Is the Report of Your Death True? — Carter Conlon

Is the Report of Your Death True?

Bless the Lord. Thank God for his presence. What will we do without his presence in this time? We're living in now. Romans chapter 6, please if you'll turn there. In the New Testament Romans chapter 6.

The Report of Death to Self

I'd like to speak to you on this topic. Is the report of your death? True is the report of your death true. Now father, I thank you God with all my heart. I praise you from the depth of my being. For the anointing of your Holy Spirit I Thank you God for your living word.

For indeed your word is alive and it's a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. I'm asking you this morning Holy Spirit to draw back the veil Across this passage of Scripture and give us an understanding of it.

And give us as a people hearts to embrace it. Give us strength to pursue it and a desire to walk in it. Lord, I thank you for this with everything in my heart. Oh God. Strengthen us as your people and father.

I thank you for this in Jesus name. Romans chapter 6. Beginning at verse 1. I'm going to read through to verse 14. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

Know you not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father.

Even so we should also walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin.

For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death has no more dominion over him.

For in that he died he died unto sin once but in that he liveth he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and Your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you. You are not under the law but under grace. Is the report of your death true. The Christian life is a profound mystery. There's incredible power to those who know God and Have open hearts to the ways of God.

This power can't be attained by the strongest people on the earth can't live the Christian life. Try as you will you can't you can't do it. The self-willed can't live it and The ungodly can't understand it.

Paul says in 1st Corinthians chapter 2 in verse 14. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. That means the man or woman who walks in their own strength. By their own reasoning the type of person who has to literally figure everything out.

They can't understand the ways of the Spirit of God their foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. Again, Paul says in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 in verse 18.

The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved. It is the power of God. What happened on the cross. What Jesus Christ did what he won what he bought the victory he attained.

The theological understanding of the cross is a wonderful thing. But there has to go deeper than that. It's not just the knowledge of the cross not just the preaching of the cross. Now. Paul is talking about something deeper than that.

The Supernatural Life of the Cross

No, it's the willingness to go through the open door Into the miraculous life that the cross of Jesus Christ represents. It was an open door Into something supernatural into something that would glorify God in the earth.

That's why the self-will can't go there the naturally strong Can imitate as it is the victory but only for a short season. It can only go so far in natural strength and the ungodly of course will never understand it.

It is a miraculous life. And I thank God for that with all my heart if it ever gets to be anything other than that it gets boring. It gets repetitive. Week after week coming into the house of God singing the same old songs sharing the same old Testimonies and churches get like that when they lose sight of the supernatural.

Has anybody got a testimony for the Lord and sister so-and-so stands up. I remember back in 48 when God came down. No, Paul says if any man be in Christ is a new creation. The old things are passed away and all things are become new.

It is true that morning by morning new mercies. I see I Thank God more and more as I get older now more and more aware of the mercy of God than I've ever been in all of my life. Excited about the journey that lies ahead even this during the worship this morning I had a had a picture come into my mind of of myself coming around.

It's the final turn of a race. It's my portion of the race in this life, and I found myself just crying out to God Lord. Give me the strength. Give me the grace. Give me the vision. Give me the wisdom.

Give me the life that you promise Lord to finish this race successfully. Whatever the duration of that final course is. How do we get to be a new creation? How does this life get to be exciting? It's easy.

It's by following the one called Jesus Christ. He was fully God and fully man. But in his humanness he died to his own will and he lived for the glory of another. Matthew 26 Says oh my father. He said if it'd be possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou will.

In his humanness there was certain places. He didn't want to go and we're all the same really there's certain pathways we'd rather not walk into. The unknown as it is the difficult the fearful. But he said Oh God.

Let it not be what I will or what I want from my life. But let it be what you want from my life. And in John chapter 12 in verse 28 Jesus was talking about something really profound in this chapter. He said the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.

But I say to you except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abides alone. But if it die it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it. That's an amazing. He's talking about he'll just simply won't let go of what we think our future should look like how we feel that this life that we live should play out and Many many people come into the kingdom of God and we already have the agenda almost fully set and we're just looking for Jesus to revalidate it and add a good feeling to it and Give it a dimension of heaven that we can't find anywhere else and we want the insurance as it is of knowing when we die.

We go to heaven. But we don't necessarily want the pathway for this life that God has laid out before us. And he said essentially that I have a life for you that is so far beyond. It's so much deeper so much more profound than anything you could ever conjure up in your own strength.

