of seattle washington proudly presents the ministry of bishop howard robinson tearing down the forces of him here the anointed word of this trailblazer as he demolishes tradition ignorance fear and religious bondage if you seek truth change an understanding allow yourself to meditate on the word of the lord as it is delivered through this anointed vessel empowering you as a believer in  and we just give you praise because you know it's your desire that you be glorified through our life living and even as we come to your word today we pray father that you be glorified through the word we pray father that everything that is said here will be to your glory to the edification of your people help us to have listening ears to receive what it is you would say to us receptive spirits open ministry that their lives are not spent in vain even after they give them to christ so hear the word says therefore my beloved brother be steadfast in movable always abounding in the work of the lord knowing that your labor is not in feigning the lord praise that name of jesus may get him to listen to remember his word may it strengthen you as you go from day to day in the name of jesus we pray and elevated to the office of ordained minister and so we're thankful for that but this message today isn't just for ministers this message today is for believe or a man that falls in the life of believers and life of ministry in the name of jesus christ is the temptation to do it different from what the bible and what god intends to have happen here on the earth many come to a place where they feel that they have all the answer is that they don't need for there to be any correction or any alteration in what they are doing because after all they've been doing this church thing for a long time and it isn't commenting and seemed to get caught up in rote inhabit and function in lifestyle that it becomes the way that you live the way you operate so that it's difficult for you to change or to be altered or to move into a new broader perspective of our brothers of a spear of living sphere of living because of the fact that i've done it this way for so long it's a part of me just to do this and many times we associate our identity with what it is that we do and how we've done it opposed to what it is  the us to come into and who he's intending for us to be i remember as a teenager in high school one day i was sitting on the grass at high school in you know i was doing a lot of lying back then because of the fact that i was doing the stuff i was doing and i didn't want my parents to know what i was doing and i wanted to have my way and i want to get my way and it was easy for me to lie and do what i want to do and cause people to think i was doing something different matter of fact i even remember that you know at that point in time i was the store and steal rather than to pay for it and i had the motivation for it but i just didn't want to do it and so what happened is my sister would get weapons and i have mother would tell her if she needs to be good like i was well then irritated her because she do i wasn't so so i was sitting out on the grass and i started thinking over my life the holy spirit was obviously speaking to me because i could've come up with those thoughts myself and it was let me know that if i continued to live the way i was living and then i would end up being an old man and i would be just that way i wouldn't change the only way for me to have better and different would be for me to change what i was doing right now and and i determined that i was going to do that i was going to change i was going to be different and though there were many things that i continued to do they were really not within the will of god i have an understanding that unless there is some change in what i do i become what i am or your what i'm saying today and so so so we have to understand we have to realize that that that god is speaking to us about the importance of knowing who we are in relationship to what we are if i'm making any sense we've got to come to a place where we understand and realize that god puts people in our lives he brings us into church even when he gives us pastors he gives us prophets he gives us apostles for the purpose of the call bringing us into check into our living in our lifestyle so that we can come into a  lightness of christ it's not just to come here for worship service to hear somebody sing a song to hear somebody pray a prayer and you know to get our feel good on you know that that is what church is supposed to be about that isn't what it's really about although there use what church is about in many places around the country and around the world but the real purpose of us coming to church is the worship and to glorify god and to be challenged to change into who it is that he's calling us to be and in order for that to happen we've got to be willing to receive correction we've got to be willing to allow his holy spirit to bring forth the tweaking in our lives so that we can come into the likeness of the one who died for us which is jesus christ i remember i was home one time in ohio and i was in the car of a relative in the car was sputtering it was just having a hard time and the person who owned the car was was complaining about how the car was driving and how it didn't have any power to it and it was just sputtering along the road and  tuned up to come into the place where he could function in proficiencies and a lot of times we need to realize our lives are just like that we don't want anybody telling us we're messed up we don't want to buy this show us how we're doing it wrong and how we need to do it right but if we're going to come into what it is god's warning to us to be if we're going to be steadfast i will always abounding in the work of the lord that our labor is not in vain and the lord the the young prophet in first kings the thirteenth chapter of the first verse that isn't on their first team thirteen one who was sent to bethel to speak against the evil that was found in that land in the speak to the king  and he was instructed not to eat or to drink anything and to or to go back into the city after he had delivered the word of god the word from the lord and there was a and he drank with the whole prophet and at that point the old prophet began to prophesied to him and tell him that because he was disobedient to god then he would lose his life and when the young prophet left the city a lion killed him he has done he was standing there the lion didn't eat the donkey or