We need to come together so that we can be built up in our faith,
powerfully built up, so that we can understand to resist Satan,
and to come to a life where I can be along in destroying the works of the devil.
That is our calling. That is your calling as a young person,
to come to a life where Satan has no power in your life.
Absolutely nothing.
His power is to be eradicated from your life.
So that you sense that it’s God’s Spirit that reigns in your body.
Our bodies are to be presented as a living sacrifice for Jesus Christ,
so that He has all the power and dominion in my body.
My body isn’t to be enjoyed. Lusts are not to be enjoyed.
All that is to be sacrificed,
so that I sense in my heart that I have the spirit of the world under my feet.
That’s where it belongs – under your feet!
You’re not called to be living here in the church in slavery to your lusts.
You’re called to reign with Jesus in a triumphant spirit
that reigns over all ungodliness in every shape and form!
Don’t believe anything otherwise. Everything else is a lie!
In your youth time, you can carry on in areas in your life where you know very well,
“That I should have given up a long time ago.”
“I should have been finished with those things there a long time ago in my life.”
And we can read, in this connection, about how clearly the Word of God speaks about these things.
In 1 Peter 2, it says
how I should have it if I’m going to follow Paul in the same spirit,
that the world is rubbish, is garbage.
We can’t help that we are attracted to the world;
we can’t help that we feel the temptation;
we can’t help that we feel like we’re brought into situations where we feel like we’re in deep temptation.
Then you’re totally normal, I would say.
But there is something that I have to come to in my life,
which we read here in 1 Peter 2.
“Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander …”
Slander must be another word for backbiting.
“…like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word,
so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation …”
Have you done that, dear young person?
Have you done that, so that there’s nothing more left in your heart;
there’s nothing more left in your life that you know about?
Have you put aside all malice, all deceit, all hypocrisy, all envy, all filthiness?
Have you thrown it off, like a jacket?
It’s possible to put away sins,
like today, I can from today onwards decide, and just chuck it off just like a jacket.
“Nevermore am I going to be interested in anger, the lust of the eyes, the lust of this world,
envy, malice, hypocrisy, backbiting …”
You can chuck it off!
We’re in a race to become like Jesus.
We’re in a race to meet Jesus one day!
Why then should I carry on …
with all kinds of things that I can chuck out of my life?
Why should I do that?
Why should you do that?
It’s possible to make a decision today, that forevermore that stuff is out of my life.
I’m never going to be a slave.
I’m never going to give in to that garbage.
This is an act of faith, of course.
It’s a decision from the depths of my heart.
And it’s not as if you are something special, which Satan tries to tell you, of course, that you are very special.
And your father and mother are like this, and your family is like that,
so we are weak in these areas,
and therefore I have to pull and pull and carry on and carry on.
Isn’t it glorious that we can just throw it out?
Into the garbage with it! Nevermore!
You can have tendencies, anything from being offended as a person;
I remember that very well.
It didn’t take much to get me offended.
But how long are you going to carry on with it?
How long are you going to keep on doing it?
Aren’t you sick and tired of being a slave of sin?
Are you sick and tired of it?
I’m sick and tired of it. Is anybody else? Are you really sick?
If you’re really sick of being fooled by Satan ...
The temptation comes, and I’ve seen that temptation a hundred times before.
Because I don’t have that attitude: I am finished with it!
I carry on …
And the same old stupid guy walks into the same old temptation again.
Isn’t that lovely?
You feel really smart, don’t you, when you get up from your fall and think,
“Yes, I’ve been here before.”
But you as a young person, there’s the power of God, there’s power here,
that you from today can decide,
“No more is Satan going to fool me! No more is sin going to rule in my life!”
That power is available for all those who are God-fearing and sense in their hearts;
all those who are sick of slavery,
sick of giving in to their lusts.
For such ones, there’s a huge redemption.
It’s really on my heart, when you think about this high and holy calling we’ve been given –
we’ve been called to be Jesus’ bride.
We’ve been called to constant victory; we’ve been called to reign over sin!
And then how in the world am I going to come to this life and be a part of that light
if I don’t want to put off all this stuff that is hanging on me, carries on.
I carry on, and I follow and follow and do it over again and over again.
How in the world am I going to get to that life of victory
and rest in peace if I don't make that decision?
But if you make it, if you make it,
then you’re going to experience like it says,
“… like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”
Honor and praise to God.
Let us come into this race. Let us race towards heaven.
Let us compete in all that is good.
We sense in our hearts that we are in this competition,
not to be something great in the church and push others down, and wanting to be the first guy, etc.
Not that kind of competition.
But the competition to find my own life,
to get rid of my sin, to be free, to free in my spirit,
to be happy, and to be happy in the depths of my heart.
That kind of competition where you sense, I need to be together with the others!
I need to be together with my brothers and sisters that can help me,
so I can live this life in God
and come to rest and peace.
He says there, we can go back and read about how Paul had it in Philippians 3 again.
In verse 12.
Here we can drink of the spirit that he was in.
“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect,
but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.”
Many use this verse in connection with that it hasn't gone so well with them,
and they think they should forget that which is behind.
But Paul wasn't speaking about that, I don’t think.
He was speaking about all the great victories that he had,
all that he had conquered,
all that he knew he had gotten under his feet,
all that he knew he was free from.
He was thinking about all that there,
that he could be a little bit proud of,
and think that he was something.
Paul was only interested in forgetting those things where he could feel very accomplished by here in this world.
And he was pressing toward a high goal.
It’s written there further,
“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect,
have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.”
May God strengthen us mightily so we can run in this race,
lay aside all the weights, all the things that hold us down,
and sense in our hearts that I’m in this spirit, a driver’s spirit.
I’m going forward, I’m giving, I’m sacrificing;
I’m giving what God wants me to give, and you sense in your heart: God is with me!
He’s letting it succeed!
He’s letting it succeed so that I can go forward and come into a life in God.
That is your calling as a young person,
so let’s run with all of our hearts in the days ahead.
Amen.