[Music] a Kingdom Single is an unmarried believer who has committed themselves to fully and freely maximize their completeness underneath the rule of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ but having said that and established that in the real world where we live there's still a question on the floor how do I get victory in my singleness because people struggle and we don't want our time together to be pie in the sky and you know great amen moments without the real reality of the crisis that many singles face even when they love the Lord and really want to serve the Lord and yet real life is there if you've ever watched wrestling it's basically entertainment the winners have been pre-selected and predetermined but even though they have been designated for victory they still got a battle they got to win it's interesting when you watch it that a guy looks like he could be totally being defeated destroyed even disembodied and all of a sudden power comes out of nowhere to reverse it and the victory that has been predicted takes place in the midst of the crisis of conflict the reality is God has declared you more than a conqueror victory has been declared but there's still battles to be fought and things to be overcome the strongest Christian ever to live that we are it's a pretty strong consensus that he's kind of like the number one Christian and that is the Apostle Paul we know him because he's written 13 books of the New Testament and he started all these churches and he was demonstrated this vim and vigor and vitality for God as a single man but we don't talk as much about his battles great Christian but he wasn't always without the wrestling match of struggles as a man and so I want to talk a moment about the crisis now that crisis comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes there's pornography addiction there is gambling addiction there's codependency promiscuity there's heartbreak and wounds and the crisis come in different shapes and different sizes Different Strokes for different folks and I know that you have your own particularly as you battle with the world that pulls you in so many directions but the number one Christian the one who wrote more books in the New Testament than anybody else talks about his struggles he doesn't name them so you could put yours in it he just says they were deep so I want you to see how he was in it and what got him out of it so that you can have a testimony like he does about overcoming the crisis that is a reality in our lives in Romans chapter chapter 7 the great Apostle Paul says in verse 14 for I know that the law is spiritual but I am a flesh sold in bondage to sin for what I am doing I do not understand I am not practicing what I would like to do but am doing the very thing I hate you ever been there hating what you're doing but you're still doing it he says so now no longer am I the one doing it but sin which dwells in me something has taken over me and it's like controlling me against my own will I tell myself don't go there and I go there don't see them and I see them don't do that and I do that and I find myself just disobeying my own self he says verse 20 I'm doing the very thing I don't want to do I got this principle floating around in me he says the one who wants to do good I come to church pray praise the Lord amen I'm not going to do it anymore and I mean every word of it and then when I leave and the crisis hits I'm right back the square one I'm doing it all over again Paul is explaining his battle with the Flesh and he's explaining it as a Christian because the Christian part wants to do right that's why we have to understand that the way this thing works is a new person has moved into an old house when you become a Christian you receive a new nature from God but it is in a rickety place a termite infested location called the flesh the flesh is that unredeemed Humanity that all of us have to live and please self independently of God what's worse is he says the flesh feeds off of the law he goes back and he says verse 11 of chapter 7 for sin taking an opportunity through the Commandment the rules of God deceived me and through it killed me he says I hear the word of God I say I'm going to do it not knowing that the very word of God that I said it was going to do when I decided to do it worked against me getting it done sounds like a contradiction how can I be committed to doing what God says do and that work against me achieving it when I'm determined to do it and so I'm in a crisis I'm conflicting with myself I'm in a battle with the flesh now we have gotten good at wearing spiritual spanks you know what spanks are spanks makes you appear better off than you are it it it is camouflage to hide the physical flesh to pull it in when in reality we know what we're not nearly as Slim as we've portrayed ourselves to be or we're not nearly as holy as we declare ourselves to be because in the back door of our hearts and in our lives we're doing the very things that we hate living defeat while appearing to be victorious he cries out in desperation in verse 24 Wretched Man that I am cuz I know me I know what I think I know the kind of language I use I know the stuff I watch I know the acts I perform I know the addictions I can't get rid of oh God Wretched Man am I and he's a Christian because he's talking about his current state of affairs when he was talking about this part of his life life he's in a crisis even though God has declared him to be victorious so I want you to know as a single that God is aware of your crisis you either have one now have had one or will have one cuz life rotates that way and there Apostle Paul this single man wants to bring it out that there is a battle and he is trapped in the body of this death the flesh so let me say something about our flesh it is unredeemable you can hide it you can put spiritual spanks over it but you can't change it let me let me say to something else you can't make your flesh spiritual we all have muscle and we have fat you can build muscle and you can lose fat but you can't turn fat into muscle cuz those are two different realities you know what his problem was Paul was trying to whip his flesh into making it B behave that's called sin management sin management means I promis to do better let me do these 12 steps to get me better but sin management isn't transformation the Spanx it's it's managing the stuff so it just doesn't roll out but it doesn't change anything it it just cam cages it and and he was through the power of his own will trying to be a better man if you see a roach you can get some raid and you can spray that roach and that raid will kill that roach but if you see that roach he got family he got some cousins some aunties and some uncles somewhere behind one of them walls you pick one off here and pick one off there and pick one off off there but hey he got some chillings you need the orchan man you need somebody to get behind what you see to deal with what you don't see so that you don't keep seeing what you see CU what you saw didn't deal with the origin of