0:00 When we think of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, there are different ways in which he operated in the old covenant compared to the new covenant. In the old covenant, he could never 0:18 dwell within a person. Always we read that the spirit of God came upon people. So it's like uh water flowing over a person not going inside. 0:36 So if I were to use this illustration, if you have a lid over this and you pour water, even a river, it flows over, doesn't go inside, flows and blesses thousands or millions. 0:56 But the heart remains dirty. So nobody can clean the heart except the Holy Spirit. You know this is represented by the veil in the temple. That veil symbolized that man's spirit 1:13 or man's heart could not God could not go in there because of the flesh. Hebrews 10:20 says the veil is the flesh. And people couldn't go into God's presence either because of that. 1:31 But when Jesus died on the cross, that veil was rent and the way into man's spirit was open. And then because the heart of man could be cleansed by the blood of Jesus, the Holy Spirit could come from within, 1:50 fill the heart and then overflow to millions. So it's very important to see this distinction. In the Old Testament, the spirit came upon it could only produce a ministry. Couldn't change their lives. 2:07 Even the greatest people, some of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament were Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist. And when Moses got angry, he tore the Bible. That means he broke the two tablets of stone which were which is the Bible in 2:26 those days. He got so angry he broke it. It's equivalent to tearing the Bible. However angry you are, you're not supposed to tear the Bible. That was a great prophet Elijah 2:42 who could stand against 850 prophets. He ran when one woman threatened him and he goes and hides in a cave and says, "Lord, take away my life. I don't want to live anymore." Can you imagine a man praying like that? A great prophet 2:57 or John the Baptist who had seen the spirit of God descend upon Jesus and said, "This is the lamb of God." When he's locked up in prison and Jesus does not deliver him from prison, he begins to doubt. What sort of Messiah is this who doesn't 3:14 deliver me from prison? He sends his disciples to Jesus and saying, "Are you really the Messiah? Did I make a mistake perhaps? Are we to wait for somebody else?" These were the greatest prophets in the Old Testament. What does it prove that the spirit of 3:30 God was upon them and flowed over them? On the day of Pentecost, the veil was rent and the spirit of God could come within and flow from within. This is what we need to recognize as the new covenant filling of the Holy Spirit. 3:46 Let me show you one example from the book of Judges in chapter 6 of a man who had the spirit upon him in the old covenant. It's important for us to understand this because there are many Christians today who experience only an old covenant type 4:04 of spirit being upon them. Judges chapter 6. This is speaking about Gideon. Judges 6:34. The spirit of the Lord in the margin of 4:21 my NASB says clothed Gideon came upon or clothed. It's like a robe that went over Gideon. But the thing about a robe is you can take it off, put it on again. And that's how it was with old covenant experience 4:41 of the spirit came upon King Saul. Samuel told him in when he was anointed, when Samuel in chapter 10 when Samuel confronted Saul 5:00 uh and met him, he said, "You know what's going to happen to you, Saul? You you're just an ordinary person, but you're going to be the king, and this is how he'll make you the king." 1 Samuel chapter 10 verse 6, the spirit of the 5:13 Lord will come upon you mightily and you will prophesy and you will be changed into another man not inwardly but externally. There will be a difference in your life because the spirit of God comes upon you. But later on, King Saul, the spirit of 5:35 God left him and an evil spirit came upon him. The same with David, the spirit of God came upon him, but spirit of God wasn't upon him when he was committing adultery with Bath Sheba. That's how it was in the Old Testament. Many, many examples 5:52 like this. And is it possible to have that type of experience in the new covenant? Samson is one of the greatest examples. what all he could do when the spirit of God is upon him. But his heart was full of lust and adultery 6:09 and then he would repent and come back and again the spirit of God would be upon him. It was only to fulfill a ministry. And then came Jesus and he was so different for 30 years. He had no min no external ministry. 