read at the end of the Bible here in Revelation 12, where we could face a similar trial to what the Israelites did back in Egypt. Let's go back to Revelation 12. Revelation 12. As you turn there, I'll remind you of the symbolism that we've discussed. Remember we talked about Egypt being a type of sin, a sinful society. God's brought us out from the bondage of sin.

He's brought us out from a sinful society to grow us, to develop us, and we have to develop the character to withstand those things that are in society. Pharaoh was the king of the Egyptians. The Egyptians were ready to give up. The Egyptians were ready to just say, let Israel go.

Pharaoh wasn't ready to do that. Pharaoh said, I don't care what happened. We're going to go, and we're going to get them. We will take those Israelites back. I don't know if he intended to kill them or just bring them back and make their bondage even worse than it was before. Pharaoh is a type of Satan. Pharaoh is a type of Satan. You know, Satan is not through with us yet. As long as we breathe, Satan will not be through with us.

We may have times where things seem pretty good, that we've learned to resist the devil, that we've used God's Holy Spirit, and that we are able to say no to those things that plague us. That we are able to, when God shows us the sins that we have, that we put them out of our lives. And we may be thinking things are going well, and we are standing, right?

And we may be feeling pretty good about ourselves. Satan will never give up. He will never give up because he wants to take from you your eternal life. Here in Revelation 12, we see at the time of the end, Satan, the great dragon being cast down to earth. Revelation 12, verse 9, the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to death. A time coming when we will have to overcome, and use what God has prepared in us that we've allowed him to prepare in us, so that we can say, with the help of God, with the training of God, with his Holy Spirit, I have overcome.

But not by our power, not by our might, never by our power or our might, as it says in Zechariah 4-6, always by the strength that God gives us. Therefore he rejoiced, verse 12, O heaven, and you who dwell on them, woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. And when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the presence of the servant. They'll think they're safe. God has taken them away. God has taken them and he's going to nourish them for three and a half years from the face of the servant. But Satan isn't done yet. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he may cause her to be carried away by the flood.

But the earth, really God, but the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Supernaturally, in a situation like Israel, what are we going to do? The flood is here. If that symbolizes armies, the armies are here. They're ready to take us. What do we do? We're helpless. Israel didn't know what to do.

We know what to do. Israel wasn't warned that this was going to happen to them on the seventh day of Unleavened Bread. We know what's going to happen between now and the time of Jesus Christ's return. We know what's going to happen before when God takes his people away. However he does that to whatever place he does, we know that Satan is not done yet and he won't be until God supernaturally intervenes and overcomes him.

And we, by God's strength, developed in us by the Holy Spirit that we have used, that God has given us, by the character that we've developed, by the loyalty to God, the commitment to God that we've done, that we will have faith and look at him and trust in him and stand strong through it.

You know the word overcome, the word overcome comes from a Greek word that literally means conqueror or conquered, given the victory. When Christ said, I've overcome the world, he says, I've won the victory over the world. I have conquered the world. You know, you are not your job and mine. Our mission is to yield to God. Our mission is to keep our eyes on the kingdom of God. Our job, like Christ's, is to overcome the world, is to overcome the world. You know, overcoming is different than repentance. We've all repented or we wouldn't be here. We've all acknowledged our sin. We've all asked God for forgiveness. Hope we're living our lives and we've made a choice that we've turned from our way, turned from the world's way, turned to God. That's repentance. We live with the rest of our lives, but repentance is the first step toward what the ultimate goal for us is, and that's overcoming. That's having the victory. It doesn't come by our power or our might, Zachariah 4.6, but it is something that we have to see as our goal. We must be letting God prepare us because He'll give us the tools. He'll give us everything we need, but it is us who has to make the choice to get ourselves ready and to allow Him to get ourselves ready that we, at the time that Jesus Christ returns, we can say, by God, by Jesus Christ in our faith in Him, we have overcome the world. We have overcome ourselves because it's not just to those who repent that the kingdom of God belongs. Repentance is the first step. It's a great step. Jesus Christ, the hosts in heaven, rejoice when someone repents because it's the first step toward salvation. But just like there's a first day of unleavened bread and the last day of unleavened bread, there's a first step, and then there's the rest of our lives to accomplish what God wants us to accomplish. Let's look here in the book of Revelation, what Christ says to the seven churches, because in this chapter and at the end of time, He repeats over and over and over. It's overcoming. It's overcoming that we need to be looking at as an eventual goal to our repentance and continuing examination, continuing to put the leaven out, continuing to put the unleavened bread in. It's not done. Just like the days of unleavened bread and the lessons, they're not done when the sun sets tonight. They should carry us with us, and every time we keep the days of unleavened bread, we should know more about what we need to do to get to where God wants us to go. Revelation 2. Revelation 2, verse 7. To the church in Ephesus, and we've talked about the church of Ephesus, they lost their first love. God said, get your first love back. Get back that, Deziel. Remember what you had. When that, and if you've fallen from that, then you remember that and you develop it back. Revelation 2, verse 7, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes, him who is a conqueror, whom who has the victory, to him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God, to him who overcomes. Verse 11. To the church in Smyrna, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, he who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. Verse 17. The church in Pergamus. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows, except him who receives it.

