Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: Jesus is not merely giving us victory, church, he is our victory. He is our strength. We fight not for victory, but from victory and quite frankly we don't even need to fight, we just need to rest. And he does what we cannot do.

If defeat and struggle describes your life today, stick around for Abounding Grace as Pastor Ed Taylor will help you see the victory is already yours in Christ. We're making our way through Galatians one verse at a time. Today we'll be visiting quite a number of scriptures, but our primary text is Galatians 2:20. Let's lean in and listen to part two of Pastor Ed's message, Victory Over Your Struggles.

As we're studying the doctrine of grace through the book of Galatians, it's just so encouraging to me because I have to face my past. It has to come up constantly. Sharing my testimony, sharing what God has done, thinking about Marie and I coming up on another wedding anniversary and just thinking about the miracle of our marriage, the miracle of our home, the miracle that we're even alive. I have to face these things, but the miracles all come with the pain and the difficulty. I can't do anything about that. I mean, I wish I could undo it, but I can't.

Instead of beating myself up and instead of walking in guilt and shame and condemnation because the Bible tells me not to do that, you know what the Bible tells me? There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ. I claim that's mine. That's true. I believe it. And so when I look back on our past, I go, yes, it's horrible, but look what God has done.

And this is a perpetual state of struggle for some of you because I'll ask you how things are going. "Well, I had victory for a while and then I fell again." I'm like, "What do you mean you fell again? Why is that the place that you're going to take me? Why don't you take me to the 30 years you've been walking with the Lord? Why don't you take me to the 40 days that you were strong? How about the three days you fasted and prayed? How about the time that God used you? Why do you always take me to defeat?"

And I'll tell you why. Because you're living in defeat and forgetting about the goodness of God. You are measuring your life by your own good works or bad works when that's not the measurement of God. The measurement of God over your life and mine is his grace. And he draws us with cords of love, desiring us to serve him and enjoy him not with grudging hearts, but with joyful hearts.

You're a new creation. There's true that we do wrestle with the flesh, but there's great victory in the spirit. It's true the old man shows up sometimes. It kind of scares us at times where maybe you were a person that had a big problem in your past with anger and God delivered you from it. You are not that angry person anymore, but then you did get angry and it scares you. "Whoa, wait a minute. What happened? Who's this guy?" This is where the Bible says in Romans you're to reckon the old man dead.

You see, now as a believer when those things come in our lives, we have a remedy and that is repentance. We have a remedy. We can actually go to the person now and we want to. We can go to the person and say these powerful words. You might want to write them down. Are you ready? Write these down. These are powerful words that will take you on the path of victory. You look someone in the eye and you say, "Will you forgive me?"

That's victory right there. The enemy has no power over you in the flesh. No power when you walk in the newness of life. In Romans chapter 6 and verse 7, it says, "For he who has died has been freed from sin." I want you to believe that. You have been freed from the power of sin over your life. It is not that you will become sinless, not until we meet Jesus face to face, but you will sin less. A whole lot less as you walk in the newness of life by faith.

Again, another problem. I could already hear it in the room. Nobody's saying it out loud, but I can read your minds. And I can hear it online, hear it in someone's car. "But Pastor, it doesn't feel that way." Now we're getting somewhere. It doesn't feel that way. You've got a big battle with your feelings. I do too. I am a very emotional person. When I feel something high and exciting, I feel it deep. I enjoy, I love celebrations. I love to be excited. I feel it deep. There's no halfway for me, which also means when I hurt, I feel it deep. When I'm sad, I need to watch out for depression. It's just part of our makeup.

I'm grateful that the Bible says that I get to follow Jesus by faith and not by feelings. Because here's the problem with feelings. Feelings are real. Some of us feel them really, really deep, but feelings don't always tell us the truth about the situation. And we need to choose to match those feelings of failure, those feelings of fear, those feelings of never getting victory, all of the things that are lies against the truth of God's word. We need to learn to match those feelings with faith.

For example, some of you, you are not loving your wives as Christ loved the church. "I just can't do it, Pastor. You just don't know who I married. I'm struggling with loving my wife." No, you're not struggling, you're choosing not to love your wife. "Well, Pastor, I'm just struggling with submitting." I just want to lighten it up a little bit. It's a heavy time. But some of the wives here, "I don't want to submit. I'm having a hard time just struggling with submitting to my husband as unto the Lord." No, not really. Your feelings, you might have been hurt, you might also fear abandonment.

