0:00 why are so many Christians struggling living a Godly life because they're doing it in their own power why are they doing it in their own power I want they don't believe why don't they believe because they don't know because they don't know we can't have anything from Heaven unless we believe and we can't believe what we don't know I'm a young man I've had a lot of conversations with young men I'm trying to do this I'm trying to do this I'm trying to do this and they're just like I've tried everything in my own strength to be set free this is what we discovered that 98% of the Christians in America don't understand and that is this do do you want to do it or you want me to do it no I want you to do it you're setting this
0:45 [Music] up hey everybody Welcome to John beir podcast I actually maybe going forward we'll just have you say it AR and then I won't feel so uncomfortable using my name podast your podcast anyway great to have our friends with us today we are going to talk about something that I think should really spark interest in people I mean let's jump into it you're giving me a look like okay so so here we are we're going through second Peter because second Peter the reason we're talking about this book is it applies to today there's so much truth in this book that really speaks to what our generation's going through let's let's reframe it again we've had over 30 million people in 24
1:32 years walk away from the Christian faith 30 million over 30 million that's one in every 10 Americans yeah okay none of these people said I'm going to leave the faith yeah one day I'm just going to do it what about all the other believers that think that would never be me well um I want to make sure it's never any of us and I want to see those 30 million come back yeah so here is another secret key ingredient of why I believe we've lost so many people in the faith and that is what most people don't know about Grace yeah so let's start with verse one again this letter is from Simon Peter a slave and Apostle of Jesus
2:17 Christ I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have this Faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ Our God and savior verse two may God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our lord verse three by his divine power okay stop right there by his divine power first of all the word power there is the Greek word dunamus mhm we actually get our word Dynamite from from that Greek word interesting it is interesting yeah so what it means is
3:05 power now listen to this especially achieving power that's actually what the Lexicon dictionary says power especially achieving power so that means power that accomplishes something MH Now by his divine power what is he referencing he just say he just said may God give you more and more grace yeah so he's actually equating Grace with God's achieving power this is what we discovered that 98% of the Christians in America don't understand and that is this do do you want to do it or you want me to do it no I want you to do it you're setting this up all right a
3:50 survey was done and these are Bible believing Sunday morning attending Christians we ask give three or more one-word definition of the word Grace the overwhelming response was salvation I agree we are saved by grace and only by grace and we can never earn it right I agree number two answer was forgiveness of sins I agree the grace of God is what forgives our sins thank God for his grace all of us say thank God number three a free unmar gift absolutely true it's a free unmar gift the fourth response was the love of God I agree here's the tragedy only 2% in
4:35 the actual figure was 1.9% of those over 5,000 that were pulled said that Grace was God's empowerment or only 2% of them equated Grace with power yeah okay now here Peter does it right here made more and more big gra Grace given to you by his divine power okay let let's look at God's definition of Grace MH all right God says to the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9 my grace is all you need for my power oh wait a minute God just said my power is Grace yeah my grace is all you need for my power yeah works best in your weakness or your human inability so
5:22 here's the aspect of Grace that most Christians don't understand Grace is God 's empowerment on my life that gives me the ability to go beyond my natural ability now this is why it's so important as we read Peter listen to what we're reading by his divine power that's Grace God has given us everything now that word everything in the Greek means totality of what's being discussed yeah God has given us everything everybody listen to this we need for living living a Godly life mhm now let's just stop right there what's the biggest struggle a lot of Christians have today in the United States yeah living a Godly
6:08 life why well they don't know how to connect the dots like most of them are trying to do it in their own ability yes and not relying on you would say that yeah not relying on Grace okay and and my question too around this is why like why is it that there's so many Christians that are trying to do these things of living Godly in their own ability like why do you feel like people don't know about this because okay how would they believe if they're not told yeah so Paul ask that question how will they hear if there isn't a proclaimer yeah right okay if we tell people this is what we've done in in Western Christianity we've told us Grace saves Grace forgives our sins Grace is a free