Verse 26. To the church in Pergamus, he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations, to him who overcomes.

Chapter 3, verse 5. To church in Sardis. Call it church in Sardis a dead church, but God shows if you just repent, if you just start and turn back to him, you can come back to life again if you follow him. And in verse 5 he says, he who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blout out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the church of Philadelphia, a church that God says, I've set before you an open door, and they've walked through it, a church that doesn't really have anything negative to say about. They've kept his word. They've persevered to the end. In verse 12 he says, he who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And finally, to the Laodicean church. More verses dedicated to the Laodicean church, an end-time church that has all these weaknesses that they need to overcome, the complacency, the looking to the world, all the things that has come about on this church that God says, try, develop the zeal and counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire.

In verse 21, he says to that church and to all the churches throughout the time, from the time he started the church until the time he returns to him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. What I did, you need to do. Jesus Christ didn't have to repent. He never sinned. But he wasn't tempted. He was tempted in all points like as we are. He had to endure the same trials, worst trials that you and I have ever experienced. He had tribulation. He had all sorts of things going on. He overcame them all. He never slipped up. He relied on God.

Now we could say, but he was Jesus Christ. He was Jesus Christ. He had to overcome. Well, yes, he had to fulfill the commission. He had to. But he had faced the same life we did, yet without sin. How did he do it? Because God gave him some supernatural thing that he just wasn't ever going to be able to sin, that he couldn't have ever made the choice to fall. No. That's John, back in John 5.

John 5.

Certainly he had God's Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that he gives us. Certainly Jesus Christ used that Holy Spirit. He developed character over the course of his life. He said no to the temptations that came. He said no to the trials that came. He continually looked to God. In John 5, 19, the Son of God, living as a human, said, Most assuredly, John 5, 19, I say to you, the Son can do nothing. The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do, for whatever the Father does, the Son does in like manner.

Of my own self, I can do nothing. Christ said. Repeats it down in verse 30, or he says those very words, I can of myself do nothing.

If we are going to overcome the world, if we're going to overcome our own desires, if we're going to overcome our own weaknesses, our own faults, and we all have them, and we all still have them no longer, no matter how long we've been in the church, it won't be by our power or our might. We know, we know from the life we've had in the church, there's things and faults that we've had that we keep falling for the same thing over and over and over again. Until finally, maybe God gets our attention and we say, no more. Now I will resist no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much I want to do that, no matter how much I want to say that, do that, whatever it is, I won't do it anymore, and we engage God's power. And we finally overcome it, but even then, until we die, there's always the possibility that we can yield back into it and go back to the way we were before. If we ever think we stand, as it says in 1 Corinthians, we will fall. We always have to keep in the forefront of our minds of our own selves we can do nothing. Just like Jesus Christ said, who was the very Son of God, if we ever lose that thought, if we ever begin to think of ourselves as something really good, someone who's conquered already, then we better, we better be thinking twice. We'd better be looking at things and we better be paying attention to it because certainly Satan will take that opportunity when we open the door for him to come back in again. Of my own self, I can do nothing. Even over here in John 8, 28. Christ says the same thing again. John 8, verse 20, verse 8. When you lift up the Son of Man, when he's prophesying his death, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself. I'm relying on God. He gives me the strength. He gives me the desire. His Spirit in me gives me the ability and the determination to overcome. Our job, our job is to overcome self. Our job is to overcome our emotions, our faults, our weaknesses. Our job is to do what God has called us to do and to use the tools that he has given us. You know, this this concept of overcoming isn't just a New Testament thing. Back in Genesis 4, you don't need to turn there, but remember when Cain was very angry, and God came and visited him and talked to him, and he talked about his anger, and he said, Cain, when you get angry, sin lies at the door. And what did he say? He said, you should rule over it. You should rule over it. Yes, you should repent of it. Yes, you should do that, but you should rule over it. You need to overcome it. And just like Cain had an anger problem, and Cain had other problems as well, you and I have more than one problem. And God would say to you and me in Jesus Christ's example, and the example of Egypt, or Israel coming out of Egypt, you need to rule over it. That's your goal, and it won't be done until as long as you live and breathe. The rest of your life, you do the things that God has called you to do. The rest of your life, you fight those desires. You fight those lusts, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. The rest of your life, you battle it, and then God will give the victory in the end.