and no man but just stood there and they found him and then the curious body off the reality of that story is and it's important for us but i discipline my body and i bring it into some junction lest when i have preached to others i find myself disqualified understand preaching he's an apostle he's doing the work of ministry he's he's he's he's meeting peril and and danger all for the glory of god but but yet at that same time he realize don't have any special privilege that just because he has this position and this title and just because of fact that he's preaching and souls are being awarded to the kingdom that he's going to make it in heaven himself that goes contrary to a lot of the popular belief that we hear throughout the church world today that it's impossible for us to go to hell if we're a good church but is the word of god we need to understand that we need to we need to understand that there is a possibility that though we have been called to be servants of the lord we can't end up missing out on the very thing that we tell others about when we fail to do our flesh and our own understandings and come into the perfect will of god for our lives well a lot of them we now find ourselves spending our lives suffering for the cause of christ then encouraging others to come into the kingdom of god and find ourselves missing heaven ourselves i want to share with you three things then we should always remember to be about in our walk with god so that our labor is not in vain and the lord three things we need to always be about first of all we need to understand that we need to own our positions rather than letting our positions o us we didn't own our positions where they lead our positions old us secondly we need to live and minister under authority we need to live and minister under authority and thirdly we need to live and minister in a spirit in the spirit and not in your flesh we need to live in minister in the sphere and not in your flesh and if we do these things we'll find well first of all we want to look at we need to own the position and don't let the position on us basically wet but what i'm dealing with here is the whole idea of who i am versus what i am when i talk about who i am i'm talking about me as an individual me as a person and when i talk about what i am talking about my position i'm talking about my work on time not my responsibility that there is a difference said many times when people are introduced to other people and what they talk about is is not who they are as much as they talk about what they are you know me and you know when they talk to one another on a lot sometimes you know the first thing they ask is what kind of work do you do you know that you know it's about what you do it isn't about who the individual lives and we oftentimes spend our lives wrestling with the difference between who we are and what we are and and we get to the place where what we are takes control over who w are taking control over what we are and am i making any sense there being because a lot of times we have we find ourselves and either of two camps one where we don't even want to face the question about who am i because we say i already know who i am and we close our mind off from really looking at ourselves because there are some things that are in this that we really don't want to see and so it's easier just to just answer as they are already know why and you know and  write it all off and the other extreme is to come to the place where we are examining ourselves as to who we are and we come to the place where we really don't know who we are we think we know who we are but you know sixteen seventeen years old they lived together for forty years as a couple and then they come to your fortieth anniversary and and the husband says he wants a divorce and and the wife wrestles w the her identity and she raises the question i don't even know who i am anymore because her life has been caught up in her relationship with her husband and not identifying who she is  individually or or i'm a teenager who goes to jail for forty years and then all the sudden this time to be released from the prison and he wrestles with what he's going to be about and who he really is because all he knows is the environment of institutionalization that caused him to be about being in prison and he doesn't know who he is but really when we begin to look at who we are we begin to really understand  who we were is not really who we are now if you are progressing in god as you want to be because in christ we're always evolving we're always changing we're always in the process of becoming at least that's how it should be because the scripture says growing grace and in the knowledge of the lord and savior jesus christ we ought to be growing we ought to be developing we ought to be changing we ought to be becoming more and more like him as we go from day to day and so that means that who we are is in the process of changing from day to day are you not with me with this what i'm basically saying is that  that we should whether we are preachers whether we're deacons whether we're just believers in christ there is a principle that we need to grab ahold of and that that is that we should own  position and not let the position all of us with this i'm saying is that you know it's more important for us to know who we are than what we are there are many who are caught up in their titles caught up in their lifestyle taught in their positions to the point that they dress the way they dress and they are the way they see others who have that same title dressing they act a certain way as they feel appropriate to the title or the position and they carry themselves in a way that causes them to fit into a certain role that is the standard for what they we are called to be like he'll we forget that how we are to reflect god who with who up when we have been called in to hear is like this this scripture says that we're supposed to wrong with positions there's nothing wrong with titles they are of god they're there scriptural they they they are there for us took coming into a certain order in a certain place but we can't let the positions old us we've got to own the positions we have to realize who god is calling us to be it we made us to be that is greater than the positions that we hold if you understand what i'm saying what i'm basically trying to get you to understand is that what god wants to do through you is greater than what our position a work title maybe in dealing with of one of those that are being  done