WYC 2013: Always Ready

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GYC West

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready for Freedom

Chad Kreuzer

Fadia Kreuzer

Overcoming Seminar, Part 1

Heavenly Father, we're seeking your presence.

We know that Revelation tells us that you've called a generation, you've called a people to be overcomers.

You've really called the history of earth to be overcomers, but in a special way you've called us.

And I pray right now that as we study your word, as we study science, as we study health, that we would grasp hold of you and the principles that you've given us, that we would become the people you've called us to be, that we would find strength to overcome through our Savior Jesus, For we pray in His name, amen.

Now, before we actually go into overcoming, I just wanna preface it with kind of the thought that sometimes when we think of overcoming, we can come into under the notion or the perspective that we have to overcome to be saved, meaning if I do the right thing, then I deserve salvation.

And I want you to think about this for a moment.

Is it possible to be saved by your works?

And I'm gonna tell you the only way to be saved by your works, and it would work like this.

The Bible says in Romans chapter 6, verse 23, does anybody know?

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, right?

That means that if you've sinned, you deserve what?

Well, the Bible tells us in Romans 3, Verse 23, for all have sinned and come short or fallen short of the glory of God.

And according to that, then that means that everybody deserves what?

In essence, we've all sinned, and we have now the death sentence put upon us.

And imagine this with me for just a moment.

Imagine a criminal in the state of Texas.

You may know that Texas is the state that executes more people than any other state.

So imagine a man is caught molesting and killing 30 children in the state of Texas.

Now if he is caught, if he is found guilty, I can almost guarantee you that individual is going to receive the death sentence in the state of Texas.

Whether or not you agree with it, it doesn't matter.

So the wages of sin in Texas for certain sins is death.

Now imagine that man who, let's say he even admits it.

All the evidence points, there's no way around it, he did this, and he is now put on death row.

Now while he's on death row awaiting his execution by let's say the electric chair, how many good deeds does this man have to do to make up for all of those 30 children he's murdered?

How many good things does he have to do to make up for what he's done?

There is no number of good deeds he could ever do to make up for his sins of the past?

If you receive, if your crime or your sin is worthy of death, how many good things do you have to do to deserve eternal life?

There's no amount of good things you could do to deserve eternal life.

Meaning, let's say we wanted to somehow be righteous by our own goodness and by our own works.

The only way we could do it is to, number 1, you have to receive the death penalty, so you have to die.

And then you would have to resurrect yourself and then live a perfect life.

So the only way that you could actually be righteous by your works is to receive the death penalty and then after you receive the death penalty to live to resurrect yourself and then live a perfect life after that point.

So what we have discovered that it is impossible, impossible to be righteous by your own best works.

So right at the beginning, right at the outset of this overcoming session or of the sessions that we're going to go through, we've discovered that it is impossible to be righteous by your works.

So the overcoming we're talking about is not overcoming to be good enough to be saved.

You will never in and of yourself, even let's say you stop sinning today and you never sinned until Jesus came.

Because you can't make up for all the past sins.

Another illustration of it would be like this.

If I went into a Walmart today and stole a candy bar, and then tomorrow, shame on me, right?

I mean, that's, and then tomorrow I don't steal a candy bar from Walmart.

Does that make up for the fact that I stole 1 yesterday?

So do you see how quitting sin does not cleanse you from sin?

It doesn't expunge your sins from the books.

So we need something much better than just stopping sinning and thinking that makes us good enough.

Now, the reality is that God says He's going to have a group of overcomers, but they do not overcome to be saved, but they overcome in response to the salvation they have received in Jesus Christ.

And I want to let you know, and we may actually, you know, I think maybe I'll do a session on that while we're here in these overcoming seminars.

John says in the first epistle of John, 1 John chapter 5, verse 13, John said, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.

John says 1 of the reasons that he wrote the book of first John is so that you would know that you have eternal life You can know that you have eternal life In eternal life is not based upon being good enough It is based upon a relationship with Jesus.

He can and will give his people victory in the last days, those who are faithful to him.

But they do not become faithful to be saved.