There's a lot of feelings that go in our marriages, but I do know this: if by faith I trust God, I can love my wife self-sacrificially. I don't need a self-help book for that. I have the Lord who will teach me to be the man that I need to be so that my wife will blossom and be the woman that God intended her to be. God has put me in her life to help her grow. She's not in my life to serve me, I'm in her life to serve her. That's what the Bible says. If I believe that, then it won't be a struggle for me. The struggle might be to die to myself. There might be a lot of struggles, but it won't be to love my wife as Christ loved the church. Why? Because I know what love is from Christ who died for me.

And ladies, as hard as it may be for you to submit to your husband right now in this season of your life, you can look back to a very difficult marriage between Abraham and Sarai and she had a faith in God that was so great that she was able to submit to Abram in such a way where she honored God. How? By faith. It wasn't the behavior of her husband. As a matter of fact, the behavior of her husband was the exact opposite of what you would expect from a godly man. What motivated and moved her? It was God and his faithfulness in her life. And she accessed that by faith.

I know the feelings are real. I live them myself. I know that in discouragement, it's very easy to throw yourself a pity party. And you invite people to the pity party, guess who shows up? Other pity party people. It's kind of a very difficult place to be. But I thank God for the men and women that would speak truth into my life because pain in my life has actually, and feelings will do this, feelings will cause me to doubt the truthfulness of God. And one of the doctrines, one of the characteristics of the nature of God is his sovereignty.

And let me tell you something right now. We all love the sovereignty of God when it works in our favor. "Oh God, you gave me this job. Oh God, I thank you for this. Oh God, you're so sovereign over my life. I trust you in my life." And then pain hits. "Oh no, I don't like sovereignty. Something's wrong here." Because I've interpreted sovereignty as only good for me, but the sovereignty is only good for God in what he's doing. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know why. I don't know. But I do know God.

And I know his feelings, they will take me away from faith. I would rather trust my untrustworthy feelings than a trustworthy God. And that's something you need to hear today. It is not okay to replace faith with your feelings. And I would just add to that that you can feel really hard and really deep and still have faith in God at the same time. You can trust God with what you're feeling right now, but here's what you can't do. Church, this is the pathway of victory. This is what you can't do. You can't use your feelings as an excuse to sin against God. You will pay the price for that. And it's actually not your feelings anymore, it's actually your choices. You guys with me?

Number two, Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. Not only are you a new creation, but as a new creation, you have a new life. This is so fascinating, so glorious, and so powerful when we think about what God has done for us, what we could never do for ourselves. Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. We looked at this last time. "I have been crucified with Christ." And by the way, I want to just walk through this real quickly with you. Circle the word "crucified". It is not referring to the physical death that Jesus experienced in your life. What I mean by that is none of us died on a cross. None of us was hung on a Roman cross. None of us experienced the torturous death of Christ.

So when we have been crucified, it is identifying with the crucifixion of Christ. And so if you want to understand this word, you can circle it and you can write the word next to it, "rendered inoperative". Your old man, when you were crucified, you rendered inoperative the reality of your old man. You can entertain him, you can bring him back, but who you were is not who you are, which is so good. So I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. Why? Because he loved me and he gave himself for me.

When you and I were born again, we were born to live a new life with new power, new strength, new everything. We're no longer our old selves. We reckon the old man dead, we live in new life. We render inoperative the old man doesn't have any control over us. We are now under new ownership in Jesus. And the victorious Christian life is nothing less than the life of Christ being lived through the child of God. Let me repeat that. The victorious Christian life is nothing less than the life of Christ being lived through the child of God. Any behavior that is not dependent upon him living his life through us comes from our flesh.

Let me define this. We'll get into it deeper when we go farther along in Galatians verse by verse, but let me define this word "flesh". Obviously, there's a use of the word flesh in the Bible that refers to your skin, it refers to your human body. And that is the physical definition. There is a spiritual definition as well. And I want to give you two thoughts with what it means to live apart from the resources of Christ, to live in your own strength.