with john it was one of the issues that john wrestled with with being more games was the fact that all evangelists that he knew he didn't have a good feeling about and so he didn't want to be intitled evangelists because of what evangelists have been about that he knows and what i'm trying to help them to understand is that john you need to understand what we do with the titles that makes it good or makes it bad i remember when i first was was cons i was naive into the position i was knowledgeable i was moldable and one of the things i was told by my superiors was that now that i was a bishop you know i needed to address a certain way i mean they don't really have a thing to say about how i dress but but one of the things they did say is that as a bishop i needed to have a certain lifestyle and i have need to have a certain kind of car that i was driving and and i let that stuff influence me and it caused me to be able to struggle to meet the standard because i wasn't in the place where i really needed to be doing that  same mistake possibly but but but if you see and you understand then you can you can learn what not to do and you can grow but it's also a lot of trying to say is that is that when we have a position or when we have an office or when we have a title or when we have a role that role shouldn't dictate who we are but we should dictate work we are we should not allow the positions to dictate who we are in christ nor should we allow the position to enslave us to follow certain protocol that opposes what god is calling for us to exemplify it is easy to become slaves to the position and not experience the freedom in christ that liberates us to operate in the flow of the holy spirit within the freedom within freedom there is order and when in order there are boundaries and so we have to understand that yes he liberate us and he gives us freedom but that freedom isn't without order and that order isn't without boundaries and so therefore we have to understand that he's calling us to our liberty to be free within a certain boundary at a certain time it's like you have a child it and you can use you put up barriers around them and that child can play within that and and as soon as they get out of that then they come into a place of danger and so as long as they're in that place they're in a place of of freedom have they're free to do what they want to do and that's how it got really has with us he has a boundary around us where he's calling us to function in the flow we have that gives us a liberty and a freedom of safety and security and help but when we get out of those boundaries and when we get to the place where we lose the good seats and we don't have any restrictions or any any anything any any any things that are holding us back then we get into a place us and causes us to fail to demonstrate the glory of god that he desires to bring forth us in this new good we cannot allow what we see others doing what we know others to have done to dictate what we do with the responsibilities that god has given to us to fulfill in this day in the kingdom how is it that god is calling us to be a model to other churches if we're busy trying to be like of the church how is it that we're supposed to be an example to everybody else that we're trying to fit into the whole of what everybody else is doing you know we have to understand that's when we really can make an impact and difference is when we come into our mind where we know who we are in god and we allow him to take on the form of the old enough so that we evolve into  he's calling us to be and we bring a new definition of what idiots that we are about because of the fact that we're in our line but with the holy spirit's will in my life because i've been aligned with who i am in him and who he is in me that makes all the difference in the world we have to be willing to swim upstream against the opposition then to float  not your own for your bought with the price therefore glorify god in your body and in your spirit which are got two or five god in your body and your spirit which are god come to this new place we have a liberty and here i'm going to freedom and him to function and to flow the way he would have us to be and that it's when we do something different than that then we find ourselves coming into the place where our labor is in vain our young hero and i'm saying we have to we have to raise the question within ourselves how should i experience my life how how and why i'm fetter myself to become who i might becoming in christ what is it i'm going to let go of what is it that's holding me back and by the age from being free and him to the place where he is glorified through my life that i can be able to glorify him in my living and in what i do we get to own the positions and our titles and our places rather than the owner well secondly we have to me of and minister under authority we have to live and minister under toward one factor that often becomes a pitfall for goals in the body of christ is the idea that they have the right to do things the way they want to do be it is this thought that is demonic in nature and brings the vision in can and confusion in the mission of god on the earth is our desire to do things our own way that causes us to operate with a spirit of arrogance and pride that allows that that thrills us out of the true will of god for our lives and brings our brings the mission of current of the church into disarray it's when we have this attitude that i don't have to be accountable to anybody where i don't have to to come under anybody then we find ourselves becoming instruments of division and confusion in the body of christ are you are getting what i'm saying got god is a god of order and all that he created has order to it if you look at the universe the planets they operate in a sphere of order they don't vary from the order that god set for them that's what keeps them from crashing into each other is the fact that they stay within the order they got established with it have you ever seen geese flying when they fly they have an order and how they fly it yes they have a formation and  isn't that one of them is out front all the time because he will fly back and then another one will fly up but get that order stays because they operate in harmony so that all of their attacks are fast go flying is a whole lot easier would then animal life there is order within god's creation there is order but when it comes to human beings we want to be free to do what we want to do we want to get into this order