the problem so to achieve Victory as a Kingdom Single to achieve victory in the crisis through the crisis and over the crisis a different approach Paul says must be brought into the equation so he ends chapter 7 saying thanks be to God through Jesus Christ my Lord on the one hand I myself with my mind I'm serving the law of God but on the other with my flesh the law of sin so he says this is a mind thing and it determines who you wind up obeying whether the flesh or whether the Lord as you battle through this crisis he then spends the first 13 verses of chapter 8 giving us the clue there is therefore now no condemnation those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free we're talking about being set free set you free from the law of sin and death death watch this now he says there are two laws there is the law of the spirit you want to be set free the law of the spirit sets you free from the law of sin and death which makes you fail he says the answer to your crisis addiction whatever it happens to be as you seek to be set free as a Kingdom Single does not come because you're trying to outdo the law yourself there is a law the law called Gravity the gravity law says what goes up must come down if I jump I'm going to come down because gravity will pull me down every time no matter how determined I am to stay up because that's the law and that is a non-negotiable rule of Life That's the Law of sin and death no matter how hard you try to get out of that problem get out of that crisis you you you you you plan to do better you go to church to do better and then somebody or something pulls you right down takes you right back to place you said you weren't going to go but he says there is another law he says this other law that sets you free from the law of sin and death which defeats you and keeps you in a crisis he says is the law of the spirit we've all flown on airplanes airplanes fly without cancelling the law of gravity the law of gravity is still operating even though airplanes take off the law of gravity says airplane you go down airplane says no how can the airplane defy the law of gravity because there is another law of aerodynamics that if you move at a certain speed with a certain amount of thrust you don't cancel the law of gravity but you override it the way God sets you free is by giving you an override so that even though the Flesh in crisis wants to do its thing it can be overridden but you can't get the law of sin and death to override itself in other words the flesh is not gonna help you be less fleshy the addiction is not going to I mean sometimes we say I wish this person would go away I wish this stuff wasn't on the internet I wish this this this this you know this gambling thing wasn't in my face wishing it away the law in sin and death is not going anywhere so if Victory is going to be achieved I need an override and that's what he as a man as a single man discovered and teaches us that the requirement of the law might be filled in us who do not walk verse four according to the flesh but according to the spirit for those who are according to the flesh set their minds on on the things of the flesh but those who are according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit for the minds set on the flesh is death but the Mind Set On the spirit is life and peace that is you'll finally get to Victory but it all all has to do with where you set your mind you ever been to a cafeteria ordered everything then come to the end of the line and ask for a Coke a lot of folk come to die at church they want Church to overrule all that stuff that they've gotten all week long they think diet church is going to cancel out all the other stuff uh-uh he says no you got to learn to walk in the spirit which has to do with a mindset so let me give you a verse that will help this to make more sense it is in Galatians chap 5 verse 16 but I say walk by the spirit so he's using the same language and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh for the flesh sets its desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please ah don't miss this it's easy to miss in fact a lot of people miss it he says walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh let me tell you what he doesn't say he doesn't say stop fulfilling the desires of the flesh so you can walk in the spirit that's called backwards Christian Soldiers he says no I want you to walk in the spirit and then you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh okay let me tell you what else he's saying he is saying walk in the spirit and you won't act on what you want to do he says you won't fulfill the desires of the flesh he didn't say you won't have them a lot of Christians feel bad because the flesh still wants to do what the flesh wants to do but that's what the flesh does and if you've been doing it a long time time it's been trained it's been it's been trained to want to do it the desire may not disappear but the Fulfillment of it will see the issue is walking fulfilling acting on when you by the spirit that is getting God's mindset on a problem the spirit take a step or take steps of obedience then what you are done is activated God toward the fulfilling of the flesh here's the problem we think that the desire is almost equal to the action and God makes a separation he says you won't fulfill the action even though you may not lose the desire or lose it right away and so as a result you now are walking with something undergirding you to give you the power of override so even though the flesh says come on come on come on come on because you are now moving with the spirit by walking on what God thinks about a matter mind the spirit will come in you know when you walk through an airport a lot of them have moving sidewalks well when you get on the moving sidewalk you still walk but there's something underneath you gliding you it's not that you just stand there you can still walk but something underneath is moving you God says if I can get you to walk in what I say spirit I will give you an override button and listen once you're able to tell the flesh no and when and you know it's no longer the boss of your life anymore you know we got to saying you're not the boss of me you used to be the boss of me you tell me what to do and I do what you say after I hear you tell me long enough but now I found when I put the spirit first and not the flesh first so stop trying to get your flesh to do something other than what it can do because it only can sin so all this I'mma do better I promise to do better all you doing all you doing is telling the flesh to not be fleshy and it can't do what you just ask it so you got to shut that down and say okay no Spirit God this is what you say I'm looking to you to be the moving sidewalk all I'm going to do is walk your power has to give me the override and then you're watching the supernatural override the natural and that's what will make Christianity real that's what will make Jesus real and that's what will make the kingdom of God come alive in your life victory in the crisis [Music]