It is meaning they don't do the right thing to be saved.

They do it in response to the saving relationship they already have.

But we can know that we have eternal life.

Sometimes we fear, but isn't there that quote?

Isn't there a quote that says, ìNo sanctified tongue will be found saying, ìI am saved.îî Yes, there is that quote.

But she's speaking in response right there to the kind of, there's a mainstream perspective in some of the Christian circles that goes like this.

I accepted Jesus as my savior, then I went on and I said the sinner's prayer.

I don't know that the Bible actually mentions the sinner's prayer like it's mentioned by many people although we ought to come to Jesus repentance confession and accepting him as our personal Savior But they believe after they've accepted Jesus and claimed Forgiveness claimed the Jesus death on the cross and they've accepted that that from that point on they are saved and they can never sin.

They believe that they can, not that they can never sin, but that they cannot be lost.

So, the reality is she was combating that issue, the issue of saying, for instance, let's say I say, maybe you've heard this, a guy holding a beer in 1 hand, a cigarette in the other, and saying, I'm saved, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

What she's saying is no sanctified tongue will ever be found saying that.

Meaning that I accepted Jesus, I can go on for the rest of my life and I can sin.

But John wrote a book of the Bible to tell us that you can know that you have eternal life.

So you see there must be a balance between the idea that I'm going to walk around for the rest of my life just wondering, am I in a saving relationship with Jesus?

I don't know if I'm in a saving relationship.

Overcoming Seminar, Part 2

Well, let's begin with a word of prayer for our session 2.

Heavenly Father, we come before you just now seeking your presence, seeking to know you more.

My prayer is that now as we talk on some very serious subjects, then we move on to science and other issues.

That you would teach us, that you would guide us through your word, through science, through health, and that you would help us to live out the health principles, that they have a bigger impact on our mental and spiritual life than maybe we have formerly realized.

So we pray that your blessing would be upon us.

It's not like maybe somebody's coming here.

There are questions about many different things.

People ask, they wonder about premarital sexual relations, you know, not just sex, but you know, everything other than sex that leads up to sex before they are married.

Other people, you know, question homosexuality.

There's kind of the nature versus nurture issue that people wonder, was I born this way?

Maybe it was from sexual abuse as a child, whatever it would be.

People wonder, maybe God doesn't really care about drinking alcohol, different kinds of things.

But what does the Bible say on these issues?

And How do we learn to overcome these things in general?

We're going to be talking throughout the seminar more about overcoming.

So this is just kind of preliminary to those things.

But I want you to think about this as we begin.

These issues, now before we read what the Bible says, it has been said, and I'm no geneticist.

But people say that somebody could be born with the gene for alcoholism.

Now that would mean that, for instance, if your great grandfather was an alcoholic and your grandfather was an alcoholic and your father was an alcoholic, could it be possible that you would be born with a gene for alcoholism, yes or no?

You could be born with maybe a natural tendency from your nature that would cause you to want alcohol.

Now, OK, sometimes we think of that in When we apply it to many different things, like for instance, the Bible talks about the flesh.

Romans 8, 5, and 6, For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Paul also said in Romans 7, verse 18, For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing.

So, according to Paul, what is in my flesh, and maybe Paul's word for flesh would have been jeans, right?

I Know that inside of me nothing Naturally good dwells.

So he says for I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing.

He goes on to say, for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not, or I don't have.

So inside of me, I have all this bad, but I don't naturally have the good inside of me, Paul says.

So according to the Bible, the biblical perspective is that we are naturally sinful, we are naturally what the Bible calls carnal, we are naturally fleshly.

So we could say, could it be true that we are born with a tendency for selfishness?

You've heard the illustration and it's true, you don't have to teach a child to share their, well no, you do have to teach them to share their toys, you don't have to teach them to take the ball away from Billy and say, mine, right?

You don't teach, Do parents teach their children that?

Or what the Bible would call a part of their flesh.

So we could say, yeah, maybe it's a part of our nature to lie for selfish purposes.

Yeah, it's a part of our nature to do different things, but then when we apply it to other areas of the life, people become terrified.