and i'm  this interior answered and said lord i'm not worthy that you should come under my roof but only speak a word and my servant will heal will be healed  also am a man under authority having soldiers under me and i say to this one go and he go and i say to another come and he comes and i tell my servant do this and he does it and when jesus heard it he marveled and said to the levels who followed surely i mean assuredly i say to you i have not found some such great faith not even in israel the same tree and demonstrates the idea of flowing in order jesus shares then his faith is a demonstration of what is lacking in all of israel this same concept is true today we have been led astray by the concept of the autonomous church to point that we believe that no one has a right to tell us what to do or how to live our lives god alone is the only one that should tell us what we should be about and so as a result it becomes impossible for us to really fulfill a mission because we have some over here that want to go this way some over here that want to go that way and we find ourselves divided from what it is god's really trying to bring forth in the value john seventeen jesus says he says he says father make that one even as we are one so that the world may know that you sent me that when this on the fact did that jesus was sent by the father is found in the fact that the those who believed in him come into it one less even like the oneness of the father and the son and jesus say that when you see me you've seen the father my meat is to do the will of the father they were in harmony with each other they were in contention with each other they flowed together and that's when god is looking for the body of christ to be about is the flow and harmony is the flowing unity you a things with relationship to this this whole thing here he says now he says now you are the body of christ and members in particular and god has sent some in the church first apostle secondarily prophets thirdly teachers after that miracles then gifts of healings helps governments diversities of times in other words got his second new churches the word set there in the greek is similar to the to the so that of setting a teachers which is passed through teachers as we know but the whole idea is that there is order in the house of god there is order in the church of god there is order in the body of christ it isn't that well anybody just does what they want to do because i got the holy spirit there is order in how we flow there's order in how we function our young men hebrews thirteen seven says remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken them to you the word of god whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation the word remember there is to think of to to be mindful of it talks about keeping before your thoughts what you've been instructed what you've been told he says remember that which m p s from the rule over you who have spoken to you the word of god it says obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves while they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is profitable for you so so hear the word obey years to agree to believe to have confidence in him to trust him to comply with in other words feels your power pastor tells you to do something and you don't want to do it you want to go and do something else he tells you we ought to be fasting today and you don't feel i fasted and so you don't fast she's got to give an account for your obedience in your disobedience can embrace somebody that you don't like you can embrace somebody that you would odds with really and feel good about you know the word embrace it's talking about open t opening you know to intreat them into  can understand what it says embrace those that have the rule over you you can't be upset with them because they're trying to give you some instruction you don't want to hear what they've got of saying so you know i don't want to talk to them you know that that's not the attitude here and so so we have to understand that you know the example that we set is one of rebuilding in an opposition what makes us think that those who will follow our influence would want anything different in their life what you sow you reap we have to fight the temptation to become islands to ourselves doing our own thing we just seem to miss it when it comes to following leadership this brings us into a state of saying because we fall out of the will of god and come into a state of disarray when there is no order but only confusion in our lives in our homes and in the world husbands don't want to be obedient to their bosses wives don't want to be obedient to their husbands children don't want to be obedient to their parents citizens don't want to be obedient to those who have the authority of them in church doesn't want to be your p d f to the leadership of the holy spirit to the word of god but then at the same time we want to believe that god's blessings and god's favor should fifty nine two which says what you are iniquities have separated between you and your god and your sins have here it is face from you that he will not hear you need to hear jer things from from you we were forming our selves that think we can live any kind of way and and live outside of the realm of authority just because now we elevator given that title we free to do what we wan we were missing it and really we come into a place of seeing that causes us to miss out on the blessings god would bring to us and on the favor he would show up on us and to be able to hear an answer our prayers because of the fact that we are walking nine twenty seven which as your earlier says but keep underlining but i keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that any man by any means when i have preached to others  allows you to do anything you want to do you're free to do what you want to do it's totally contrary to what god's will is for our lives we have to discipline we have to we have to fast we have to we have to be about disciplining character disciplining our speech we can't let anything that comes to our mind come out of our mouth we've got to discipline our hearts we've got to discipline our souls if we're going to come into the place where we make heaven our home theological dictionary the new testament puts it this way with relationship to this passage here and the word subjection is said paul uses the term in first corinthians nine twenty seven to express the fact that his body with all that belongs to for to physical life is fully