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Everything You Need
9 Plays11 months ago
Vernon continues the discussion on the critical elements of walking free. The lie we often hear is that we are lacking something, or God is holding out, or we need to try some new idea to REALLY "get free". The truth is we have everything we need. Vernon will take us though a few verses in 2 Peter to highlight that truth.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Walking Free'
00:00:03
Speaker
This is your host Vernon Terrell with Grace Ministries International and it's time for Walking Free. And welcome
Exploring 'Walking Free' Concept
00:00:22
Speaker
back. I want to continue in a conversation we had last time on this idea of walking free, what the podcast is all about and
00:00:32
Speaker
Last time we talked about looking in the mirror and what do you really see?
Faith and Colossians 2:6
00:00:38
Speaker
And today I wanna continue the discussion around this idea of everything you need. And before we jump into the main part of the verses I wanna share with you, let's just take a look at Colossians 2.6.
00:00:59
Speaker
And if you have a Bible, now if you're walking or writing or driving, yeah, don't do this, don't get your Bible out. But if you have, if you're in a place where you can look at your phone, Bible on your phone, or a paper Bible, I think they still exist, turn to some of these verses.
Walking by Faith from Rest
00:01:20
Speaker
These are powerful, Colossians 2.6, and I use this, I love this verse, and I use it a lot, therefore,
00:01:27
Speaker
as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. And the question is, how did you receive him? Well, you received him by faith, right? That's how we're to walk in him, and that's how we are to express, it's by faith. It's always by faith. So this idea of walking in him
00:01:57
Speaker
by faith is that little word in is this little Greek preposition in, transliterated en, and it's this idea of operating from a position of rest. There's a preposition that talks about going into another preposition, ech, going out of, and this is kind of in the middle.
00:02:28
Speaker
from a position of rest. So as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk, resting in him.
Divine Power for Life
00:02:40
Speaker
From that position of rest, he is your life. With that context, I want you to, let's dive over to this verses in 2 Peter.
00:02:56
Speaker
And second Peter has got a lot of powerful stuff. And if we just jump right to verse three, Peter says this, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness,
00:03:26
Speaker
Big word. He's granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness. And here's where I think the enemy wants to present the lie. The enemy wants you to believe that you are missing something. I think it's the same lie in the garden that tripped up Adam and Eve.
The Enemy's Lie and Adam & Eve
00:03:51
Speaker
That, you know, God said, oh, we could eat everything.
00:03:56
Speaker
from every tree in the garden. There's a lot of trees, a lot of things to eat, except for this one. And the enemy deceives them to thinking God's holding back. He's holding out on them. And I think it's the same lie that we get today from the enemy that God is somehow holding out on us. There's something else.
00:04:23
Speaker
We don't have everything we need. We must go searching for something, another program, some other trick to really get free, to really know God. You're missing something. So we go off on these little tangents and probably they're good things in terms of maybe we're in the Word, we're reading some other material and we're getting information.
00:04:53
Speaker
but we're trying to get something that we already have. The lie is that God is holding out and that you are missing something, that you do not have everything you need.
New Creations in Christ
00:05:10
Speaker
And the truth, as Peter tells us in 2 Peter, chapter one,
00:05:19
Speaker
God has given you everything you need for life and godliness. Don't fall for the deception that you're missing something. He said, oh Vernon, but you haven't seen my behavior. You don't know what I've done. Nope, I don't. God does. He certainly does.
00:05:49
Speaker
And as a believer in Christ, he says, forgiven, done, on the cross, taken care of, you're brand new. And you have everything you need right now for life and godliness. But how? I mean, how do I have everything I need? He continues in verse three.
00:06:16
Speaker
seeing that his divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and excellence. Did you know that when you accepted Christ, when you got that true, real knowledge of Jesus and received him?
Partakers of the Divine Nature
00:06:44
Speaker
At that moment,
00:06:48
Speaker
Your old self was crucified. You died. You were buried. And you were raised up a brand new creation in Christ. And the Holy Spirit came to indwell you, joined together with Him in a beautiful union. You were made brand new and joined with the God of the universe.
00:07:17
Speaker
and you have everything you need. Ephesians, Romans, so many other places in scripture that describe how we have every spiritual blessing. We've been made a saint, no longer a sinner. We're chosen. We're holy and blameless. We're adopted. We're forgiven. We are redeemed. We have all this gracious bubbling flowing over.
00:07:46
Speaker
We have His inheritance. We're sealed, saved, praised to His glory, God's own possession made alive, no longer dead. Access to the Father, we have His peace. And we have all victory in Christ. Wow. How was that? Through knowing Him.
00:08:16
Speaker
And he continues in verse four, and he says, for by these, what? Well, the end of that verse in verse three. For by these, he said he called us by his own glory and excellence, and for by these, his own glory and excellence, has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises. What promises?