6:29 Never preached a sermon. never cast out demons, never healed the sick, but lived a spiritfilled life. The glass was full within, overflowing in from a life of blessing to others for 30 years. I'm sure he blessed many people 6:47 who came to see him in the carpenter shop. I'm sure he helped many widows in Nazareth and a lot of things not written about those 30 years but I can imagine how he lived a godly life even though he was not preaching sermons or healing the 7:01 sick for 30 years he lived a spiritfilled life in this new covenant way and then with a heart that's full of the Holy Spirit and then on the age of 30 the spirit of God came upon him and then he began his ministry. So we find a 7:17 two operations of the holy spirit. One is it fills our heart and changes our life and the other is the spirit coming upon him us and giving us gifts to serve. As soon as the spirit of god came upon Jesus then Jesus could cast out 7:33 demons and heal the sick and preach powerfully and all that. Now the sad thing is that it's possible for Christians today. I don't understand how. Don't ask me to explain it. To me, it's like the wind blows, where it lives. Jesus said about the Holy Spirit 7:52 is like the wind blowing. Where it winds, you hear where it wants. You hear the sound, but you cannot say how it's going to be. And very often the ministry of the Holy Spirit in different people is like that. So, I can't explain it. But turn with me 8:07 to Matthew 7 and verse 22. Matthew 7:22. In the last day, the Lord says, many will come before me, 8:22 not one or two, but many. And they'll say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Here are people who exercise gifts. Remember the spirit of God upon prophesying, casting out demons, 8:40 performing miracles. But the Lord says, "Get away from me. I don't know you. I never knew you." There's sin in your life. The inside of the cup was still dirty. Now, I want to warn you for those who 8:59 have ears to hear. Many, many, it says here, many, many, many of those people who are going to stand before the Lord in that day are the Christian preachers you see on television today. We're doing amazing things, 9:18 raking in millions of dollars, which has ruined them. And the Lord will say to many of them, there was sin in your life. I know you did so many things but that's not what I was looking for. The Lord's not looking for an old covenant type of ministry. He 9:38 wants to fill the heart within. So I just say that as a warning because I find that most Christians don't have discernment to discern that this person whom you see preaching so powerfully may be rejected by the Lord in the final 9:54 day. It doesn't u question the fact that people were blessed through him. If you read in the book of numbers chapter 20, you read there about a time when Moses was asked by the Lord when they needed water to speak to the rock. In Exodus 10:13 17, 40 years earlier, the Lord told him to smite the rock. But the second time the Lord told him speak to the rock because symbolically Christ has to be crucified only once. That's a smiting of the rock. And there was no need to smite the rock 10:30 again. You it was already smitten once and the Lord said speak to the rock. But Moses was so angry with the people that he hit the rock. Did the water flow? Yes, it did. Does God bless the ministry of a 10:50 disobedient servant of his? Yes. Today there are people who disobey God's word. Women pastors a contrary to God's word. God does God bless their ministry? Ask yourself, did 11:08 the water flow when Moses hit the rock? Yes. Was Samson's ministry did it deliver Israel from the Philistines? Yes. But do you know what God did with Moses afterwards? As soon as the blessing was over and do you know waters flowed out 11:24 from there because there were two million people who had to drink water. Two million people were blessed through Moses disobeying God's word. It's a warning. Afterwards, God called Moses. He says, "Now I got to deal with you. 11:41 you disobeyed me, you will not enter Canaan. Can you imagine that? Think if your son was waiting for six months to go for a vacation somewhere along with your family 12:00 and through some disobedience, you tell him, "You are not going for that vacation. We're going to Europe, but you're not going to come. you'll stay behind with grandma and grandpa. Can you imagine how he'd feel? Moses had longed for 40 years to enter 12:19 Canaan. God said no. It's a very serious thing to disobey God. What we see there is if you read Numbers 13, God gave the Israelites nine chances when they disobeyed. They could still enter Canaan. 