ALL THINGS ARE OUT FROM GOD - BIRTHED FROM ABOVE

A. We read earlier that only God can birth from above. A person has to be birthed from above by being joined to the Lord. Without Christ in us there is NO birth and NO LIFE. But if Christ is in us then we have ALL – all that is from out of God in Him. B. Only that which is born of God is of God. Nothing that is birthed by man is of God. For example, how many of us understand that God must give BIRTH to a church, just as He gives birth to the people in it? People cannot simply decide to start a church, and then hand it to God, expecting that He will bless it. The mere fact that anything WE birth is birthed by flesh – it is birthed of flesh if we initiated it – ought to tell us that it is not birthed of God. C. But for some reason, we think that if we do things for God that He will bless it. Or if we start things in the name of Christ that Christ will inhabit it. We have this notion that if something is in our heart to do that it is in there because God put it in there. No. It may be a created and initiated by our natural man – not so much in rebellion against God or to the disregard of Him – but it may be a product of our natural, religious man, thinking that it is our job to think up ways to keep God moving. D. In the end, if flesh births anything, it is of the flesh – and at some point, it will produce the results that flesh produces. It will serve self. It will serve the flesh because flesh gave it life. Look around in the church today. Everywhere you find the gospel of ME, myself, and I. A gospel that says that Jesus came to make you happy, successful, and prosperous. A gospel that says that Jesus came to bring out the best in you, and help you find your truest self. This is flesh. E. Jesus did not come to bless your natural life – He tells you to LOSE IT. He tells you that there is nothing in the natural life that is compatible with God. Rather, if you lose your life, you will find true life in Christ. And in Christ is all that we need both materially and spiritually. F. Along side of this gospel of ME is almost a complete blindness to Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ in us, the hope of glory. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature – and in Christ are all things that are from God. Yet today, the reality of Christ in us, and the desire of God to form Christ in us, is almost never discussed. People don’t know it, and don’t know TO know it. Here we have the essence of Christianity, and the very purpose of God, and it is off the table for discussion. This is what happens when Satan blinds people. And once Satan blinds people to the reality of Christ in them, he can more easily get them to operate from out of the natural life -- and convince them they are living from out of God. This is deception. G. Again: The reality of Christ, and the meaning of Christ in us, and God’s purpose of forming Christ in us this is the reason Christ came. It IS Christianity. Yet if you would preach this in most local churches, or on Christian TV, you would either get a blank stare, or meet great opposition. This is how far things have fallen from the Truth. Even in those places where there is some little Truth on these matters, it would seem that even that is buried beneath an avalanche of money, members, and the soul power of people. H. To abide in Christ by faith requires a total surrender to Him as Lord – not because I feel I must, but because I want to surrender. It requires that I not only take my hands off of my life and leave it alone to God, but it requires that I WANT to do so – I gladly do so. It means that I will birth nothing of myself and that I will not resort to the flesh to solve what ails me. I. Does that sound hard? It might seem scary – most of us, despite all of our great confessions of faith in the LORD are quite terrified that if we do nothing about ourselves, or our ministry, that God might also do nothing. And we will go down the drain. Well, our attitude ought to be that if God will do nothing we will gladly do nothing – and if everything crashes so be it. Indeed, the sooner the better. The work of the Cross will bring us to such an abandonment. It spells freedom. J. God is quite willing and capable of not only birthing that which satisfies Him, but of looking after it. If we really believed this, we would not be using the ways and methods of the world to try to prop up our churches. There would need to be NO money raising campaigns. No drives for members. No blessings promised, or threats of punishment from the LORD, if we give or don’t give. We would not use craftiness or wisdom of words or emotional drama to try to move people. We would not need signs and wonders. Rather, we would simply abide in Christ, preach the Truth in Christ, and let the chips fall. Have we ever considered what God might do if He were actually given His place and sovereignty? K. Do you want to know why the early church was so powerful in the Lord? They had NO money. They had no TV, written materials, or audio tapes. They didn’t even have a Bible to carry around. They had only Christ in them. But they changed the world – because they let God have His way, first with them personally, and then to do what He wanted. They were not perfect, but kept their hands off of God’s property. God could therefore do what He wanted. God could be sovereign. Today, we expect God to come down and fit Himself into what we have birthed. He won’t. L. For the last two-thousand years, professing believers have created one form of religion after another – and pasted the name of Christ on it. Roman Catholicism is a big example, but the Protestants have done the same. We have created laws and principles. Religious rituals. Belief systems. We have created an entire priesthood or ministry around it. We have built our temples. Yet God will NOT inhabit any house made with hands. He inhabits only people through Jesus Christ. M. What is the solution to all of this? Not to find a better way, “to do church.” No. Not to read the book of Acts and try to create from it a template to follow. No. The solution is to get back to the foundation – the person of Jesus Christ. But not just to a theological Christ. We have to get back to the essence of Christianity, which is, “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” N. We have to get back to the fact that if we are in Christ that we are birthed new creatures – that all of the old is passed away – and that all things are brand new and from above in Christ. And that all things pertaining to the new creature of OUT FROM GOD as the source. And we have to learn Christ, allowing God to form Christ in us. We must renounce and forsake the old as the source for anything. This is the will of God. It is what He has birthed and it is all that He is going to do.