It's a supernatural life, it's a sovereign life. It's an incredible life. It's a wonderful life. There's no words in my vocabulary deep enough to describe this life that God is willing to give us in Christ.

But unless we're willing to let go of what we think our lives should be. How we think we should look and how we feel that our pathway should be laid out before us. We will lose the life That God has for us.

He said if any man serves me, let him follow me that where I am there were also my servant be. If any man served me him with my father honor. In other words, I'm on a course now and if you want to bear fruit follow me.

Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say father saved me from this hour but for this cause I Came to this hour. Father glorify thy name. I'm yielding my life father, he said into your hands and I know I'm going to be rejected.

I know that this is going to be a pathway of misunderstanding. I Know there are many who are going to say the pathway that I'm choosing to walk in is folly and even my closest friends are going to run from me.

But he said father You're gonna have to do in me what only God can do. I'm going to yield my life into your hands. You're gonna have to raise me from the dead glorify your name and There came a voice from heaven saying I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again.

Christ’s Joyful Surrender

Hebrews 12 2 says for the joy that was sent before him Jesus Christ willingly endured the cross. Now it's not a joy that was visible to the natural eye. Just like the the sovereign life of God is not one that we can necessarily see with our eyes physically.

But he saw something that made him give his life up for you. And I he saw us here today. He saw you sitting in the seat that you're in today. He heard you Singing your praises unto God. He saw the potential Of what your life could become as you choose to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit and follow the Word of God.

He saw you and I partakers of the supernatural life of God both in time and forever. He saw us changed by the power of God. He saw God his father becoming a testimony in us through the Holy Spirit that could only be possible if he went to a cross.

Romans chapter 6 and verse 3 says you not know that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ. We're baptized into his death. Therefore we're buried with him by baptism unto death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father.

Even so we also should walk in newness of life. If we've been planted together in the likeness of his death will also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth We should not serve sin for he that is dead is free from sin.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. You see folks. That's what baptism is all about. For example Folks who make the choice to go into these waters of baptism generally on our Tuesday nights.

Going under that water means I have died. To trying to be everything that I thought I could be in my own strength my own will and my own power. I die to my own pathway. I died in my own vision of what my life should be and I'm believing that when I come out of this water.

That it is a public declaration that I am trusting God by the power of the Holy Spirit. To make me into what I could never be in my own strength and take me where I could never go and to give me What I could never possess for the sole purpose that the name of Jesus Christ might be honored in the earth again.

Through my life father glorify your name. That should be the cry of every honest believer in Jesus Christ. God do something in me. So sovereignly, I don't want to be relegated to another theological argument.

Adding to the multiplicity of them in this generation. Let the arguers argue let them argue I want the supernatural life that is promised to me by God Through Jesus Christ. I want to be changed from image to image and glory to glory.

Even as by the Spirit of the Lord my God take me deeper take me farther. My God make me more than I've ever known I could be. Put weight in my life Lord Jesus Christ let the savor of your presence follow me everywhere I go.

That should be the cry in the heart of every true believer in Jesus Christ. Lord God don't let people die in their sin when your church is still here. Many people don't read their Bibles anymore, but they will read your life inside of mine.

They will read it. Oh God if they see something That is sovereign that has changed it could only be brought about by the hand of God on June the 2nd 1897 right here in New York City. There used to be a paper called the New York Journal and The paper erroneously reported that an author and humorist by the name of Mark Twain had died.

He had been confused with another man who had a similar name and he was to whom he was distantly related. He responded with a note to those that thought he had died saying the report of my death was an exaggeration in a similar way.

Baptism Into Christ’s Death

When you came to Christ It was assumed that you had died to an old way of living in an old way of thinking and That another person than the one with whom people had been familiar had been born again. It was assumed my question to you this morning.

Is it is the report true? Is the report of your death true or have you just been confused with another person who died. Is it true. Is it only by association because you bear a similar name the name of Christian.

That people assume that you belong to Jesus Christ and that you've died To your old way of living and now the life of Christ is now yours. Is it a true report when you came to Christ and you went into the workplace and you came home after service?

You went out into your typical community that you attend and said I and if you had the courage Which I believe you should have if you belong to Christ to say I I have given my life to Jesus Christ. That's a testimony.