12:38 The 10th time when they disobeyed, he said no. Turn to numbers in chapter 14 verse 22. The Lord said, this is after 12:58 they refused to go into the land of Canaan because the giants are too big. You read about that in numbers 13 and 14. The Lord says in 14:22, "These men who have seen all my glory and my signs have put me to the test these 10 times 13:16 and have disobeyed me 10 times." Verse 23, "They will not enter the land." He gave them nine chances. The 10th time he said, "No." Moses, he gave zero chances. Once he disobeyed, God said, 13:32 "You can't get into the land." Why? One simple reason Jesus said, "To whom more is given, more is required." James 3:1 says, "My brethren, don't try to be Bible teachers because you will be judged by a stricter 13:52 standard." Do you know that any of you who are teaching the word of God to others, you're going to be judged by probably a hundred times stricter standard than those other people? In this case, Moses was judged by a 10 times stricter standard than the 14:10 Israelites. But the water flowed. So if you look at a man's ministry and evaluate whether he's pleasing to God, you'll go completely wrong. That is not the type of fullness of spirit that you should be seeking for where you have an anointing for a 14:28 ministry, but your life is not changed. Think of all these very gifted pastors who you suddenly hear they fell into adultery or homosexuality for years and years. Their ministry was blessed and people were really blessed 14:44 and many hundreds were converted etc. But the man was living in sin. Is that possible? Go and read about Samson. So they're having an Old Testament experience of the spirit upon them. I don't understand how it is. But there 15:02 are many Christians who are living in the old covenant even now. For example, I'll give you an experience, a verse for yourself, leave alone the preachers. Romans 6:14. Romans 6:14 says, "Sin will not rule over you because 15:27 you're not under the old covenant, but you're under the new covenant. You're not under law, but under grace." Now, you ask even a 12-year-old child just from that verse a simple question. [Music] How do you know whether somebody is 15:41 under law? The answer he'll give you from there. Sin rules his life. How do you know how bad is under grace? He'll get the answer from the same verse. He has overcome sin. That's why I say the vast majority of Christians 16:01 who are defeated by sin in their lives. The same old sin again and again and again and again. They don't know it. They've received the forgiveness of sins according to God's grace, but they have not experienced the fullness of God's 16:15 grace. They are living under the law. They got forgiveness, but forgiveness was there even in the Old Testament. David says in Psalm 103, "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, who forgives all your sins." It's not a distinctively new covenant 16:31 blessing. But what David could not say is, "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, who helps me to overcome sin. No. So you see it's not just those preachers who are experiencing an old covenant experience of the Holy Spirit. Many 16:45 believers are like that too. My conviction is more than 90% of born again believers are living in the old covenant. I was living under the old covenant for years after I was born again. But yet I had the spirit upon me to minister. 17:04 Even I even wrote books in those days. But I my inner life I didn't have victory. So I know that if I had continued in that direction, if I had continued, I could have ended up like this crowd in Matthew 7:22 say, "Lord, we wrote books 17:22 in your name." I used to travel. I was traveling preaching at international conferences in those days. I'm talking about 197372. I finally came. I'll tell you what saved me. I said, "Lord, I will not continue like 17:40 this. I want my inner ill life to correspond to what I'm preaching." And I cried, I fasted, I prayed, and I cried out to God. I said, "Lord, I don't care what it costs, but I will not continue as a hypocrite. I'm not interested in fame. 17:58 I'm not interested in money. I'm interested in an inner life and walk with you." And if you don't give it to me, even though I'm an international preacher, I'm going to quit my ministry and go and do something else and sit in 18:15 the backbench of a church and be a Christian. But I will not continue as a hypocrite. And I want to tell you that that's what saved my soul. And if you're desperate like that, God will meet with you, too. And I said, Lord, and the Lord knew I meant 18:33 it. And the Lord met with me another time, filled me with the Holy Spirit. This is 40 years ago. And opened my eyes to see the difference between law and grace. The difference between the spirit within 18:51 and the spirit upon the difference between gifts and fruits. The difference between walking as Jesus walked and just exercising gifts. It changed my life completely. I said Lord and that day I said Lord when the Lord met with me I will never again for the 19:10 rest of my life preach anything which is not true in my inner life. I will never preach about family life anything that's not true in my family life. I will never preach about thought life anything that's not true in my 19:27 thought life. I will never speak about speech which is different from my own speech. I want an equal balance between my inner life and my outer life. Are you seeking for the fullness of the 19:44 spirit like this or are you only seeking for the spirit upon you that you can preach and minister and you can end up in Matthew 7:22. Turn with me to John 7. The words we just found. If any man thirst, thirst for what? 20:03 John 7 verse 