Discipleship in Denying Yourself
Sunday, August 7, 2022 – RECAP/Study Points From both 8:00 a.m.& 10:00 a.m. Services
I was recently in Orlando and heard a pastor say, ‘I don’t give to be seen, but I should be seen giving’ and it registered with me because I have been giving you all updates on my savings. It’s a demonstration to you all concerning my leadership. And the updates and reports that I’m giving you are specifically designed to stir up your faith so that you are prepared.
1 Chronicles 29: 1-3 (NKJV)
Furthermore, King David said to all the assembly: “My son Solomon, whom alone God has chosen, is young and inexperienced; and the work is great because the [a]temple is not for man but for the LORD God. 2 Now for the house of my God I have prepared with all my might: gold for things to be made of gold, silver for things of silver, bronze for things of bronze, iron for things of iron, wood for things of wood, onyx stones, stones to be set, glistening stones of various colors, all kinds of precious stones, and marble slabs in abundance. 3 Moreover, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, I have prepared for the holy house, my own special treasure of gold and silver:
Remember, I asked you to allow me to challenge you, to check you, to charge you, to cheer you on, so I could change you.
I love construction and there’s not a part of my house that I would not be able to tell you where the HVAC system flows, the water piping, the wires… where they are. I know every part of how it was constructed. I watched it come together piece by piece. I want you to know, in your comfortability as a believer, how you were built. If you know how you were built, line upon line, precept upon precept, no one can talk you out of that which you know you’ve put a specific and precise effort into to become all of who you are.
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I asked you to stop wanting stuff that you are not willing to become. You’re becoming more than you have ever been. Shout that! “I’m becoming more than I have ever been”.
Ecclesiastes 5:1 (MSG)
Watch your step when you enter God’s house. Enter to learn. That’s far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice, Doing more harm than good.
How many of you understand that this building is not God’s house, just as much as your phone is not your Bible? If you are smoking in the parking lot, you are smoking in God’s house. We have more honor for this brick and mortar, than what God has called His house (your body). When you don’t have that understanding, you’ll be constructed or erected improperly and now it takes more time to unlearn than it takes to learn. In a lot of the construction that I have been involved, in with respect to a lot of our facilities, I have had to tear stuff down before building it up. So, it’s commonplace to me for you to come in here and have to tear down some of the stuff that you have learned that’s working diametrically against what you are supposed to know. We can come here to worship, but we should be coming here primarily to learn.
Hebrews 5:12
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the [a]oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
Where are your students? Who are you teaching? Now the devil is laughing at you because you haven’t taught your own house? Here the Apostle Paul is saying by now you should be teachers. You’ve been in this ministry for how long and who have you been teaching? Where are your disciples? So, what are we doing here? Why do we come in here? We come to learn and after we learn we go out to teach. This has to be paramount in your thinking. This has to be part of the great commission in your thought processes. Jesus said,” Go ye (therefore) into all the world”. After you come, then go. Above every door on your way out it says now ‘GO TO WORK’. So, we gather for the scattering, and we have so many outlets now. Yet, you don’t even use your Facebook platform to teach the gospel. You got your face in the book, but the wrong one all the time.
Now, relative to denying yourself, there are some things, based upon your current make-up, that have interfered with what He has desired for you to become.
Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If you truly want to follow me, you should at once completely reject and disown your own life. And you must be willing to share my cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to my ways.
Now, how many Christians have done that – ‘at once’? They’ve received Jesus, but they have not rejected their own lives. You’ve spent time building your own life, your evolution, your environment, your experience, and your eclectic gatherings.
You have collected so many diverse ideas and ideologies and dispositions that have built this person that you call me.
Dr. DeeDee: I want to add something to that because a lot of times we’ll read something like this, but we don’t understand what it means to disown your own life. We all have a different interpretation of that and that’s why you have to study the Word to understand. What does it mean when it says to disown your own life? Because, to me, I feel like Christ owns my whole life, but if I feel like I want to go out there and produce something without His acknowledgment, then I can do that because He’s given me the power and the ability to do it. You know, with you, you might say no I don’t make any decisions, I don’t do anything without it, but there’s no conviction on any of our parts. So, that’s why people are so all over the place. This is just an example because I’m going to acknowledge Christ in everything that I do.
Yeah, because people have schizoid lives; it’s you and then it’s Jesus, inside of one body. And He wants you to get rid of you, and you are bent on keeping you because you like the you you’ve been.
Dr. DeeDee: But then we think He created the you that you are. There we go. And so authentically, we’re deceived.