Well, Let's talk about these things for a moment.

If you don't have them, you can just listen along to 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

1 Corinthians chapter 6, we're going to begin right in verse 9.

Now what I think that, this is just personal opinion, but in my opinion, this passage here is 1 of the scariest passages in all of scripture, but in my estimation It's also 1 of the most hopeful passages in all of Scripture.

Something could be extremely terrifying and yet very, very hopeful at the same time.

But I think that you'll see why as we go through.

And we're looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 9.

1 Corinthians 6 verse 9 says, Know ye not, or don't you know, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

Another way to say that is, don't you know, unrighteous people don't go to Heaven?

They don't inherit the Kingdom of God or the New Earth.

Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God." So, Paul lists off all of these sins, he's speaking to the church in Corinth, And he says to them, don't you know that the unrighteous don't go to heaven?

And just in case you're wondering what unrighteous people are like, he just lists what they're like and he lists off their sins.

And you know, he begins with, be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor adult, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves, of mankind, and so forth and so on.

We're going to go through all of these quickly and try to figure out what does this mean?

Now I'm reading from the King James, so these words are words, many of them, that we don't use very much today.

A newer translation would make it much more clear than what I'm sharing with you right now.

So you've got to kind of break it down and maybe look into a concordance or look at another translation.

So Paul says this, I'll give you an example.

I was in the state of, I believe it was Arkansas, I was doing an evangelistic meeting and I was talking about the 10 Commandments, specifically the fourth, and talking about the fact that the Bible says that we are called as God's people to be victorious, that we are to keep the law of God.

And this lady said, ìNo, I donít need to.

I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, so I donít have to keep the law of God.

And I knew she was a married woman and I said, ma'am, if you decided that you were going to go around town and sleep around with all the guys in town for the rest of your life until Jesus came back.

I said, if you were going to go sleep around town for the rest of your life, I was being very graphic, very open with her, when Jesus came back and you were living in this sin, sleeping around, you're still married, would Jesus take you to heaven?

I want you to read, and then I brought her to this text, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." And then she says, Paul says rather, be not what?

And then he says, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers shall inherit the kingdom of God.

So, I had to read this verse and I said, so Paul says, don't be deceived, adulterers don't go to heaven.

I said, ma'am, according to this, if you choose to live that lifestyle until Jesus comes back, will you be saved?

Overcoming Seminar, Part 3

Heavenly Father, once again, we're seeking you.

We want to be overcomers through your word, through the principles that you've given us.

We pray for your presence and your Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus.

You know, 1 of the things to think about is if you were going to, I was just talking after the last session with someone, and if you were to go to battle, if you were going to go to war, and imagine your enemy was extremely powerful, and you were told if you put on certain armor, you'll win the battle.

I'll bet I can take them on with my fists.

Almost nobody would do that if you knew that there were certain things, there were certain armor that would make at least a battle easier, right?

Maybe it isn't invincible armor, but it's armor that makes the battle easier.

Probably if you were going to battle and someone told you this will make fighting much, much easier, you would probably want to do it.

And that's some of the principles that we're going to be looking at through health and through science are principles that they don't guarantee the victory, but they make the victory easier.

We saw this at the end of our last message, and then we'll press forward right after that.

Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist at Stanford University, has argued that the main job of the prefrontal cortex is to bias the brain or to lead the brain, and therefore you, toward doing the harder thing.

When it's easier to stay on the couch, your prefrontal cortex makes you want to get up and exercise.

And when it's easier to put off that project until tomorrow it's your prefrontal cortex that helps you open the file and make progress anyway.

So the frontal lobe kind of encourage you to do the harder thing and we discussed that the harder thing is many times the better thing, right?

Meaning, yeah I'd rather sleep in and I don't know not go to work or whatever but in reality if you do that long enough sooner or later you have problems in your life.

So, doing the harder thing helps in the end.

And we saw that Jesus, He chose to follow His conscience, He chose to follow the Holy Spirit, He chose to follow the Father's will in all things.