37. If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. John 7:37. Now read the next verse carefully because for many years I read that next verse 38. And I always thought of rivers of living water, rivers of living water. Lord, I want rivers of 20:21 living water. I want rivers of living water. And I missed the main point of that verse. John 7:38, he who believes in me, as the scripture has said, forget the rivers of living water, from his innermost being, that means the cup will 20:37 be filled first. That's the point of that verse. And I never I read it for so many years and I never saw it. It has to come from the innermost being, which is not true in the old covenant where it came from over. And then it says this. He spoke of the 20:53 Holy Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive. Listen to this. How do you understand this? The spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. So does it mean Gideon did not receive the spirit? Did it mean Saul, David, Elijah, 21:09 Elijah did not receive the spirit? What does that verse mean? When you get a verse which you can't understand, I'll give you a little bit of advice. Stop. Like you stop at a stoplight. and don't move forward 21:25 till it becomes green. We have missed many treasures in scripture because we skip through. We run the red light and go on and you remain ignorant of scripture forever. Change that attitude. Read scripture slowly and when you come to something 21:43 you don't understand, say, "Lord, I want to understand that." What does it mean? Spirit was not yet given. The spirit was not yet given in this way where it would flow from the innermost being. That never happened till Jesus came. Not even 21:57 John the Baptist. The first person who walked on this earth from whom the spirit flowed from within was Jesus Christ. And when it says we can walk as he walked, it means we can have the spirit within. How important is the spirit 22:14 within and the spirit upon? Well, Jesus had the spirit within for 33 and a2 years. He had the spirit upon for three and a half years. Spirit within is 10 times more important. 33 divided by 3. 33 and 12 divided by 22:35 three and a half. 10 times more important. That's what I learned from the life of Jesus. And I say, Lord, I want it like that in my life. However gifted I may be, however thousands of people I may bless, I always want to 22:50 remember till the end of my life that my inner walk with you is 10 times more important than my ministry. I want to ask those of you who have any type of service in a church anywhere, whether it's preaching or sharing or music or 23:08 any little thing that you do which you call ministry. Maybe you're serving in practical ways like operating video audio equipment or even arranging the chairs. Any type of ministry, an usher perhaps. Is that more important to you than your daily walk 23:26 with God, then you're going in the wrong direction? I'll tell you that. The day you realize that your inner walk with God is 10 times more important than any ministry you can fulfill in the church, you have understood what it is 23:41 to walk as Jesus walked. It's very very very important. You know, in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, I read this verse to you in John 20 on the day of the resurrection, 24:00 he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Do you believe it happened? Sure, it happened. But 8 days later, verse 26, they were still scared of the Jews. And so when a few days later, 40 days 24:19 later when Jesus said the spirit of God will come upon you, they could have asked him then what was it? What happened to us that day when you breathed on us? Did we receive the spirit or not? Or was that a empty word that you spoke? Jesus 24:34 never spoke empty words. Isaiah 55 says, "My word that I speak will never return empty." I don't believe that any word of Jesus is empty. When he breathed on them, received the Holy Spirit. I want you to compare this with Genesis chapter 2. 24:51 You know that story. God made a human being, shape of a human being out of clay. It's just like people make snowmen. Only thing it was not with snow. It was clay. And since God made it, it looked exactly like a human being. 25:11 Skin, eyes, hair, everything. The only thing missing was breath. He He wasn't a living soul. But if you looked at him even from a few feet, he was exactly like any other human being. 25:30 Okay? Exactly like any other human being. And what did God do next? He breathed in him and immediately he became a human being. Till then he was a statue. 