That's saying I've yielded my life into the hands of another I have. I've ceased to be the person I used to be. The Bible promises That in this new life I have in Christ I'm a new creation. The Bible promises that the old things that governed me that dominated me that formed me the old value system that I had the person I was the Conversation that evidenced it all of these things are passed away and all things inside have become new.

That's the assumption that people make when you say I've given my life to Jesus Christ. But sad to say in this generation for many people it doesn't mean a whole lot more than I've started going to church.

It doesn't really mean that there's any any form of true transformation taking place there. I haven't really yielded fully to the kingdom of God within me. Matthew 13 44 Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like Treasure that's hidden in a field and when a man finds it He hides it and for joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Now the principle of this is clear many people want the treasure of eternal life. But they don't want the territory that comes with it. They don't want the field. They don't want the land. Think about this for a moment.

Entering the Promised Land

The the principle is clear. Think of that first generation that came out of Egypt. Coming to the shores of Incredible promise an opportunity to glorify God. Yet they couldn't die to their own ambitions their own fears their opinions their sense of security and unbelief.

Unable to simply believe that God was able to do what he said he could do. It's no deeper than that. They just simply didn't believe. They didn't mind being called the people of God. They didn't mind having that that treasure of identity that we've been brought out of captivity and we belong to God and God is with us we we see this pillar of fire by night in the pillar of cloud by day and We've we've seen the hand of God.

Drown our enemies in in the pages of his kindness. But they came to the shores of what they were intended to be the full intense mass say it this way many people come to church, but they they still haven't made the the break into the full intention of God for their lives and Just simply stop at the border stop at the place of saying well, isn't it enough that I'm out of captivity?

Isn't it enough that I can say I've seen the fire? Isn't it enough that I can make claim to food on the ground? Isn't it enough to that I can say that my shoes are not worn out my clothes are not grown old and God's been with me and and talk about the past and how he delivered me and Now they stand at the borders of something that God wanted to do that would glorify his name in The earth you see that's always been the intent of God having a people in the earth.

Otherwise, he would just take us home the moment we get saved. We just died. You come to an altar you'd receive Christ and be gone. No, he leaves the church in the earth that we might be a testimony not an argument folks a testimony.

There is a huge difference between the two. And so unwilling to go in to that place. They died and lived in a dry barren place. And I think that many people today are living there sad to say in a dry dry dry place.

That's why so many of God's people are pursuing one new fad after another. One new experience after another because in reality that the life of Christ is not theirs. And so they're looking outside for some tangible evidence of God and they're constantly Scurrying from place to place looking for proof that God is with them.

You see the proof is inside. The proof is in my life. The proof is in your life the proof. I don't need anything around me to prove that God is really lives inside of me. But the problem we face is if we're not willing to go into that place of Christ's life if we're not willing To go in beyond those borders that are before us.

Because because to cross those borders for that generation that first generation of Israel meant it Meant to die to all sense of self it meant to take on giants that were they obviously knew they couldn't fight in their own strength.

There was no reasoning this journey now. There was no military strategy. There was no seven steps to anything. It was either God is with us or we die. But they're unwilling to go that far. And so they stayed where they were and what a tragedy that is.

When God's people just simply are unwilling to go into the life that Christ is offering. And so that generation died in a dry place. And I dare say it this morning. I think much not all thank God but much of the Christian Church in America Has died in a dry place in our lifetime.

The evidence is clear our society with all the people who claim to know God in our society is going to hell now in a hand Basket, we're sliding morally truth is trampled into the streets. People are liars.

They don't care if they're caught in lies anymore. It makes no difference to anybody. Truth doesn't matter anymore. Men of integrity are nowhere to be found. There are no more any statesman. God help us where we're living at right now, and I put the blame squarely in the pulpits of America.

There's nowhere else that the blame can be placed. That's where it belongs. We turned and started preaching a self-serving gospel that justified our Powerlessness and let us live in the wilderness. Let us pursue our own dreams and objectives and all the rest of the things that come from the natural man.

A Church That Becomes a Testimony

And so now so many people are living in a season where they we acknowledge that this Generation is perishing rather quickly and wonder why? When the substantial Percentage of the population of this country declares itself to be Christian that we have little or no effect in our society anymore.

We're cast out of salt in the streets to be trodden under the feet of men. Might I suggest to you that we have fallen short to the glory of God that is ours in Jesus Christ. But thank God there was another generation and this is what God's been speaking to my heart folks.