Jesus said, I can of mine own self, in John chapter 5 verse 30, I can of mine own self do nothing." We think He does it because it's easy.

Yeah, if I were God, I could overcome temptation too, right?

Jesus said, I can of my own self do nothing.

But when he became a human, he had to make decisions just like you do, just like I do.

And that was trusting in the Heavenly Father.

And that's why he said, John 5, 30, I can of mine own self do nothing as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which has sent me." So Jesus had to have all of his power from an outside source and he would do the difficult thing.

It would be difficult not to eat for 40 days, right?

But he did that in order to gain victory over appetite, right?

To find victory over that and if he could gain victory over appetite He would be enabled to find victory in any other area of life And so Jesus did the harder thing and we saw in our last message that First Peter 4 verse 1 and 2 says for as much sin as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh arm yourselves likewise with the same mind so Jesus suffered in the flesh if we're gonna overcome temptation it will cause suffering there will be difficulty to overcome temptation it will will suffer on the inside but it brings about peace and joy when through God's strength we overcome So we need to arm ourselves with the same mind For he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased or stopped sinning So when you suffer in the flesh when you go through that you can cease from sin That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but unto God." Now we're going to press forward for a little bit, and I'm going to show you something very interesting.

I read this book recently called Spark, the revolutionary new science of exercise in the brain.

And had some very interesting things in it.

These things can be applied to other things, not just smoking.

But in particular, this statement was about smoking.

In smokers, just 5 minutes of intense exercise can be beneficial.

Exercise first fights the urge to smoke because in addition to smoothly increasing dopamine, when you exercise vigorously, it increases your dopamine and that's kind of your feel good chemical in your body, 1 of them anyway.

So you feel better when you vigorously exercise.

You may get sore, but after a while you get used to that.

In addition to smoothly increasing dopamine, it also lowers, notice what vigorous exercise does.

It lowers anxiety, tension and stress levels.

The fact that exercise sharpens thinking comes into play here.

Because 1 of the withdrawal symptoms of nicotine is impaired focus.

So Exercise actually sharpens your thinking skills.

If you struggle with paying attention, vigorous exercise actually helps.

Now, I've heard it said, some people say, well, we're told that, you know, that, what is it, That walking is the most important exercise.

And I looked it up and it's walking is the most important exercise for invalids.

So exercise, walking is extremely important.

So many of us young people, she also talks specifically about needing vigorous exercise.

And I don't know about you, but a gingerly walk doesn't add up to vigorous exercise for me.

Now, if you're out of shape, maybe all you can do is walk.

But there's something that science is discovering that your brain actually strengthens by exercise.

Your critical thinking skills, your focus can be sharpened by getting vigorous exercise.

So when somebody's trying to quit smoking or actually when somebody's trying to overcome any temptation, 1 of the things you want is a sharp mind.

And in order to have a sharp mind, 1 of the things you want to do is learn to have vigorous exercise.

Now, once again, if you are sick, don't try to overdo it.

Make sure with your doctor that you can handle such a thing.

We're not encouraging people to hurt themselves.

Researchers found that exercise dramatically reduced withdrawal symptoms in the exercise and morphine group when they cut off the drugs.

So if somebody's trying to get off of drugs, and I don't imagine you're all trying to get off of drugs, but if someone's trying to get off of drugs, good exercise will actually help with the withdrawal symptoms.

Now Fadi is gonna come up and she's gonna tell us about Nurse Patricia, a lady who had a frontal, she chose to have a frontal lobotomy.

Okay, so Nurse Patricia, she struggled with depression, and she hoped that a frontal lobotomy would help her with her guilt.

And that's pretty much like you saw Phineas Gage in an earlier session where the frontal lobe was destroyed and his character changed, right?

And she was hoping that destroying the frontal lobe would help her with her guilt.

Because remember where you think about things and struggle with things is in the frontal lobe.

And so she just didn't want to think about stuff anymore.

And that's not how we deal with our problems, right?

Because remember, destroying the frontal lobe is not going to help you with your problems because some people drink their way into destroying their frontal lobe.

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WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready for Freedom

Overcoming Seminar, Part 6

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