6:55 gift we've emphasized that I'm so glad we have because it's all 100% true yeah but if we don't tell people that Grace empowers me it empowers me with dunamis God's divine power now all of a sudden I'm still living in my own ability and this is why we can't have anything from Heaven unless we believe and we can't believe what we don't know M hey everybody spiritual growth doesn't happen by accident that's why we here at messenger International are passionate about equipping you with resources to help you grow in your relationship with God one tool we hope you'll take advantage of is our free messenger X app inside messenger X you'll get access to dozens of fulllength courses sermons audiobooks and more all available to you
7:43 at no cost whatever your goals whether you're looking to discover your calling develop deeper intimacy with God find Freedom or improve your relationships you'll find resources on messenger X that will help you get there download Messenger X today create your free account and dive in now back to the [Music] podcast everything in the Kingdom has to come through faith yeah without faith it's impossible to please God faith is believing how can we believe something we don't know so if all I see grace is as those three areas those three areas yeah which is three major like you can't emphasize thator major major right I'm
8:29 not getting the benefit of the Divine empowerment yeah which is how Jesus presents it okay let I know people are really wrestling with this let let's just take it a little further okay everybody understands this Saving Grace correct I mean we have emphasiz this over and over again in the church right all right for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes whoops believes shall be saved yeah okay I'm going to give a scripture to everybody that this this is mind-blowing when you hear it he is the propit this is 1 John Chapter 2 he is the propitiation of our
9:15 sins and not only our sins but for the sins of the whole world Ard in the whole world saved okay yeah but whoa whoa whoa how can you say that the whole world is saved H expand I will I I I I'm hoping the I'm I'm gonna put me on record the whole world has been saved okay why is it that Jesus says the majority of Mankind's going to end up in hell because whoever believes receives Saving Grace yeah okay so in other words every single human being you see on this Earth he is the perpetuation for their sins but they're
10:02 lost because they haven't received his lordship his salvation and believed in his work done at Calvary yeah all right so because they don't believe even though they're saved it's not benefiting them because Jesus is the majority of mankind is going to end up in hell yeah Matthew chapter 7 many are those that go to Everlasting destruction and that many is the Greek word that means majority yeah okay all right why are so many Christians struggling living a Godly life because they're doing it in their own power because they yes they're doing why are they doing it in their own power I want believe they don't believe why don't they believe because they don't know because they don't know exactly and that's why we're doing this podcast we want them to know
10:49 I mean and that's a sobering thought because I look I'm a young man I've had a lot of conversations with young men who are navigating porn addictions right and I just watch when I have those conversations of it's like I'm trying to do this I'm trying to do this I'm trying to do this and they're just like I've tried everything in my own strength to be set free and like when I give them that revelation of what God's grace is actually done for them of one of course it's it's God's grace is the covering the Forgiveness of sins and I speak always to that's not who you are like God has so much more for you than you being stuck in bondage of that and so I remind them of who God is but then when I explain to them that they have this ability to not be a slave to that it is
11:37 like I mean it is world changing for them and I think about the Christians right now struggling in so many areas of of navigating how to be a good husband how to be a good wife and how to be a good father how to how to how do I fight greed like all these things and they're doing it constantly in their own ability like my heart breaks because they don't know they don't believe I would love I would love to affirm what you just said in Romans the 6th chapter I mean I I have this highlighted what should what then should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his Wonderful Grace that's the first verse of course not now listen to what he says since we have
12:22 died to sin how can we continue to live in it then he goes on to say I I mean this is amazing in verse six we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives MH we are no longer slaves to sin for when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin okay that's just that's two times now let's go to verse 10 when Jesus died he died once to break the power of sin now let's go these are all the highlights I have in my Bible okay this is verse 14 sin is no longer your master MH verse uh let's see where are we at verse uh 15 you
13:11 become the slave to whatever you choose to obey so we can go on and on and on and on he he says so many times that we've been set free from the power of sin in Romans chapter 6 now that's Theory to most people and the reason it's Theory and not reality is because we didn't tell him that Grace empowers us to walk away from sin and let's read this again by his divine power let's substitute the word grace in there by his grace God has given us everything we need for living a Godly life yeah and the word everything means the totality of a Godly life so it means there's not one sin that can have dominion over us as Believers if we believe