So when you think of the word flesh, I want you to think number one, your old sinful habit patterns. When the flesh rises up, it is your response to something that didn't come from God. So for example, some of us we got saved later in life, so what that means is we have years and years and years of bad sinful habit patterns. Those weren't quickly broken because we have a new nature, but we have an old brain. Anybody have an old brain? Give me an amen. You still think the same way. God is transforming your brain. He's transforming your mind. We are in what the process the Bible says of sanctification.

We're becoming more and more like Christ, which means we're going to sin a whole lot less, but we are not complete yet. We have not experienced glorification. We don't have our new bodies yet. So when you think of the flesh, it's just old sinful habits. They don't control you because the old man died, but they're a part of you and you've got to reject them. Another way to think of the flesh is to think of it in such a way where you are leaning on yourself. Leaning on yourself.

When you think of the flesh, you're really refusing all that God has for you and choosing to live in your own wisdom, your own strength, your own bank account, your own everything, which those of you that do this, you know exactly how limited your resources are. They run out so quickly. You wake up in the morning and you read that book so you put a sticky note up there on your mirror. "You're going to be a good, you're a good person, Ed. I know." And you just talk to each other in the mirror. "I'm going to be good today." And then you get to work and she's still there. Uh-huh. What happened to the sticky note?

You were a good person in the mirror, but now you're being tested. You're not going to be able to pass the test in your own strength. You have to die to yourself and say, "Lord, give me the strength to love this person for you." Doesn't matter what I think, doesn't matter how selfish I am, doesn't matter how upset I am, none of those things matter because I'm on the earth for you, God. So I need your strength. You're a God-powered man.

Which leads us to number three: you have new victories. New victories. Second Corinthians chapter 2 now, verse 14. You're a new creation with a new life that leads to new victories. Here in verse 14 it says, Second Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14, "Now thanks be to God who always," circle that word, "always leads us in triumph or victory in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place." Church, as born again men, women, and children, we are always led in victory, always, which means this is not a passive choice that it just doesn't happen to us.

If someone's leading us, what do we need to respond with? We need to follow. If he's leading us and I follow the lead of Christ, because it's counter-intuitive, isn't it? When you're hurt, you experience pain, the counter-intuitive leading of Jesus says forgive them. "I'm not going to forgive them." Well, then don't experience victory. It's your choice. Be in the flesh. "Not only am I not going to forgive them, I'm going to get vengeance." Oh, come on, man. Where did that come from? Didn't come from the Lord. Didn't come from his word. That's not an act of faith. That's your flesh. That's your old sinful habits. That's how you used to handle things. And how did that work out for you?

It brought you to the end of yourself. Do you want to be brought to the end of yourself again? Then go ahead and rebel against God. But you want victory? Just follow Jesus. He said forgive them. Love them. Serve them. Take care of them. Be generous. And on and on. It's so powerful. I need to follow him. Romans chapter 6, verse 13. "Don't present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness."

The sin has a way of dragging a person down to the point where they're consistently living in disobedience. And then they call that struggling. That's not struggling, it's disobedience. You're believing the lie and you're living in unbelief. Hearts are becoming conformed to this world and faith is being ripped off. We all have to deal with the world and stumbling sins, every single one of us. But thanks be to God, our encourager. The enemy's not wanting to deceive and destroy, but thanks be to our God because he always leads us in victory. Once we start following him, we know we have the victory.

One of the simple ways you can do that is just whenever you're faced with temptation, you immediately begin praying. You're already following the Lord. "Lord, you see me. You see what I'm feeling." Because again, I'm not naive in many ways and there are people even listening to me right now that are planning their sin. That's not struggle. It's disobedience. And so just call it what it is. Can you imagine if you started calling things what they are, how much you would change? "Hey brother, how you been?" "Oh, I'm struggling." Okay, don't use that anymore. "How you doing, brother?" "Oh, I'm just planning my sin. Going to rob a bank tomorrow, whatever." It's like, "Really? This doesn't sound like struggle." And then all of a sudden, if you share the truth, you start hearing what am I doing? This is not me. Why am I thinking like this? Why am I even I mean, the reality of victory being yours is right here. He always leads us in victory.