and in fact it will be subordinate to his office and has a right to existence only in so far as it at least does not hamper here in the discharge of this office so basically what he's saying is that we've got to learn how to subject our bodies to who we you know so you dictated by your flesh or or or because of the fact that you're feeling feeling some of physical urge you know you get a full feel that or whether it's for alcohol or or rugs or whatever else it may be that just because you've got that drive your flesh you feel like you've got to have it you know he says you've got to discipline your body and bring it on to suggestion to your spirit we've just outside down we really haven't we're at the top is is our flesh the next is our feelings are in welch's and at the bottom is our spirit being when in reality if it should be the other way our foundation that we stand on should be our spiritual man our soul and then our flesh that's the way god really intends for us to be living but we can't turn it around that's why the scripture talks about that christians turn the world upside down because the principles that god's calling us to live by are different from how people live their life on a regular basis we can be willing to to make a difference and be a difference from what we see other phobias if we really want to come to the will of god w this passage paul shares that there is a possibility that one can beat him by their flesh in the discharge of their work of for the lord in their service for god it is for this reason he shares in five fifteen verse thirty and thirty one the following he says and why stand in jeopardy every hour i protested your rejoicing which i have in christ jesus our lord twenty four twenty six he says then said jesus son to his disciples if any man will come after me let him deny himself take up this cross and follow me another passage says take up his cross daily the cross is a little gloom of suffering that causes an emblem of death in other words you've got to be about dying to yourself on a daily basis you cannot be allowing yourself to just just as paul shared first corinthians fourteen that there was such a thing as a singing in the spirit and singing with an understanding more or from flesh just as there was praying in the spirit praying with  understanding or flesh there there really isn't a difference between living in the spirit and living in the flesh there is a difference in ministering in the spirit in ministering in the flesh when we live in the flesh it us to think that the elementary base things of christianity is what god is expecting from us when god is looking for so much more to come forth from our lives than just elementary christianity but because we can't die to our flesh way and so on temper tantrums and all the other kinds of things that we do out of our flesh we find ourselves in a place where god's glory can't be seen through us is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is going to be against god for it is not subject to the law of god neither indeed can be so those who are in the flesh minister or live in our flesh we bring conflict into the body of christ we cannot come into the oneness that got in tins for the church to live in because there are some that are trying to follow leading of the spirit nineteen he says therefore from from now on we regard no one according to what a flash our focus is no longer upon us as fleshly persons we have to see each other from a spiritual perspective with regard to no one according to the flesh and yet now we know him well we know we we we have known christ according to the flesh yet now we know him thus no longer we don't even relate to christ according to the flesh any longer he goes on he says therefore if anyone is in christ he is a new creation old things are passed away and all things are become new our perspective has changed the way we see life has changed our eyes simply an open then we receive a new little one they send the blinders have been removed from us and so before see things not from a got to try to hear in the spirit what's really going on with that individual in our interactions one with another he goes on and he says here he said behold all things are become new eighteen now all things are of god who has reconciled us to himself brought us back into connection one this and have who is reconciled us to himself through jesus christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation if you if you are already living in the spirit if you are operating in the together and on this that's what the ministry is that god is giving each and every one of us who are called to be his children ministry of reconciliation how can we come together how can we be one how can we work together the reality is that each of us whether of late or a minister we all have the responsibility to live in the spirit so that we do not feel the loss of our flesh for the flesh lost against the spirit and there are contrary one to the other the truth is that whether we are bigots warmers or whether we're servants we have an obligation to live in the spirit so as to come into the unity of the faith the truth is that that that as we flow in the spirit all barriers are removed and all disappointments  flesh we will find ourselves out of the will of god and become a hindrance to what god intends for this season and for this day the truth is that if we fail to do these things we are in danger of our labor being in vain and hearing him say depart from me you that work in or arrogance or thinking that you arrive somewhere really it's a beginning point even as are coming to christ as the beginning point and as we allow ourselves to grow in him he brings us more and more into his likeness that his true glory can be seen in us what you're saying to us with thankful for the fact that you you not only make us feel good at times but you also warned us if we were tempted to go astray that we can come back into alignment to fulfill your wheel to receive your favor help us lord to decrease that you may increase help us to humble ourselves that you may be exalted help us lord to die to ourselves that we can have true life in you in the name of jesus we pr i don't know what god is doing in your heart life but i do believe god gave this work for today and it might be that you you have found yourself in a position where you have resisted authority rebelled against authority or you have found yourself in a place where where you've let your title of your position control you rather than you control