13:59 mhm well can I hopefully I'm not jumping ahead no you're not I'm looking at my Bible right here and it says that second line as you go further it says through the full knowledge of him and what I was saying even earlier when I ever have those conversations with with people that have been in bondage of porn I always remind them like that's not who you are and I think through this knowledge of what we talked about a lot previously of that knowledge of growing in your walk with god what is it we understand more of who we are when we understand more of who created us in His image and so as we know our our creator we understand more of who we are so that those things are not in your nature I mean I've had conversations and I remember when I navigated this way back like 10 years ago I'm coming up in 10
14:46 years ago it is I remember thinking to myself as I started slipping further and further away from it and just being like okay I'm set free I'm set free when it started coming back into my mind I remember it was not an attractive thought anymore it was not something like maybe this would be a portraying because God was reshaping my identity and it became more and more the thing that's like no I'm not someone who finds pleasure in that thing can I challenge what you just said yeah he was reshaping ar your identity but I think you're about to find out in in second Peter the formation of his nature was growing in you yeah yeah that's good the formation of his nature yeah think about it his nature yeah CU our goal is to
15:33 become more like Christ and we have that ability I mean let's let's just read on here okay because I feel verse three and verse four are two of the most powerful scriptures in the whole new testament I and I'm not meaning to compare with scripture with scripture I'm just saying that these two have so much in them by his divine power God has given us everything we need for a Godly life we living a Godly life we have received all of this by coming to know that's what you just said and that Greek word is epigonos which means not experientially know intimately know him the one who called us to himself now stop right there called us to himself do you realize what we just heard yeah he called us by name to
16:23 himself in other words guys I'm not calling you to live in in a nice place in a big city a Celestial City I'm calling you to me yeah the city's amazing and and everybody that's ever seen got a glimpse of the Eternal City said it's no words to describe but God said he's calling us to himself yeah not not his benefits not his things that he offers it's to him called us to himself by means of His Marvelous glory and Excellence verse four and because of his glory and Excellence he has given us very great and precious promises uh oh what are we talking about we're talking about the word of God yeah he's given us great and precious promises now listen
17:10 to this these are the promises that enable so we're talking about Theory earlier by his divine power we live free right we have everything we need to live a Godly life but these promises these are the promises that enable enable enable Empower you to share in his divine nature okay stop his divine nature yeah and escape the world's corruption caused by human desire okay whoa we just talked about so much there so he says his divine power gives us everything we need to live a Godly life then he says the way we do it is we have these Divine we have these exceeding great and precious promises and by the way it says great and precious promises the actual Greek says exceedingly great
17:56 so think great and go exceed that right yeah the promises are the word of God all right now can I go back to the scripture that we started this whole podcast not with and now Brothers I commend you to God and to the word of his grace okay the word of his empowerment let me prove to you that it is the word of his empowerment Hebrews chapter 1:3 makes a statement ardan that I wish we would talk about more but it says in Hebrews chapter 1 ver3 that Jesus upholds everything by the word of his power yeah it doesn't say the power of His word if it says the power of His word okay that's great that means his word is
18:42 powerful but when it says the word of his power that means all of his power all of his dunamis is locked up in his word if all of his power is locked up in his word those great and precious promises that are exceeding his word are what empowers US that's the free gift to live free from sin and to live a Godly life yeah this is why it is so important that we get in the word of God this is why we read we should read our Bibles we should talk about the word of God to each other we should meditate and think about the word of God I mean listen to what God says God says to Joshua these words this these scriptures you shall meditate on them day and night
19:29 then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success yeah so he's like as long as you're thinking about my word my word has the power in it to give you the ability to live The Godly life yeah Arden you said you said you have friends that are bound to pornography do you know what statistics say 67% of the men that attend church regularly watch pornography regularly yeah I I honestly thought it was 80 I thought it was like 67 was last I think it was I think it's closer to 80% whatever we're talking at least seven or eight out of every 10 guys yeah it's a majority which is insane okay but but let's go back to the other one 98% of the Christians in America don't know Grace empowers me go ahead well and
20:15 that's the thing is what I've I've know we've talked about this is that a lot of people see grace as it's it's only something that is powerful enough to save me from the penalty right of sin right so eternity away from God right but they neglect that it is also like you can't say it's powerful enough just to save me from the penalty of sin and not say it's not powerful enough to save me from the bondage of sin and that's what I love that you've emphasized so much through this Grace message and this understanding that I hope more and more Christians get a hold of because you see Christians they continue to go through bondage and they're not realizing that the same Grace that saved them and set them free from those things is the same thing that that is going to get them set free from the bondage that the the sin