00:08:43
Speaker
How about all the promises that was prophesied about the new covenant by Ezekiel. We have a new heart, a brand new spirit, God's spirit in you. We are now in Christ. We have everything we need. We're brand new, dead to sin, alive to God. How about those promises? Everything you need, so that by them, he continues, you may become partakers
00:09:14
Speaker
of the divine nature. Wow. Yeah, that's because Christ is in you and you are in him. Having already escaped, the verse continues, the corruption that's in the world by lust because you've been placed in Christ. He is setting you up for victory. He has already set you up for victory. Isn't that incredible?
00:09:44
Speaker
And then he continues in verse five.
Diligence in Faith and Virtues
00:09:52
Speaker
He sets you up, says, look, you have everything you need for life and godliness. Now, and Mike Quarles and I used to get this question all the time in our Freedom From Addiction webinars based on Mike's book, Mike and Neil Anderson's book. We'd always get the question, what do I have to do?
00:10:11
Speaker
one of our kind of pat answers was, you don't have to do anything. Because as a believer in Christ, he's done it all. Peter says this, and Paul had reiterated this in Colossians that we read, hey, as you receive Christ, that's how you're to walk by faith.
00:10:39
Speaker
You don't do anything to get more. You've already got everything you need. You're not lacking anything. So here's your next quote, unquote, step. But you know, if I pause for a moment, if I tell you, you have everything you need, and I give you all this stuff, I mean, it's like, man, you've got it all. It's like giving a teenager
00:11:06
Speaker
the keys to a brand new Ferrari and they don't know how to drive it. And that's scary. Don't know if you do that, although I'm sure some parents do that, but he continued and he says, look, here's how you start. This is how he's going to teach you how to drive this brand new Ferrari. You don't have to go out and get anything more. You got it. Now let me tell you how to drive. You ready?
00:11:34
Speaker
He says in verse five, now for this very reason, what reason? That you got everything you need. That he's granted to us all this stuff we can partake of the divine nature. We've already escaped the corruption that's in the world by lust. Deep breath. Now for this very reason in verse five, and applying all diligence
00:12:00
Speaker
I think he says this because we don't believe this, like seriously? Yeah, he goes, look, you need to be diligent about this, because you're not gonna believe it, it's gonna go against what you see. That's why we are to walk out by faith. Sometimes it's tough to see, sometimes we don't feel it. He says, applying all diligence in your faith, not in your face, in that little preposition, same one,
00:12:29
Speaker
resting from a position of rest in your faith, Lord, you've given me all this, I don't see it. You said I'm brand new, I'm a new creation, I have victory, I'm the righteousness of God, I'm holy, I'm a saint. In your faith, knowing that truth, you don't feel it. God's pleased with you seeing the smile of God in your faith.
00:12:59
Speaker
I want you to supply something. I want you to furnish something out here. Who are you furnishing it to? Well, how about everybody
Expressing Virtues through Faith
00:13:09
Speaker
around you? How about your family? How about those you work with? How about your friends? Just in life, I want you to furnish, and he starts with this one. I love it. Moral excellence. You say what? I'm just supposed to go and
00:13:27
Speaker
Be morally excellent. That word means virtue, humility, purity. So go be pure. Go be a humble, virtuous, pure person. Fern, did you see me last week? Wait, stop. Don't go there.
00:13:44
Speaker
He says, applying all diligence in your faith. Trust what God has done. Believe what you can't see right now because it's true whether you believe it or not. So you might as well, by faith, step out in moral excellence. Because the world needs to see before they hear your words. And so I think it's interesting, he says, you know what? In all diligence,
00:14:15
Speaker
Be diligent in this, I want you to go in furnace, moral excellence, this humility, purity, virtue, and in and resting in that moral excellence that you're already doing by faith, it's all from a foundation of faith. Furnace, supply knowledge, this wisdom and insight, I believe, around God, His grace, furnace knowledge, and I think, again,
00:14:43
Speaker
People want to see before they hear your words and your incredible knowledge. But he continues right after that. Here's, this is so funny. Self-control and maybe it's self-control from all your knowledge. Sometimes we need to, we need to love more than we speak, speak with our, our actions.
00:15:06
Speaker
virtue, humility, and then again, from a position of faith, from what God has done, knowledge and self-control and perseverance, this patient endurance, probably because the world's gonna come against you. It's gonna get hard. It was for the early church, but persevere.
00:15:37
Speaker
Be steadfast and patient. Continue in moral excellence, no matter what comes against you. Continue in sharing the wisdom of God and His grace and the truth that sets people free.
00:15:58
Speaker
continue in self-control because God has given you that spirit of self-control. He says that in that perseverance godliness, that's a reverence toward God and holiness and our attitudes, our actions. In godliness, brotherly kindness, it's a kindness and love like a love for your family.
00:16:24
Speaker
have that brotherly kindness and that fraternal bond with others, and then he caps it off. And from all that love, that sacrificial agape, giving love. How do you do all that? That's what Paul said. How did you receive him? Oh, yeah, by faith.