This is a picture of the Roman parade of triumph. After a general had won a victory, he would come and have a massive parade. And his sons would follow him sharing in the victory. And the picture here is Jesus going to and fro throughout the whole world in his victory parade, and we get to follow him. Wherever he goes, there's victory. Jesus is not merely giving us victory, church, he is our victory. He is our strength. We fight not for victory, but from victory and quite frankly we don't even need to fight, we just need to rest. And he does what we cannot do.

Psalm 98, verse 1. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gained him the victory. Proverbs 21:31. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance is from the Lord. First Corinthians 15:57. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 8, verse 37. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Shall I go on? I don't need to. I've given you enough. You can look the rest up yourself. Powerful truths of the victory that's over. Whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. I taught you that earlier. Did you not remember it? This is what overcomes the world, even our faith. So you need to leave here believing God today.

Which leads us to number four. Not only are we new creations with a new life, with new victories, but we have a new power source. Remember what Jesus said, Acts chapter 1, verse 8, to that group of the early church? Remember what he said? He says, "Don't you leave Jerusalem, you wait. The Holy Spirit's going to come upon you and give you power." The Greek word there is *dunamis*. We get our English word dynamic. It's going to be an unexplainable power. It's going to be a transformative power. Power to overcome, power to walk by faith, power to live the life that only Jesus desires because he dwells. Don't you leave Jerusalem. You have new power. There's a new power. You don't have to lean on your own understanding.

That's why a person even today that is born again in this room in just a few moments has as much power as the saint that's been walking with the Lord for 50 years. The same power. The same victory. The same new identity. Everything's the same. What they don't have is all this baggage that we carry as Christians. "Well, you know, I heard this and I watched this and I" just read your Bible and pray. The Lord will give you strength and wisdom on how to live your life. Trust him with your life. Live for him.

The victory is already ours. When you're struggling, claim the victory. You can claim victory. It's yours. This isn't claiming victory because I'm going to demand from God. God says, "Take what I'm giving you. Take it. It's yours. Walk away with it." Can you imagine giving your kids the I remember years ago, we were going all over the place to get our kids the toys they wanted and they're sold out everywhere and we did whatever we could, paid double, put it under the tree. He goes, "Oh, I don't want that." What? Whose kid are you? You're Mom's kid, I'm sure. No, you're Dad's kid. You can say either one.

But when you struggle, you claim that victory. You're a new creation with new life, new victories, new power, and it's impossible to struggle and rest at the same time. It's impossible to believe and not believe at the same time. It's impossible to walk in the spirit and walk in the flesh at the same time. You must choose. Moment by moment. It's time today to choose right now as the Lord's speaking to you.

Guest (Male): Well, there you have four things that will help you see the victory that's already yours. You are a new creation. You have new life. You have new victories. And you have a new power source. This is Abounding Grace. What you just heard is a message from Pastor Ed Taylor titled Victory Over Your Struggles. You can hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Hey, this is Pastor Ed here at Calvary and Abounding Grace Media and I'd like to let you know about our brand new book. It's only a few months old. It's titled "Letting Go of Your Past". It was written during a time where in our church, a lot of the issues we were dealing with had to do with unforgiveness, feeling stuck, dealing with church hurt, family hurt. And I began to teach a series of Bible studies for our church that we edited into book form that will help you greatly.

And the neat thing about this book is not only will it help you move forward and get unstuck, but all the net proceeds go to our missionaries. And so it's kind of a double win. So if you're looking for a resource like this for yourself or for a friend or a family member, the title "Letting Go of Your Past" by Ed Taylor. You can get it on our store at calvarystore.com. That's calvarystore.com or you really you can pick it up anywhere. It's available wherever you get books. There's even an audio version. So if you like audiobooks, I'm really happy the way that came out. Thank you for supporting the ministry. I just know the Lord's going to use this book. He already is. And so be sure to get a copy or two.

Guest (Male): Request a copy of "Letting Go of Your Past" today when you give a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE or order online at calvaryco.store. And please remember we are listener-supported. We'd very much appreciate your standing with us. If the Lord is leading you to take an active role in this ministry through either a one-time gift or ongoing support, please visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE.

Next time on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed, see why it's foolish to leave grace. We'll be entering Galatians chapter 3.