21:03 is taking into their life while you were saying that Arden I just started thinking and I went over here to Titus Chapter 2 ver14 listen to this Jesus gave his life he gave his life think about it our creator gave his life to free us from every kind of sin to cleanse us and make us his very own people totally committed to doing good deeds he talks about freeing us and he talks about cleansing us so freeing me frees me as you just so beautifully said from the bondage of sin cleansing me cleanses me so I don't suffer the penalty of sin yeah so if we only preach
21:49 that Jesus frees us from the penalty of sin yeah and not the bondage of sin then all of a sudden now we've got people that are going to struggle struggle struggle struggle and they're not going to be engaging that power that gives them the ability to live a Godly life well and I also like we've talked a lot about the sinner's prayer in conversations you and me have had and understanding like sometimes we don't fully get people to understand what they just said yes to and I've always had these conversations with people is that they think when I gave my life to Christ it's this moment where it's like I got born again and and I don't fully understand what that means but I said yes to Christ and he does all these things in
22:35 my life but how does this fit in with I'm still I'm still struggling with pornography I'm still struggling like and what they're trying to do is Clump everything that they were dealing with that they were in bondage to into this new identity that they have and they're bringing it into this born again when God said no I've made you a new creation and that doesn't mean that these people as soon as you you know are a new creation that you won't maybe have some of those challenges come up into your life it's just that that old identity the old thing that was holding you back those bondages of those sins are dead and you walk in this new understanding of Grace and what God has given you and brought you into so that you can walk free from it you know the only fight
23:21 that we're told to fight in the New Testament is the good fight of Faith yeah and you're you're you're just you're describing it's not something you just tiptoe into you have to wrestle you have to war you have to contend knowing that God has promised this to you and you have a flesh to deal with and you've got demonic powers to deal with in a society that's trying to pull you into the muuk and mire you have to contend you have to fight but if you if you don't I want you to imagine everybody Listen to listen to me on this if you don't know what the Bible says and you're not taking the time in the Bible yeah if the spirit of God's Not enlightening your eyes you you have nothing to fight with you don't have faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God I mean when Jesus is tempted what does he use he uses the word of God uses scripture scripture
24:08 yeah that's how you fights Temptation and if we don't know what scripture says we don't we're not armed I mean it's what we talked about it's a two-edged sword yes it is used to cut up the things that are in the spirit cut up the lies from the enemy the things that are going to come up against us but if we are just pulling everything from what we our favorite podcast CL and stuff like that we're missing out you know Alec your brother brought a girl to our house one night and she she was a student at Oxford University and we just got to talking to her we got to know her right we were engaged in getting to know her and um Turned out I've never seen a young lady with more disease and more physical health challenges than this young girl I mean I my Lisa my jaws were
24:54 like dropped listening to all the ities and problems that girl had I mean it was multiple I and I remember um Alex said Dad Mom I was hoping you could pray for her and I just looked her I said all right great what what what scripture are you believing for what are you standing on what's the word that God has given you and she said she just looked at me she said well to be healed yeah no I said what scripture are you fighting with what's what's the one what's the scriptures that God's Made Alive in you that you're believing for um and she she stuttered and she was like and I started explaining to her I said look the word of God is powerful every word of God has the power
25:42 in it to bring itself to pass God said I'm watching over my word to perform it you don't have a scripture you're anchoring on so I just keep ministering to her right the word of God the word of God I said look here's mine this is mine personally anytime I'm fighting with any kind of mine's Psalm 103 that's so real to me God gave me that word years ago bless the Lord oh my soul and don't forget his benefits who forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases and I thought wow in one breath he says forgive all my sins John do you believe God's forgiven all your sins yes every sin every sin the blood of Jesus forgave me of yes well in the next breath he says all your diseases is there any disease I have in healed you of no is
26:29 there anybody that came to Jesus and said I want to be healed of this and he said no you're God just wants you to learn something I went oh my gosh and it be can't believe the first part without believing the second it became a reality to me and I shared that with her right and she went whoa well we kept talking and all of a sudden the word came alive in her heart and she grabbed a hold of it and do you know we found out that girl who had gone to doctor after doctor after doctor who was actually going to have to stop studying and everything else she got completely totally healed mhm because she believed yeah can I can I ask if you can go into this so you talked about establishing God's word I've heard you talk about how God's word
