The Enemy of the Self Will — Sandeep Poonen

Father, we lift up our brother Sandeep to you today for what only you can do. Take a vessel and fill it with yourself. You can take any of us, if we are willing, and you can make us speak your words. We pray that today we will hear from heaven through this vessel, a vessel of clay that will be sure, but in your hand, a means of blessing pouring out, blessing on us through what you say through our brother.

Oh Father, fill this man with the Holy Ghost and fire as he shares with us today. In Jesus' name.

It's a privilege for me to be here. I'll just give you a quick introduction to myself. I'm not sure if I know most of you. You may not know me. My name is Sandeep Poonen. I grew up in India. I came here when I was 17 to go to college on the East Coast in Philadelphia, ended up in California because I majored in computer science.

So I work in the IT field in one of the companies up in Silicon Valley. I do IT security. So if you leave your phone around, I might hack it. I'm not that smart. I'm supposed to learn how to protect it is what my job is to protect company security.

And I'm one of the elders. I'm one of three elders of a church in, we meet in San Jose. We spread out all over the Bay Area. And it's a privilege for me to be able to share God's word in different places.

It's a privilege that Greg has asked me to speak here. So thank you so much. Thank you for listening to me. I hope that the Lord will speak to us today through what God has laid on my heart. The thing that I was thinking about the theme, I couldn't find out too much more about the theme, but the theme was how long, oh Lord.

Expecting God to Answer

And the question I had was, I believe that's a question that I believe we're asking, how long, oh Lord. And the question is, what's the answer? Has he spoken to you? When my boy comes to me and tells me how long before we get home, silence, days, weeks, months, dad, when do I get home?

So when we ask this question, how long, oh Lord, dear brothers and sisters, did you expect an answer? Did you get an answer? Are we dealing with a heavenly father who speaks as more kindly than I would speak to my children?

I remember a revival preacher in Africa, there was a drought in the country and he gathered everybody to pray. And when they all came, he said, brothers and sisters, if you prayed for rain, where are your umbrellas?

If you ask God a question, if he is alive, he will respond. I grew up in India, I grew up with gods all over the place, millions, hundreds of millions of gods, just one religion. I saw it on every street corner, walking home from school, I saw a mound, it's still vivid in my mind, a mound where a snake lived, right on the side of the road.

And there were Hindus who were offering, because the snake was a god. I grew up with that. I grew up on most street corners, elephants, gods, monkeys, gods, half monkey, half man, god, instruments, god, decorating there, I'm going to India next month, I'm probably going to see that again.

Decorating their trucks as god, god everywhere. I woke up so many times, countless times to the voice of a Muslim singer calling to worship. My neighbor on one side was a Hindu growing up, my neighbor on the other side was a Muslim.

When the Muslim family moved out, a Buddhist came and lived there, and they were all devout. I saw the Hindu praying every day, out of my house I could see it, I mean you don't have a lot of space in Indian houses, very tight knit together.

The Buddhist woman had prayers every day, while I was playing cricket outside in the street, I could hear her praying, they're all praying. They're all asking how long oh lord, or they're asking something, how long oh lord before you make me a millionaire, how long oh lord before you heal my kid's cancer, how long oh lord before I'll finally be able to retire.

We're asking how long oh lord, I don't know what is after the how long oh lord, but what's the difference between the Buddhist and the Hindu and the Muslim and the Jain, all wonderful people. A lot of, all my neighbors, very sweet people, I have so many friends.

What's the difference though? I claim to believe that my god is living, and if he's living he's going to speak. But if I ask a question to him and I don't get an answer, then the Hindu and the Muslim is going to be like, well you're no different from me.

You worship a god that doesn't even have a face, because you don't make a graven image, at least I made a graven image, but both gods don't speak. Back to you. So when we ask a question we must expect an answer.

And I believe that god, that's how the lord brought me to him. I grew up in a Christian family, but the way the lord brought me to him is because he spoke to me. And he spoke to me through his word, but he spoke to me in a way that I knew was him.

And I have been sustained in my Christian life, not by my theology, not by the history of family ahead of me or anything, but by the word of god being spoken to me. Man shall not live by bread alone. Man lives by words that proceed.

Dear family of god, when was the last time you heard a word that proceeded? Well at least this weekend we heard, how long oh god? And I want to encourage you to do what I also had to do, because I was preparing to speak.

I said lord, how long oh lord? Well I'm expecting you to answer me. The lord took me to Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10 verse 12 and 13. It's talking about Jesus, it's talking about Jesus who created a brand new way.