Please hear me on this. This is another generation. It's another time. It's another season I know in this church alone There's numerous new believers in Christ hundreds of your brand new believers in Christ.

Now you have to make a choice. Where are you going to go with this life that God promises to you? Are you going to stay in the wilderness are going to go into that place of promise that place of abandonment and being healed?

Yielded to the will of God where the name of Christ will be glorified in the earth. Joshua knew that for this next generation to go in to that place of promise. They had to be marked and defined as the people of God in the case of Israel required a physical mark in their body.

That set them apart it was an irretrievable mark once that mark was given you were Identified as the people of God for the rest of your lives and it serves to me as a type of you and I Saying God for the rest of my days I'm going to live for you Lord Jesus Christ, let that be the mark in my heart.

The mark in my mind the mark in my life, I'm going to live for you. I don't care what it costs me. I don't care the ridicule that it brings to me, but Oh God, I'm not sitting here. I'm not dying like previous generations.

I'm not gonna sit and live a dead Christianity in the house of God. I am going in and I'm gonna lay hold of the promises of God for my life and by God's grace my life is going to be a testimony to the glory of God in my generation and By the grace of God when I get to the throne of the Lord one day my basket is not going to be empty.

There's going to be fruit in that basket. There's going to be souls in that basket. I'm not going to the throne of God empty. I'm gonna take them from the highways and the byways if Nobody else will come the poor and the lame and the maimed and the blind will come.

They will come and I'll take one in each hand. I'm not going to the throne of God alone. Glory to the name of Jesus. When they received that mark of God in their body they went across that river they went in to the promised land and the Supernatural work of God began to happen.

The first thing of course they faced was Jericho and you know the story how God brought down Walls that were thick enough for chariots and horses to ride on and he brought him down. He brought him down by faith and by faith alone.

Yielding to God’s Power

Oh Thank God for his faithfulness. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies. No more death has no more dominion over him in That he died he died unto sin once. And but in that he lives he lives unto God.

Likewise reckon yourselves to be dead and deed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof. And don't yield your members that means don't yield yourself as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you. You're not under the law, but under grace. I was thinking as I was preparing this back to the first couple of years that I began to walk with God and I I remember how Dissatisfied I was in my heart that I felt there was so much more than what I was living.

And I remember the day driving down a certain street and I just shouted out in my car. I said God I'm gonna serve you if it kills me. I Was tired of being ashamed to the name of Jesus. I Didn't mind speaking his name in church.

I didn't mind singing the sweet songs of Zion, but God forbid I should meet Some of the Christian people from that church when I was with my buddies in the police department walking down the street that did happen to me one time.

You know just seemed that God Would put before me some of the more vocal ones too on top of that. Remember one time I was walking through a mall and I had two of my buddies with me. I'm trying to be a testimony to them.

It's I'm having a difficult time and I ran into this guy who really loved the Lord a new Christian and he was he's a guy who had once been in jail and He ran up to me in the mall and he grabbed me and hugged me and lifted me right off the ground.

I'm in uniform. Oh, it's so good to see you my brother and I'm just kind of hanging there. Wondering in my mind. Oh God, what are my friends thinking right now? Can the church does this guy go to but you know, I was tired.

I Was tired of just singing. I was tired of fruitlessness. I was tired of being ashamed of the name of Jesus. I was tired of the powerlessness in my own life over some of the things that I had struggled with since I was a child I was tired.

And in that tiredness and in that cry that came into my heart. Suddenly there was a willingness in me. I see it now. I didn't understand it then but like those in Joshua chapter 5 there was a willingness in me to go in and Lay hold of what God had for me no matter what it cost me.

I had to die to the desire to be Loved by everybody at the desire died to the desire to be well spoken of. I Had to die to the the natural shame that all of us have. And isn't it sad? It's a sad thing to me.

I can't. I'll never fully understand it. We're not ashamed when we lied and cheated and stole and everything else. We did we're not ashamed of that. And then we come to God the one who created us now suddenly we're quiet and just so ashamed.

What a tragedy what foolishness when you really think of it. I Was just tired of it and God met me Sovereignly when I got tired and brought me into the supernatural life that he promises. I'm Remember those days like they were yesterday.

Some of you know the story a bunch of ex-cons laid their hands on me, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit. It had to be that way. I had to be willing to stand out. And be criticized and threatened and ridiculed and laughed at.