You know, as we go through and we look at the process of salvation that God has called us to, we repent when we come to the knowledge of the truth, when we realize that we have been living our lives apart from the way that God would have us live. And that's something that comes from God. You know, Jesus Christ says in Jude, John 6, 44, it's not us. We didn't look into the Bible and say, boy, are we smart? Look what we see in the Bible. God opened our minds to this. This is a gift from Him that we understand His plan and His truth. And He says, no one can come to Me except the Father that sent Me draws Him. He opened our mind, and when we responded, we repented, and we committed, and we were baptized, and He gave us His Holy Spirit. That repentance was the first step. It's not the last step. There's those in the world who would say, as long as you've done that, you've done it all. Not so. Absolutely wrong. Absolutely wrong. The Bible clearly shows that we can give up our salvation. We can give up what God has called us to. We can give up the eternal life that He's promised us. If you don't believe it, read Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 26, and you'll see that we can forfeit what God has done because it's a lifelong calling. Seven days of unleavened bread, the rest of our lives, the rest of our lives, we live the lessons of this life. Back in 1 John, 1 John 5, 1 John 5 and verse 4, let's read the first let's read the first four verses. 1 John 5, 1. Whoever believes, you know, there's an unleavened bread word. We talked about the word believe a lot. We talk about it all the time. Remember that the word believe when we read in the Bible, it means a deep belief such that it is life-changing, life-altering, that we once we believe we don't do the things we did before. We simply can't do it because it's changed our mind, changed our heart. Whoever believes, bestowio, Greek word bestowio, that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves him, who begot, also loves him who is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God, whatever is born of God, you know, when we were baptized, we were buried, and we were raised, and we were not born again, per se, until we are born again into the kingdom as spirit. But we came up and we were a new life at baptism, a new creation. When I baptized people, I remember, I remind them of that. When you come up by those waters of baptism, it's a new life. You're a brand new child in God's family. For whoever is born of God, what do they do? They overcome the world. They overcome the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

Verse 5, who is he who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. It all goes back to him. It all goes back to him. He did it for us.

That part opened the door, but we have our part to play for the rest of our lives. Israel's deliverance wasn't in that first day of unleavened bread when they left on the 15th. They thought they were home free. They learned that it wasn't until the seventh day, the end of that beginning of the journey, that the victory would come and it only came by God.

We have a journey to the promises that God has given us, that God has given us, that lasts the rest of our life. That lasts the rest of our life. So overcoming is something that we should always have on our mind. It's a goal just like the other goals that God has set us. It doesn't come by our power. It doesn't come by our might. But if it's something we overlook and if we just think we can come before God and ask forgiveness, yes, He's going to forgive us, but that shouldn't be something that we want to do over and over. We need to be focused on overcoming, letting God give us the victory over Satan, over the world, over our own selves. So you might say, how do we do that? How do we overcome? Because it's a big question. It's a big question and the Bible answers it. Let's go back to John. John 14.

Jesus Christ will use His own words. John 14 and verse 1. After that last Passover, He went out and He spoke to His disciples and we read these words on Passover evening. John 14 verse 1, Let not your heart be troubled, Christ said. You believe in God, believe also in Me. Pay attention to that word, believe. Whenever you see the word believe, understand what it means. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know. And the way, you know.

Jesus Christ would tell you in a meeting today, we know. We know the way to overcoming. We know the path we have to take. We have to be reminded of it from time to time. We have to be reminded that that is a goal that we have, and that's something that we haven't done yet. We haven't overcome the world yet. We haven't overcome self yet. We haven't overcome all those things yet.