The New Covenant and Christ's Waiting

It's called a new covenant, a new agreement in which god deals with man. The old covenant it says in Hebrews chapter 8, the old agreement given by god to man, to the Israelites through Moses has been torn up.

The old agreement has been torn up. God is not dealing with an old agreement anymore, he's dealing with a new agreement which is for all nations and all people through Jesus Christ. And he describes this in Hebrews chapter 8, 9 and 10 especially.

The whole book of Hebrews is a wonderful description of the new agreement that Jesus instituted in his blood. But in verse 12 and 13 he says, but he having offered one sacrifice, he is Jesus, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right hand of god.

That's where god Jesus is right now, sitting at the right hand of god. And now he's doing something, he's waiting, just sitting there waiting. What is he waiting for? How long will you sit there and wait god?

Well he tells me, from that time onward until, that's the answer to my question, how long? Until, here it is, until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. We just were asked to imagine heaven, we were asked to imagine the throne of god.

Did you imagine Jesus sitting on the right hand of the father, did you see that he was missing a footstool? Did that come into view? That Jesus was missing a footstool because he says I'm waiting until, then I won't be seated, I'll come back.

I'll get up off my throne and I'll come down. I'm waiting until all my enemies become a footstool. There are many enemies of god, there's the devil, there's the world system, it says in Galatians 6 .14, we are crucified to the world and the world to us.

Self-Will as Enmity Against God

But there's one enemy of the lord that god cannot defeat by himself, there's one enemy of god that almighty sovereign god cannot defeat by himself, not because he cannot because he's not all powerful, but because he has ordained it that way and that is my selfish will.

It's an enemy of god. I don't know if you knew that your selfish will is an enemy of god, that's in Romans chapter 8. Dear brothers and sisters, these are words that, these are verses, these are truths that transform my life.

I'm 43 years old, I'm a very happy man. I couldn't say that 10 years ago, I couldn't say that 15 years ago. My desire is to not only spread the message of a new covenant life, a new agreement life, the life that Jesus brought.

I believe that Jesus could say, he was 33 years old, I'm 30 years old, I'm 15 years old, whatever age he was, at whatever time, he would say, my name is Jesus, I'm 18 years old and I'm a very happy man.

I wish you could have my joy. Why can't we say that? These truths are changing my life to become more and more like Jesus. Romans chapter 8, verse 7, I have to understand what is the enemy of god, that god cannot defeat on his own and he says, I want you to crucify it and it's called a flesh.

Now that word is not a physical flesh, the word flesh has different meanings in the bible but this word, the way it is expressed, it's talking about the mind set on the flesh. It's in verse 7, it's hostile towards god.

And this mind set on the flesh and I don't have time to go through this in Hebrews chapter 10 and other places, Galatians 5, 24 says, those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh along with its passions and desires.

But that flesh is the will within me that doesn't want to do what god asks it to do. So what is my selfish will? Listen, it's hostile towards god. Please don't forget that. The mind set on the flesh is hostile towards god.

It's an enemy of god, I believe the King James version says it. It's an enmity with god. Did you know that there's something that I do, that when I do it, I tell god, I'm your enemy. What does an enemy say?

I hate you? Can I see that inside of me that when I do certain things, me born again, baptized, whatever it is, when I do certain things, that I'm saying through my actions, God, I hate you. You're my enemy.

What is my selfish will? Feeling whatever I want to feel, selfish will. Thinking whatever I want to think, allowing thoughts to come in, whatever I want to think. Doing whatever I want to do. Eating whatever I want to eat.

Watching whatever I want to watch. My selfish will hates god. And it cannot please god. It's an enmity with god. And I had this picture of Jesus ready to come back and redeem this whole world. And all of you were ready.

All of you had finished making the footstools for god. But I hadn't. And he was waiting. He's saying, Sandeep, the only one stopping me from coming back is you. I'm waiting for you to make your selfish will into a footstool.

Now you just don't magically cut a tree and here you go, footstool. That's not the footstool. Jesus was a carpenter. Well, we need to become carpenters in the spiritual sense. To carve up our selfish will, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, piece by piece, and lay it on the altar.

Let him prune it. Let him shape it. Let him cut it. Let him saw it till it completely finishes the work, and then he says, footstool. All the enemies that were within Sandeep have been made a footstool for Jesus' feet.

And then you work on the next one. Or as you're working on your footstool, help others who are working on their footstools. In Leviticus chapter 1, it's a beautiful story of how the burnt offering is done.