25:49 A clay statue looked exactly a perfect clay statue of a man. Now what is the difference between a statue and a real man? That's the difference between a man on whom God breathes and one whom God has 26:06 not breathed. Here it says that was the old creation. God made Adam. On the day of resurrection when Jesus rose from the dead, he was starting a new creation and he does something similar to what he did. It was Jesus out there in Genesis 26:25 1. Jesus was there as part of the trinity breathing on Adam. So the same Jesus who breathed on Adam and made a statue into a human being was now breathing on disciples and giving them the Holy Spirit. So the picture I get from that is 26:44 if I'm really spiritfilled, really spiritfilled, the difference between me and an ordinary born-again Christian would be the difference between a statue and a real human being. This is the reason why so many 27:04 Christians are so listless and lazy and bored and there doesn't seem to be a fire in their life. There doesn't seem to be a zeal when they are young. I've seen sometimes young fellas accept the Lord 20 25 years old. There's a zeal. It's a human zeal 27:20 because young people have a lot of energy. But you watch them after 15 20 years. It's all fizzled out. There's nothing left there. That didn't happen to me when God filled me with the spirit and within and I sought to remain there. You can be 27:36 filled with the spirit and you're going to lose it. If you remain there, I find 40 years later the fire is even more. My Christian life is more exciting today than it was 40 years ago. I have a greater devotion to Jesus and because 27:51 it's come from within. In the Acts of the Apostles, I want to show you a phrase that occurs a couple of times. Acts chapter 6. Acts of the Apostle chapter 6. You know this is the time when there was 28:14 some controversy. It was a matter of racism. Racism is not a new thing. It was there in the early church. There were Jews and there were a few Greek Jews. You know, the original Jews 28:32 were grew up in Israel and uh there were others who were converted Jews, Greeks. And when the people were distributing food to these widows, the people who distributed always showed favor to the 28:50 Jewish widows. Imagine that. And this is all after Pentecost. Everybody who's a Christian doesn't necessarily walk in the spirit. And they gave less food to the Greek widows. And the Greek widows complained that they were being overlooked. Acts 29:08 6:1. It was a purely racial problem, racism. And the 12 called the congregation of disciples and said, "This has got to be set right. But we apostles are not going to do this. We don't have time to serve food to the widows. You've got to preach 29:24 God's word and spend time in prayer and our calling is different. But you need to call some people who are like deacons who can do the practical ministry in the church. But not anybody. Don't just pick out seven gifted administrative 29:41 gift of administration type of people. No. Verse three. First of all, they must be of good reputation. That means they have a good testimony in the church. Genesis Acts 6:3. And they must be men full of the spirit. Not once 29:57 filled with the spirit on the day of Pentecost, but full of the spirit now. The difference is like having your the gasoline tank in your car filled 5 years ago. So what? Why is your car not moving now? There's 30:16 nothing in it now. There's a difference between having a tank full having been filled. So here are people who are full of the spirit. So differentiate between spiritfilled once, baptized in the spirit once, full of the spirit. Now in 30:35 those days, every Christian had received the Holy Spirit. The apostles didn't leave people without receiving the spirit. You see that again and again. Paul would go to a place and say, "Did you guys receive the spirit when you 30:47 believed in Jesus?" So out of all the people who had received the spirit, the apostle said, "Pick out people who are full of the spirit." Not all are full of the spirit. Some of them were. This is exactly what I see in many 31:02 Pentecostal charismatic churches and people who believe that there are people who once had an experience that gas tank was full, but they're not full of the spirit today. God's will is that we are filled and full of the spirit every single day of 31:19 our life. I pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit every single day. And I want it and to remain continuously filled of the spirit. I don't want to make too many rules, just two. One, 31:36 keep your conscience clear with God and with men always. As soon as you're aware of a sin, confess it. As soon as you've hurt somebody, apologize to man. That is the thing which we don't do. 31:56 Most of us are very quick to confess our sin to God when we have failed. But we're not so quick to confess to a fellow human being because we are too proud. 32:15 Do you confess? Do you apologize to your wife as soon as you get angry with her or do you apologize to your husband as soon as you're angry with you know in your heart you're convicted. I know you're convicted. That was wrong. 