We have to be reminded of it, and we have to be reminded of how we get there. But you know, you know the way to overcoming. Jesus Christ, you know, Thomas, in verse 5 said, said to Him, Lord, we don't know where You're going. How can we know the way? And Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. I am the way. I set the example. Follow me. Hear what I say. Listen to the words of God. Eat the unleavened bread of truth. Follow me. Follow the example I've set.

At the end of His physical life, He could say, I have overcome the world. He didn't say it three years before that. He didn't say it 20 years before that. He said it at the end of His life. When His mind was set, the determination was made, He was going to finish the job God gave Him, and that was to overcome the world, to give His life, to give His life that you and I might have our sins forgiven, that we might have an opportunity for eternal life.

We have a ways to go yet before we can say, I have overcome the world, but He showed what that way was. And the Bible, we know it. We've already talked about it. God calls. What do we do? We repent. We repent. You know, there's steps to overcoming. We're in a well-known group that is out in society that helps people overcome really serious addictions, has listed 12 steps to what amounts to overcoming, and when you look at those steps, they are very close to what the Bible says.

I'm not going to talk about all 12 of them, but some of them today are very notable to us. You know, first of all, we have to acknowledge. We have to acknowledge and admit that we have a problem. If we can't acknowledge and we don't admit that we have a problem, we are never going to overcome.

If we bury our heads, you know, we're never going to overcome. We will never be where God wants us to be. Now let's come back to that point a little bit more. We have to admit. We have to admit that we're powerless over our sin. We have to admit that we're powerless. We can't do it ourselves. Jesus Christ said, of my own self, I can do nothing. Who are we to think that of our own selves?

We can do it. Until we learn to submit to God, surrender to God, yield to Him, use His Holy Spirit, engage His Holy Spirit, use His Word, and make ourselves do what Jesus Christ said, as in deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.

Say no to self. Until we learn to do that, we will never succeed. We will never succeed. We have to admit we're powerless. Without God's Holy Spirit, we make the same mistakes over and over and over again.

Without God's Spirit, we will never overcome addiction to self, addiction to the world, addiction to the lusts of life. We simply never will. We need God's help, and without that, we won't ever, it won't ever happen. We have to confess to God. We have to confess to God. Let's turn over to 1 John 1. 1 John 1 and verse 9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we confess, you know, it can be humbling, and it is humbling to go before God and say, I've sinned. I knew better than this, and yet I sinned. Even this attitude I have, I know that this attitude is not what you would want. I know that I need to overcome the shortcoming in my character. To come before God and confess is a humbling thing, but when God sees us confess and we admit to Him in the privacy of our own relationship with Him, we have to believe He forgives.

We have to believe He forgives. We have to believe that what He wants is for us to have eternal life. We have to believe that He's rooting for us, that He's there, and that when we stumble and when we make mistakes, He's willing to forgive, but He wants us to get up and start walking on the road again. Not going backwards, but going forward, just like He told Israel.

When your back's against the wall, when you've panicked, when you've fallen apart, get up and start walking again, but walk toward the goal that God has set for you, not your own goals, not your own ideas, not your own things. You know, in verse 10, He says, if we say that we haven't sinned, you know, if we have this attitude, you know what? I'm a pretty good person. I can't even really think of anything I need to take out of my life. If we say that we haven't sinned, we make Him a liar.

We make Him a liar. When we say, I'm okay, nothing wrong with me. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. What's the lesson of Days of Unleavened Bread? Put His Word in us. Eat His Word, you and me. Make it part of what we are and who we are. We have to confess our sins to God, and you know what?

We have to make a public confession and commitment to God as well. Without a commitment to God, then we don't...then there's something missing. The Bible says, without baptism, which is a commitment to God and a public statement, I'm a sinner. My past life has lived apart from God. I am publicly staying. I want that person, that past, put to death. I ask God for forgiveness, and when I come out, I've committed to Him that for the rest of my life I will follow Him, no matter how hard the path, no matter what trials come my way, because all our trials, all our tribulations, all our temptations, they're all going to be different.

But I will commit to Him, no matter what, that I will follow Him the rest of the day, the rest of our lives. I will simply follow Him. And we make that public statement, and there's joy in the church when someone is baptized, and we see they're committing to God. They're committing to God without that statement, without that statement to God. There is no salvation. The Bible makes that clear. Baptism is required for salvation. No, we have to continue. We have to continue the self-examination. You know, this time of year we talk about self-examination before Passover.