00:16:54
Speaker
walk by faith, because you don't see it, you don't feel it. He wants you to, by faith, go and allow Christ in you, and the new creation, in union with him, express the real you to the world. In 2 Peter 1.8 he says, you know, if these qualities are yours,
00:17:23
Speaker
and are increasing, we're learning, we're growing, we don't always do it right, and God says, I know, keep going, persevere. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful. In that same phrase,
00:17:47
Speaker
the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think that is the actual knowing of Christ. You're not useless and you're not unfruitful.
Bearing Fruit with Moral Excellence
00:18:02
Speaker
He said, oh, but there's so much I wanna do for God. Do that. Why don't we just do that? What? Be who you are. Walk in moral excellence and virtue and purity and humility. Oh, we need more of that.
00:18:19
Speaker
And out of that virtue and humility, knowledge is this generalized knowledge and wisdom and insight about God. And from that self-control and perseverance and godliness, brotherly kindness and love, that is who you are.
00:18:45
Speaker
And you say, I can't do that. You walk by faith trusting Christ and his power through you to express and supply that toward those that you come in contact with. That is something useful. That is bearing the fruit of Christ. But you know,
00:19:14
Speaker
Peter continues, and I dose a reality check here. He says in verse nine, for he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. You know, I think we need to have a really strong foundation of understanding our forgiveness.
00:19:45
Speaker
If we choose, or if we're deceived, and the enemy deception comes in and we believe it, and maybe he's deceiving us about who we are, and you can't do that, who do you think you are? You're brand new, seriously?
00:20:05
Speaker
But I know you wanna be, so why don't you go try harder to get more holy and do these things. You see, we go down this wrong path, and we fail, and then we just stop. And over time, we might forget even our forgiveness, our purification from our former sins.
00:20:36
Speaker
I don't want you to be on that side. I want you to experience the fruitfulness, the usefulness. God has you on this planet for a purpose. You know what that purpose is? It's to bear fruit for him. It's not about a performance. It's not about making God like you more. He loves you more than you can ever know.
00:21:03
Speaker
He can't love you any less and there's nothing you can do to make him love you more. So allow him to express and to supply through you as you walk by faith this fruit that I guarantee
00:21:22
Speaker
will make a difference in others' lives. And that's what we all want. That's what it looks like to walk free. You see, it starts with looking in the mirror and seeing the true you, the real you, to really see Christ in you, the hope of glory. But it doesn't stop there.
00:21:54
Speaker
The hard part, the part that takes some diligence is stepping out in faith. And that's why I often, probably always, sometimes it maybe doesn't even fit, but I always, I try to get the little tagline in on the podcast. It's about walking. That is what changed the world was this group of believers in Jesus Christ who were so radically changed
00:22:25
Speaker
They shared the love and grace of God that was unheard of in that day. And now it's standard operating procedure.
Radical Love of Jesus
00:22:37
Speaker
We take it for granted. Oh, giving, of course. I mean, that's a good thing to do. Giving, yeah, even unbelievers. Yeah, you know, that's a good thing we should do. Help people. It wasn't quite like that in the first century. I'm sure there were pockets.
00:22:55
Speaker
but this was the radical way that Jesus ushered in, that it's all about love and loving one another. So let me encourage you, and whatever it looks like and however you start, I want you to start, I want you to really look through and read through 2 Peter and
00:23:24
Speaker
Ask God to reveal this to you that his divine power has granted to you everything pertaining to life and godliness.
Christ's Promises and Power
00:23:35
Speaker
You have everything you need. Through the true knowledge of him, do you know Jesus? Did you receive his forgiveness in life? You've been placed in Christ and you have everything you need in him.
00:23:55
Speaker
He called you by his own glory and excellence. And for by these, he's granted to you his precious and magnificent promises. It's Christ, it's the mystery hid from the foundation of the world. Christ in you, the hope of glory. He said, you have escaped. It doesn't feel like it sometimes. Because you escaped that, don't be deceived. You're over that. You have victory in Christ.
00:24:25
Speaker
And for this very reason, I need you to apply some diligence by faith. In your faith, step out and start with this first one, moral excellence, humility, virtue, purity, just start there.
00:24:47
Speaker
and say, Father, I trust you in me to express through me this virtue, purity, humility.
Expressing Faith through Journaling
00:25:00
Speaker
Show me what that looks like, where I am right now. Give it a whirl. And then next, in that, Father, thank you for that, would you express through me as I express this moral excellence
00:25:18
Speaker
knowledge, when to speak, when not to speak. Express that, help me to supply that to others and keep going and begin your own journey. And I encourage you to journal, write down, get a journal, start writing down what God is speaking to you and how he's working through you. You're not gonna do it perfectly. Don't try, don't try to, just take a step of faith.
00:25:49
Speaker
and allow Christ to express his very life and the new creation that he is so pleased with, which is you, allow him to express the newness of life through your physical body as you interact with others.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:26:14
Speaker
Whatever that looks like for you, I want you to stop talking about it and start walking. You've been listening to Walking Free, a production of Grace Ministries International in Marietta, Georgia. For more information, go to our website at gment.org. That's gminc.org.