Dr. DeeDee: And that’s the word now. “I’m authentically me”.
How is that authentic when it hasn’t come from the one who predestined you? Anything that’s authentic is an original and you’ve been a carbon copy of everything else other than Him. And the authentically you have not come from Him. So, who is authentic then? The person you call you outside of Him isn’t authentic at all because He had to go to God to get and identify Himself. But we go to these streets to get an identity of us. We go through experiences. We are all the products of the environments that we’ve come out of. And so we picked up Momma and Daddy’s ways, the barbershop, the hair salon, strip clubs…that were separate and apart from God’s ways and we’ve become just them. Have you noticed how much you’ve become like your parents?
We have some renovations to make. We’ve got some work to do because you may not look like Him. You’re looking in the mirror and seeing you, but He wants you to look in the mirror and see Him. And quite frankly, you’re tired of you. You wish you were better than you are.
You have been messing up you for a long time. And, you don’t even know that it’s you. And, your money could have been better, but you are messing up your money. You are messing up your opportunity. And somebody is trying to tell you about you, but you want to be you. The you that you are trying to be and uphold is keeping you from opportunity. And, you don’t know that you are your worse enemy because you’re trying to be you, but the you that you are is not you that comes from the scripture. The you that you are as come from the hurt and the pain, experiences, etc. You must be taught to deny yourself because there’s far too much stuff that goes on at your house because you don’t know how to go somewhere and sit down and let God. And you’re making decisions based upon how you feel, and your feelings want to cast the last vote: And your feelings might not be the will of God. And Jesus said, if you’re going to follow me, you’re going to have to reject yourself.
Pastor Dewayne: Yeah, and that’s amazing because if you don’t know that there are two you’ s in this scripture, we’re talking about two you’s, and if you don’t understand that your flesh will be deciding what you’re going to live by instead of your spirit. In verse 24 it says, “and Jesus said to His disciples if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself”.
Luke says deny yourself – yourself. So, there’s a self (you) that He wants you to deny and He’s telling you to do it. And if you don’t understand which self, He is talking about then you’re going to allow that self to run you and reck your life. There are two you’ s and when God talks, He always talks to the spirit you, he never talks to the flesh you. However, the flesh you wants to still do some things, but the flesh you is not going to be held responsible for your life, it’s the spirit you that is responsible. And if the spirit you don’t recognize that I’ve got to deny the flesh… you the real you will never show up.
So, there’s a you of the spirit and a you of the flesh. Now, which you are you going to go with?
Dr. DeeDee: This is good because, if you go back to having a revelation of this scripture and understanding this and you would think, well God created the you-me spirit man and the you-me flesh man so now if this is who I am how are you going to tell me that this is not who God wants me to listen to too.
So how many times should you have left me?
Dr. DeeDee: The you flesh me should have left a long time ago, but the you spirit man overrode it.
Pastor Dewayne: You know why? Because the self… you is irresponsible and is always looking for holes. So, if you cut up it created a hole for you to leave, but the spirit you won’t give you the options that the flesh you gives you. Just like the person that you are talking about tonight (on Night Cap) the flesh you evidently has destroyed the real person, and because they didn’t know how to deny themselves, to allow the real person, it’s going to take some renewing of the mind to be able to have that transformation so the real you can be seen. Because, if you hold on to the flesh you… you disqualify yourself from showing people the real you that everybody is looking for.
Read Matthew 16:12-24 (TPT)
And He became something else so that we could become what He is. So, the you that you’re trying to uphold has to become the Him that He became. And you’re still trying to stay like you are voiding out the Him that He became. He became sin so that you could become righteousness, and you’re protesting the real you? You are despising the real you that you are supposed to be, staying over in the flesh you, when He died for that flesh you so that spirit you could live the life that He died for? You wouldn’t let anyone else treat you like you treat you. You call yourself stuff that you wouldn’t tolerate other people calling you. Stop talking to you like that. Start talking to the flesh you from the spirit you and watch that flesh you change.
Pastor Dewayne: Most believers, because they don’t enter to learn, because they don’t want to be students of the Word, they can’t reveal Jesus because they get lost in this process that we are talking about. If you’re going to follow Him, there’s a process to imitating Him. That process is denying yourself and taking up the cross. And most people get lost in that process right there. That’s why it’s so hard for them to reveal Jesus, but God is speaking to some people in these days that we are in right now, and those who have ears to hear, you’re going to see your life change dramatically because of you being a student of the word of God.
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