At the time that we kind of take an inventory of ourselves and look, what is it we're doing as we read the Bible? And we know our sins. We can look back and say, you know, have I worked on that this year? Am I better able to resist this? Am I better able to resist when Satan throws this in front of me? Or this incident occurs? And how am I going to react?

What am I going to say? We know, you know, when we examine ourselves, if we've got a ways to go or if we've made progress, not thinking we've overcome it, because we never will overcome it until the day that we die, we could always come back. But that self-examine, it continues through life. You know, 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5.

And we read 1 Corinthians 11 before Passover. And the 2nd Corinthians 11, you know, Paul clearly says, examine yourself and then take the Passover. But 2 Corinthians 13, self-examination and overcoming isn't a seven-day-a-week, seven-day-a-year process. Or several weeks before the Passover process, it's all the time. 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5. Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. That wasn't written in Passover time. Examine yourselves throughout the year. When you see something, when someone says something, if your spouse says, you know, you know, listen, hear what the Spirit says to the churches, hear what it says.

Examine yourself as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you are disqualified. And if Jesus Christ is in us, we will be on the lookout for sin and leavening. The sin in our lives because He wants that out. And we should want it out as well. And we need to keep our eyes on the goal. We need to keep our eyes on the goal. Repentance isn't the end. Repentance is the beginning. Yes, it's right to repent, and throughout the rest of our lives we will live repentance over and over and over again as we see the things that God reveals to us and as we make the mistakes.

Keep our eyes on the goal. That's the kingdom of God. It's also overcoming that at the end of our lives, Jesus Christ would say, you have overcome the world. Now I know through the tests I put you through, the trials you've gone through, now I know that no matter what, you will yield to me. You will say no to self. You have overcome the world. But let's go back. Let's go back here to the first one, because before we can ever overcome, we have to acknowledge.

We have to acknowledge that there is sin in us. Now if I ask the question, what is sin? You would all respond, if I say 1 John 3-4, you know what that verse says, that sin is the transgression of the law. Let's go back to 1 John 3-4. And we know if we break one of the commandments, if we put something before God, we trust in something else before we trust in God, if we take his name in vain, if we break the Sabbath day, if we kill, if we commit adultery spiritually, if we lie, steal, we know that we've broken those commandments and we need to repent, certainly.

But at 1 John 3-4, as soon as I get there, 1 John 3-4, it says, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. Now the old King James says, sin is the transgression of the law. The more correct translation of the Greek words there is what's in the New King James version. Whoever commits sin also, this is an interesting word for God to put in there, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

Certainly sin is breaking the commandments, but sin is lawlessness. When we commit sin, as in the transgression of the law, we also commit lawlessness. Now when you look at lawlessness, it's an attitude. It's an attitude. At the end of the age, Christ says, because lawlessness abounds, I just disregard that law. I don't want to deal with that law. Because lawlessness abounds, the love of many will wax cold. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness. It's an attitude.

I can disregard that. Even though God says it, I can kind of just gloss it over and say, He understands. I don't think in this day and age He really means every single time. I think He understands we're weak and He gives us allowances that, you know, we can do this and we can do that.

He understands we're weak. Yes, He does, but He's called us to overcome. He's called us to overcome. Repent, certainly, but get up and go forward. March toward that goal of overcoming, because if we don't overcome, we won't inherit the promises that God has given us.

If God hadn't intervened and overcome the world at that time, Pharaoh and Egypt, Israel would have never made it to the promised land. So there are attitudes of lawlessness. And we need to watch our attitudes, because our attitudes say a lot to God. He knows what the attitude is. Look at the attitude of Jesus Christ. Whatever God said to do, He did. Before the foundation of the earth, He said, I'll die for these people.

I'll die for mankind. And He did it. Whatever the Father says, I'll speak. Of my own self, I can do nothing. Look at His attitude. Perfect throughout. Perfectly yielded. Perfectly committed to God. Perfectly keeping the law of God. Perfectly having an attitude not of lawlessness, but obeying God in spirit and letter. Obeying Him in spirit and letter. Not thinking. I'm exempt from this. God's okay if this attitude isn't here. You know, sin is lawlessness. Let's go back and look at another here in Romans 14. Romans 14. Verse 23.