32:31 I should not have spoken to my wife like that. I should not have spoken to my husband like that. What do you do about it? Oh, well, we're husband and wife. It's okay. No wonder you are not a man full of the Holy Spirit. You were full once, 32:46 maybe, or maybe you were never. You're certainly not full of the spirit today. You're not a woman full of the Holy Spirit. Such Christians glory in an experience in the past. Oh, I remember then. It's like people who are sick who say 30 years ago I was 33:05 really full of health. So what? This is the condition of many many Christians. They're boasting in a one-time experience. Remember Jesus said the way to life is not only through a narrow gate but then a narrow way. There is a crisis and a 33:24 process that leads to life. It's very important to remember that because this is where a lot of people go astray concerning being filled with the Holy Spirit. Select seven people who are full of the spirit. Now, now how do you 33:37 discern that? Is it just by that giving a testimony? I've heard lots of testimonies of people who say this such and such a thing happened to me and I spoke in tongues and I had a electric shock down my body. But I say look at your life and 33:49 I say it doesn't seem to have done much to you. Look at the way you live. And so it was possible when the apostle said select seven. In other words, it was possible for ordinary believers to discern. Ordinary believers 34:08 to discern. This guy is different. He's not just giving a testimony of a baptism in the spirit 10 years ago. He's full of the spirit now. And that should be how every one of us should be. full of the spirit and wisdom. Even for 34:27 distributing food to the widows, not just for preaching, for an ordinary task like distributing food to the widows equally without racism. Why did that racism come? Because they were not full of the Holy Spirit. That's all. 34:45 So the apostles knew these problems arise in churches because people are not full of the Holy Spirit. even people who were filled with the spirit. So the question is when you come to me a conference about being filled with 34:56 spirit, what are you really seeking for? A one-time experience, but maybe God will give it to you, but it won't be worth anything one week from now. I've seen numerous cases like this. For one week, they're almost in heaven. 35:15 Then you watch their life a few days later, see how they live at home and seeing other things. They even become financially unrighteous. I was telling you about Gideon. Let me show you that once a little more. Judges chapter 6. 35:29 The spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon. We saw that in Judges 6 and 34. And he won a tremendous battle. It's one of the greatest battles that you read of in the Old Testament where God whittleled down 32,000 people to 300 and 35:44 def defeated the Midionites through one spiritfilled man, Gideon. And then he went on from there in Judges chapter 8 to defeat many other of Israel's enemies. And then the people were so thankful to Gideon. You know all the people in 36:00 Israel came the men of Israel. Judges 8:22. They said Gideon you rule over us. You and after you die your son. And when they he dies your son son. We want to have a 36:18 hierarchy. now of your family to rule over Israel because you are the spiritfilled God-appointed deliverer. And look at Gideon's humility or at least apparent humility. The words were right. I will not rule over you, nor 36:37 will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you. Doesn't that sound like very go a godly man? It was only the language. Don't be fooled by the language of preachers. Yet Gideon said, "But give me some money." And look what he says here. 36:56 They all He saw that all of them had gold earrings. And so he said, "Give me an earring of each of you. I don't know how many thousands of people there. Give me a earring from the spoil you got." And 37:13 Gideon said, and then they said, "Sure." You see, when you win a battle, you collect all the gold from these Israelites. So, these people had collected a lot of gold earrings and all that. And they spread a garment and every one of them threw an earring of 37:26 gold. I don't know how many tons of gold there were there. This is exactly how many gifted preachers are today. Learn from Gideon. Oh, no, no, no. I don't want to rule over you. The Lord will rule over you, but uh please give 37:44 me your money. Here's the box. And it's all going to go into my pocket. And the weight of the gold earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold. Boy. And then on top of that, the cresant ornaments and the pendants and the purple robes. He got 38:02 all of them, the neck bands and everything. And what happened with all this money? Exactly what happens to a lot of preachers today. Gideon made it into an ephod and placed it there. And all Israel played the harlot and began to worship it. And it 38:17 even became a snare to Gideon and his family. Exactly the way many preachers have destroyed themselves and their family who were once mightily used the spirit upon. What was the problem? The spirit was not within. So these are warnings to us. If you read 38:34 scripture carefully, there's warning for all of us to be careful that one experience of the spirit coming upon us