Jesus there in the gospel of
John said, the flesh profits nothing. It's the spirit that
quickeneth. Do you know you are born a depraved
sinner? You may be mama's little angel,
but not God's. You have an evil nature, and
with time, that nature begins to show itself in sinful practice. That's why you don't have to
teach your kids to stick out their tongue at you at three
years of age, or tell you to shut up, or all kinds of things. We know that to be true. Depraved
in our sins. And our soul is dead to God.
And in salvation, here's what happens. God gives us a new spirit. When that new spirit comes, I
don't believe you are yet converted. I believe that conversion comes
at the time that you're reconciled and you believe on Christ. But
here's what I'm saying, and some of us know what that means. Sometimes
you see me up here and it's almost like I kick into high gear. That's not my soul, that's my
spirit. That's a new spirit. I can be exceedingly happy sometimes,
all by myself, just in worship, in praise, in seeing what God
does. You worship God with your spirit,
not with a crucifix, not with fleshly outward things. Have
you ever by yourself sitting here in church just get happy?
I mean, your spirit is rejoicing. Like you're saying amen, and
you clap occasionally here. You know, in many churches, that's
totally, that's totally forbidden. You can't, you know, it's like
the old guy who went to a very, a very closed church, and the
preacher got to talking about being in Christ, He got to amen and the preacher,
amen. It was his first time there. And the usher came and tapped
him on the shoulder and said, you can't be doing that here.
He said, but I have the spirit. And the usher said, I don't care
what you got, you didn't get it here. Wrong thing to say. You notice
this young lady that was up here was down on her knees. I didn't
do a thing. I just watched her. Watched her making sure she was
all right. You know, we are so, so tight about things. This ought to be a happy crowd
today in the simplicity that's in Christ. Hey, my sins are gone.
I'm not going to hell. I'm facing death. I'm almost
75 years old, but I'm in Christ. And I'm rejoicing. We don't worship
God this way or in all of that dressed up gospel way or formality. We worship God in our spirit.
Are you sitting here today, is your spirit rejoicing? You're
worshiping God. You're saying, amen, preacher,
that's true. It's my faith in Christ alone.