Verse 23. Paul is talking here about foods offered to idols, but there's a concept in here that we better play to us. But he who doubts, verse 23, is condemned if he eats because he does not eat from faith, for whatever is not from faith is sin. An attitude of lawlessness, that's sin. Whatever is not from faith, that's sin. We could examine our attitudes. Do we really have faith in God? Jesus Christ asked that question when the Son of Man returns. Will He find faith on earth? If He can ask that question, we need to be asking that to ourselves. Do we really have faith in God? Do we really trust Him? Do we really trust when He says, whatever you ask in my name, if you believe, I'll give it. Or do we kind of believe it, but really look to the outside world to really help us along and to hedge our bets, as I often say. Whatever is not of faith is sin. The actions we take, the attitudes that we have. Are they of faith? Because we really believe God, that we really believe He will do what He says, that He will really provide what He says He will, that He really will honor these promises that He's made. You know, part of faith is He'll give us what we need to overcome.

There's attitudes that we can have. One of the attitudes that we can look at is well in the world around us. I remember, I don't know, back in the 80s, I think I read a book. There were a few things that stick with me from the books that I read. One of them was the author was saying, we all need to get off of the WIIFM radio station.

You know what WIIFM is? What's in it for me? What's in it for me? And I always remember that because he said there are some people that really, when they look at the world, what they look at is, what's in it for me? How can I benefit from this circumstance? Do they really honor God and faith? Do they really allow Him to work in their life? Or do they look at it as, what's in it for me?

I look at this and, you know, I might say, oh, I can get this. I can get this. Here's an opportunity I can get this. Where does our mind go? Maybe it's a material thing. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's a position. Maybe it's some kind of accolades. Whatever it is, what's in it for me? If we have that attitude, when we look at ourselves, honestly, that attitude is sin. That's not Jesus Christ at all. That's Satan. He was all about W-I-I-F-M. Jesus Christ was not. He was there to serve and to give His life for you and me selflessly. And if we look at ourselves and we can say, and not make excuses, right, because it's not about Jesus Christ. It's not His wavelength to say, you know, it's their fault, it's their fault. They did this, they did this, and that caused this. You know what? If we have that attitude, that's sin. Satan, we already read. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. We need to be looking at ourselves and saying, what did I do? What did I do? If what's in it for me, whatever the in it for me is, and you know what it is if you look at it. If your life is all about you, you know, narcissism is a word that's an ugly word alive and well in the world today. And when we come face to face with it, we see it because the person is consumed with what's in it for me. They're all wrong, and I'm right. What's in it for me? I'll show you who's right. What does Jesus Christ say? Don't look at the moat in your, don't look at the speck in your brother's eye. Get the moat out of your own eye first. Do it that way. That's what Jesus Christ is about. That's what we need to be looking at. That's what overcoming is. That's what repentance is. If we have an attitude of what's in it for me, we'd better be aware. We'd better be acknowledging it. We'd better be admitting it.

We'd better be asking God to give us the strength to overcome it. Because if we don't overcome that attitude, we won't be in His kingdom. You know, we can look at an independent attitude. Independence is something, you know, the country is founded on independence. There's an independent attitude, you know. I don't want to be part of God's body. I don't want to be part of this body. I don't want to be part of that body.

I'll just do whatever I want. Is that of God? I mean, honestly, is that of God? No. No, Jesus Christ is part of the body. First, in Colossians 1, it says, the body of the church. He puts us part of His church and He expects us to grow in His body.

We can't be free spirits, flitting here and there and everywhere. He expects our lives to be committed to Him. He expects our lives to be conforming to Him.

And if we have that attitude, we might want to really be examining what Jesus Christ said.

We really might want to be looking at what He said and looking at what He asks us to do and getting our attitude where He wants it to be.

We can look at complacency. We talked about Laodicea. During the time leading up to Passover, we spoke about Laodicea. Attitudes of complacency, attitudes of laziness, attitudes of, I'm okay, I've done enough, I'm rich, I'm increased with goods, I have need of nothing.

Nope. I don't have to go any farther in that. That's an attitude that's not going to be in the Kingdom of God. That's something we have to overcome.

We have to become what God wants us to be. One body, one spirit, working together with Him, one family.

Helping each other, encouraging each other, loving each other, binding together in spirit, and doing things the way that God says, without excuse.

Without excuse. We can look at attitudes of entitlement. That's really a WIIFM, isn't it? Attitudes of entitlement. The world is full of entitlement today. All you've got to do is turn on the news, and you see all the entitlement attitudes in the world. It's there in the Church, too.