But I knew there was something that God had for my life. Something deeper not just for mine, but for every Christian person is here today. There's something much deeper for your life than perhaps what you've settled for up to this point.

You must let the love of God draw you into it. It's not something that you can be condemned into it doesn't work that way. It's the love of God that constrains us calls us. You know one of the Old Testament scriptures says draw me now run after you.

And the moment my heart reached out to God. I felt his heart reach out to me. It was only a few days after I cried out in my car that he met me and filled me with the Holy Spirit. And began to sovereignly lead my life.

Open prison doors and set me free. And took me to places throughout the world that I never ever dreamed. Because I couldn't have done it in my own strength. There was no chance there was no hope of it.

Dying to Dreams, Fears, and Ambitions

I Often think that he took me in my weakness and did what he did in my life as an example for those that are here today. That I have the privilege of speaking to saying it's as simple as this what God did for me.

God will do for you. But we have to have this willingness to be set apart as the people of God we have to die. We have to die to our dreams and ambitions as well as die to our fears and our failures. We have to die to everything.

Dead men don't generally leave a list in their coffin beside them of why they died. They just die buried with him in baptism. Yielding ourselves to the will of God. Unashamed. To be made a public spectacle of if that's what it's going to take in this generation but raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit of Almighty God and brought into the power of a new and an endless life.

And I thank God for this with all my heart and. The cry of my heart lately is Oh God, but the report of my death to an old way of living. And the pathway to a new life in me be true. Let it be true. Let it not be a religious thing.

Let it be true. God, let me lay hold of the life that you have for me in Christ. I Thank God for that with all my heart. I feel this morning like Paul did. I've. I'm not fully attained. But I leave behind me That which should be left behind and I move forward and press on to the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Strength Made Perfect in Weakness

There's always more for the believer in Jesus Christ. There's always a new victory. There's always another change. There's always something that begins to abandon us that could only be attributed to the Spirit of God inside of us.

Always Something that keeps us alive till the last day in a sense physically speaking anticipating This outward working of the Spirit of God within us. Oh I thank God I'm stronger than I've ever been now.

Because my strength is not in me anymore. I Understand now what Paul said when I'm weak and I am strong when I've lost all the natural steam. When all the natural zeal is gone. Now Jesus can take over.

Now he can speak now he can be God. Now he can love the people who he wants to. Now I can lead the people the way they need to be led. This message is not for the strong. This message is for the weak.

When you get to the point of saying God, I can't but I want to that's Joshua's crowd. I'm willing Lord that you put a mark in me of a Hunger for you that just never goes away and a willingness to be identified as a son or daughter of God.

And by God's grace May my life be a testimony in the earth. 120 people folks change the whole known world of their day. We've got almost 10 ,000 here In Times Square Church. And when you look at that New York City becomes so small when you realize the potential that's here.

The testimonies in this room the fruit that could be born for the kingdom of God. The preachers that could be raised up from street corners. Because somebody told them There's a God who loves them and died for them.

The incredible potential for God's kingdom. That is right here. We don't have to look anywhere else. I thank God for every other church in New York City and I prayed it with all my heart that every church come alive in Christ, but there's enough potential right here to touch New York City for Jesus Christ.

If you and I'd be willing to press in and say Lord whatever you have for me and all that you have for me I want it. I'm gonna buy that field. I want the treasure, but I want the field. Wherever it leads me wherever it takes me.

I Think of the numbers of Bible studies that could be started in the workplace. I think of the preachers that are here and you don't even know you're a preacher yet. Stop looking in the mirror start looking in the Word of God.

Listen to the voice of God, he'll tell you he'll whisper to you many of these things are preposterous in the natural Foolishness the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us who are saved it is the power of God.

Living as a Public Testimony

Jesus opened a way to eternal life and abundant life and a life that's a testimony of the reality of the risen Christ in the earth. Thank God. Thank God. I'm not relegating you To an argument. Thank God.

I don't have to go on shows and debate doctrine. Thank God. All I have to do is come alive in Christ. One preacher said years ago. He had crowds gathering around him in the thousands and somebody said brother.

So-and-so, how is this happening? He said it's easy. I just get on fire and people come and watch me burn. Hallelujah get on fire folks get on fire now. Get on fire. That's God for a song that can't be put out a light in your eye that can't be extinguished.