and we did a mighty work for God. God used me mightily with 300 people. We defeated the enemy and so many people 38:48 were brought to Christ. It means nothing. How did Gideon end up? It's not how we start a race that's important. It's how we end it. Turn to 1 Corinthians 9 39:07 verse 24. The Apostle Paul is saying, "Don't you know that those who run in a race all run, but only one wins the prize cuz he finished well. All of them started well. There are marathon races where some 39:26 people rush ahead and are leading. They don't even finish. They drop out before the end of the race. So he says, "Run in such a way, not that you start well, but that you finish well." Verse 24, "That you may win." None of us have finished the race now. I 39:44 haven't finished it yet. But I tell you, I want to finish well. I hope you have a desire to finish well. Not that you started well or in between you were very excited and ran well for a while, but you're going to finish well. 39:59 You're going to study, steady, finish well. Very, very important. And he says for himself, I myself, Paul says, you may think I'm a great apostle, so I don't have to worry about that. No, I myself run in such a way to win. 40:18 I want to win. I've got a goal in front of me and I'm running towards that goal to become totally like Christ. And so in order to get there, I discipline my body and make this body my slave. If I don't make this body my slave, 40:35 what'll happen is when I get to the end of my race, the Lord will say, "Disqualified." I've heard of things like that happening in the Olympics. Somebody runs comes first and he's so happy, raises hand, everybody excited, and then the judges 40:49 say, "Hey, you crossed into somebody else's track halfway in the race, disqualified." Can you imagine the shattering experience he has there thinking that he won and he didn't win? Then I can come to the end of my life and the Lord says disqualified. 41:03 Everybody thought you won the race because you're such a great gifted person. But you were disqualified. There was sin in your life. Can that happened to the Apostle Paul? Paul says yes. I I preaching to others I can be 41:16 disqualified when I come to the end of the race. Verse 27. So what do I do to avoid that? I discipline my body. This has got nothing to do with ministry. This has got to do with life. In order to finish my race properly, uh 41:32 the living Bible paraphrase is beautiful here. I make my body do what it should do and not what it wants to do. My body may want to do many things, but Paul says, I make it do what it should do as the 41:49 temple of the Holy Spirit. My eyes want to look somewhere but God says no. So I don't allow my wise eyes to look in that direction where I may be tempted to lust. God says turn your eyes away. There's so much of evil around the world 42:07 today with immodestly dressed women. And like someone has said the first look is temptation. The second look is sin. Do you have a second look? I discipline my body 42:23 so that it does what it should do. There are so many thoughts that go into my mind and and my tongue is always ready to speak. But I tell my tongue, you're not going to speak what you like. You're going to speak what you should speak, not what 42:42 you want to speak. My hands may be wanting to do so many things that are sinful. type letters to hurt people, emails. Say, "No, you're not going to type that email. You're not going to do. You're not going 43:00 to click on that mouse to a site on the internet that you're not supposed to go to. I'm not going to allow my hand. I'm going to discipline my hand. I'm going to discipline my eyes. I'm going to discipline my tongue." Paul says, 43:16 "Otherwise, with all preaching to others and healing the sick and casting out demons, I'll be disqualified." He's referring to Matthew 7:22. Paul, he had that healthy fear. I find that a lot of Christians today don't have that 43:33 healthy fear. That's why their life is so shallow. That's why they don't grow in grace. They don't grow in the knowledge of the Lord. They don't grow in knowledge of the word. They don't get fresh revelations from the word. They don't hear God speaking 43:49 to them in a living way from his word. We're not to end like that. So I wanted to clarify that concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit that coming from within and gifted. If you have that balance, that's what we see in 44:06 Jesus Christ. That's what we see in Paul where the filling inside was more important than the overflow. Our ministry should be an overflow of the wonderful walk we have with Jesus in our inner private life. 44:25 And it may be different ways God ministers to others through us. That's up to him. But let's never forget it must from the come from the innermost being. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we pray you'll help us 44:48 to receive with seriousness the implanted word that it may produce eternal fruit. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