I am, therefore I have this, and if you've got it, I need it, too. We've talked about entitlement before. That's not an attitude of God. That's not an attitude of God.

We could go on and on about those things. Sins, breaking the commandments, absolutely. Things that we need to overcome and the proclivities that we have. The attitudes that we have, as well, and the other things that we do. You know what we read from is 14, verse 23. Let's go back to James.

James 4.

James 4, verse 17.

Therefore, verse 17, to him who knows to do good.

I know I should have done it.

But like that priest and that Levi to pass that person who had been robbed along the side of the road, therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

The good Samaritan didn't sin. He needed to do good, and he did it.

God would say to us, if you know to do good, it's not okay to say, eh, I did nothing and that's okay. No, it's not okay to do nothing when you know to do good.

When you know, you better do it. That's what God has called us to.

If we're going to overcome, if we're going to be there in the kingdom, then we have to get ourselves in check.

Our personal lives need to mirror our spiritual lives. Our personal lives need to mirror our church lives.

Our personal lives need to mirror what we would want others to think about us because we're living it and doing it, and not just talking about it.

To he who overcomes the world, I will give the crown of life. To him who overcomes the world.

Well, during these seven days of Unleavened Bread, we've doubtlessly learned some things.

And I'm always surprised as we go through the days of Unleavened Bread, the lessons we learned about ourselves, just as we look at what God does in our lives.

The things that come out about us. The things that we might see. The trials that come up and it's like, you know, God is getting my attention.

Trials and troubles when they come over and over and over. Ask God and examine, are you getting my attention?

And don't just say, no, no, it's just coincidence. No, God will get our attention.

And often during the days of Unleavened Bread, we see things in ourselves and incidents that occur.

That God is getting our attention and saying, get back. Get back to where you need to be.

Get back to that attitude of overcoming. Get back to that attitude of zeal. Get back to that attitude. Remember from where you have fallen.

And remember where you're going and be committed to it. Be committed to it even though it's not the thing you want to do.

You have to overcome the world. You have to overcome self. We have to do those things if we're going to be there. And I hope that we're all committed to being there when Jesus Christ returns so that He can say, you did it.

You overcame the world by the power of the Word that was in you. You overcame the world by the Spirit that you used and that I gave you.

You overcame the world by the desire that you listened to and you paid attention.

And you're there at the end. And the world and yourself is finally behind you.

Let's go back to Revelation. Revelation 21.

21, verse 7.

Jesus Christ, here at the end of the book of Revelation, after the white throne judgment, He says this in verse 21, verse 7.

He who overcomes will inherit all things. That's a pretty good goal. That's a pretty big promise.

He who overcomes will inherit all things. And I will be His God and He will be my Son.

Revelation 15. Revelation 15.

Verse 2. John writes, looking to the vision, looking to the future, a vision that we should be asking God to hone in us that would motivate us and keep us motivated to do the things that we need to do.

I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, that's the world, over His image and over His mark, and over the number of His name standing on the sea of glass having harps of God.

Look where they are to those who overcame. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the Saints, who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you alone are holy, for all nations shall come and worship before you, for your judgments have been manifested.

As we leave the days of Unleavened Bread, when the sun sets tonight, don't forget the lessons. Live the lessons. Let it be the first stepping stone to the rest of your life, committed to God, committed to overcoming, so that you will be there when Jesus Christ returns.

Brother, for the final hymn this morning, please pick up your hymnals and stand up.

We'll turn to page 119 and sing, Teach Me Thy Way, O Lord. After that, Mr. Burt Merring will offer the closing prayer as well as ask God's blessing on lunch. But before that, page 119, Teach Me Thy Way, O Lord. Teach me thy way, O Lord. Teach me thy way. Thy guiding grace, O Lord. Teach me thy way. Help me to walk, O right, more by faith, less by sight. Lead me with thy true light. Teach me thy way. When I am sad at heart, teach me thy way. When earthly joys depart, teach me thy way. In hours of loneliness, in times of sore distress, in failure or success, teach me thy way. When doubts and fears arise, teach me thy way. When storms, clouds fill the skies, teach me thy way. Shine through the cloud in rain, through sorrow, toil and pain. Make thou my pathway plain, teach me thy way.

Long as my life shall last, teach me thy way. Where my Lord be cast, teach me thy way. Until the race is run, until the journey's done, Until the crown is won, teach me thy way.

Amen.