27:15 is established here on Earth can you explain that because I think sometimes people think just differ about that and I remember you explaining it to me one time and my mind was kind of blown okay so the Bible says forever oh lord your word is settled in heaven or established in heaven that's Psalm 119 forever O Lord your word is established in heaven I thought to myself when I read that why doesn't say why doesn't it say forever oh lord your word is established in heaven and on Earth MH and that's because God gave Earth to men yeah and we're the ones that choose what get what gets established on this Earth so the scripture came up my heart when I thought about that uh out of the mouth
28:01 of two or three Witnesses every word shall be established mhm and then I thought of what God Said in Isaiah 55 so shall the word be that goes forth from my mouth it will not return to me void it will accomplish what I sent it to do and I thought how does it return it returns out of our mouth so he's the first mouth we're the second mouth when we speak his word on this Earth we establish his will on this Earth so here's the deal forever oh Lord yes your word is established in heaven but it's our responsibility to establish it on the earth here on Earth that's why Jesus didn't say God my father please cause this storm to stop he spoke and said Peace he established peace in that storm
28:48 on this Earth by speaking the word y because he is the word of God he speaks to a fig tree and it never has fruit again MH so and and we go back to what we're saying establishing here on Earth establishing that we have everything granted to us to live a life of Holiness because of his grace in totality we've got everything we need to live a Godly life the only thing is we're not employing it we're not establishing it yeah and so what I'm believing for is that every single one of you listening to us will understand that God has given you and
29:33 I everything we need to live a Godly life you don't have to do it in your own ability anymore you've got the power of Grace and that power of Grace is called the word of his grace and when we get the word of our his his grace in our heart now guess what he watches over his word to perform it he upholds all things by the word of his power all of his power is locked up in his word that's why it's called the word of his grace that Grace gives you the ability to rise beyond your natural ability so that you can live a life that you couldn't live before in your own ability D would you want to pray with people I I think that's a good idea
30:19 yeah I I I want to pray for you right now some of you have bondages in your life you have you have things that you just can't shake whether it's perpetual lying it's perpetual um gossip whether you're it's substance abuse whether it's pornography I want to pray for you that you would be free because Jesus freed you from the Dominion of Sin from the slavery of sin and he freed you so that you could live like a son or a daughter of the kingdom of heaven so in the name of Jesus Christ Christ of Nazareth I speak to the addictions I speak in the name of Jesus
31:05 to the sins that has lorded and mastered over your life no longer will it Lord and Master over your life because I speak the word of God in agreement with Arden we speak the word of God over your life right now and we command in jesus' name for your mind to be renewed we command in jesus' name for your body and your flesh to line up with the word of God that says that you are free we command that even in your mind your synap connections and your neural connections of your mind would begin to change as you've heard the word of God and that you will now have the mind of Christ you would now think thoughts that are pure and just and honest and of good report in the name of Jesus I break the
31:53 generational curses off of you that have gone back the epigenetical patterns that were passed down to you from your father from your father's fathers your father's father's fathers I break the power of those sins off of your life and I command you to walk free in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and now father let it be established to my brother and my sister according to the word of God and if you've never given the lordship of your life to Jesus just say this right now Jesus I Repent of living for myself and in the sin that you died to set me free from I give my life to your lordship to your kingship now and forever in Jesus mighty name wow I just I believe people are are going to be I I I want you to share the Bible says we overcome by the blood of
32:39 the Lamb the word of Our Testimony and we don't love our lives even unto death I want you to share I want you to come into the you know into YouTube whether it's it it's social media whether it's directly reaching out to our ministry at messenger International you can go to john.com I want you to to share what God has done for you I want you to share it uh with friends I want you to tell people how you've been set free because when you you know that's what Jesus told that man that got free from the Devils go and Proclaim to the 10 cities of decopolis what God has done for you I want you to Proclaim what God has done for you to your friends to your to to the people who love you who want to see you succeed and in your in the word of
33:25 your testimony will be the establish of your freedom because his word is activated in our lives when we speak it fiman 6 says that every good thing that God has given to us is activated by us acknowledging what he has done for us speak the word of God over your life because you are free you just have to walk in your freedom all right until next time this has been the John bav podcast with Arden bav and John bav