And the way the burnt offering was done was different from many of the other offerings. You just didn't take the whole bullock and just throw it on the altar. You cut it up piece by piece. And that was a symbol.

He says, look, in Hebrews chapter 10, if you go back there, he says, burnt offerings I don't have any interest in. I'm not interested in the sacrifice of bull and goats anymore. What I want is this desire that the proclamation of Jesus which is, I'm here to do your will.

So the symbol being done there is body part by body part. Being cut up and put on the altar hour after hour, day after day. My eyes, hour after hour, like that bullock cut piece by piece and put on the altar.

And my tongue. And my ambitions. And my preferences. And my burdens. And my desires for ministry. Everything, piece by piece, over and over again, laid on the altar. That's what it says about Jesus. It says in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 8, just a few verses before, sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings, that was not desired.

Then he said, this is what Jesus said, behold, I have come to do your will, not my will. And he says by doing this, he threw out the old covenant and brought in a new agreement. So God doesn't need burnt offerings.

God doesn't need Sabbath days. God doesn't need anything in the old covenant. God wants one proclamation with our lives. I am here to do the will of God. John chapter 6 verse 38, a one sentence autobiography of the life of Jesus.

I've come from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. The new covenant life, the new agreement life, the Christian life is a fully surrendered will. I had a lot of ambitions for ministry.

Dying to Personal Ambition

I had a lot of options and possibilities. But I remember the Lord touching me through a statement by George Mueller. Somebody asked him when he was 92 years old, what is the secret of your service? I think most of you know George Mueller, took care of 10 million, 10 ,000, 10 ,000 orphans, trade down 6 million pounds without ever asking anybody for a penny.

I named my youngest boy after him, Noah Mueller, he's two years old now. But George Mueller was so impactful on my life because I was doing all kinds of ministry. I was preaching publicly in different places and I was also very active in social justice.

And my heroes were people like William Booth and Mother Teresa, he's from India. Until I stumbled upon George Mueller and I read that statement by George Mueller when somebody asked him when he was 92 years old, he died I think a few months later, what was the secret of your service?

And he said there was a day that George Mueller died. To George Mueller, to his preferences, to his ambitions, to the approval of man, to the censure of man. And from that day onwards, I sought to seek the approval of God alone.

And here I was, working with AIDS patients with Mother Teresa's, helping poor children, all kinds of things doing, and not finding the secret of success that George Mueller had found. And I gave it all up.

And I said, Lord, I want the secret that George Mueller found. And I have found the fountain, who is Christ. But I had to lay down everything, piece by piece, word by word, every day. Brothers and sisters, I know how difficult it is.

I work in the IT industry in the Bay Area. I get assaulted almost daily by emails that come to me. They're constantly trying to provoke this will in me that says, God, I hate you. And every day I have to become more and more like Jesus.

I have to choose to do it. And I'm sustained by God speaking to me. I'm sustained by God's love. But this is the new agreement. God's waiting. If the prayer, if the cry within any of us is, how long, oh, Lord?

Let me tell you God's answer to me. I'm waiting, Sandeep, for your enemies. The devil, I'll take care of him. In fact, I already did take care of him. The world system, no problem. It's much bigger than you can ever handle.

I've got this. You can talk to me about it, no problem. But your flesh, I'm waiting for you. Lay it on the altar. Your selfish will, yes, Lord, I did it yesterday. Keep going. I'm not interested in zeal.

I'm not interested in zeal. I'm not interested in passion. I'm interested in endurance. Show me young people who are faithful. I'll trade one faithful young person for a thousand zealous young people.

I used to be zealous. I know where it ended me up. I'll trade one person who is humble, submitted, and faithful. Give me one in a million. I searched for a man who could stand in the gap faithfully and listen to me.

I couldn't find any. I'd find zealous people who capture the theology of the day and get excited about it and keep needing to come to get pumped up by sermons. No, I want a young man or young woman who has discovered Christ to be the fountain.

He says, you don't need to maintain me. I don't need to be maintained by anybody. I have found Christ. I don't thirst anymore. Jesus said that to a woman who had been five times divorced. How much more accessible is it to us?

Jesus as the Pattern of Holiness

Family of God, let's not lower our standards. David's not our example. David killed Philistines, wrote lots of wonderful psalms, but then he committed adultery when he was 50. He's not my example. Elijah's not my example.

He called on fire from heaven, but the next chapter I read him running away from Queen Jezebel, wanting God to take his life. He's not my example. Jesus is my example. Who was tempted in all points, never sinned, and thought, motive, action?

What does that mean, that Jesus never sinned? How long did Jesus live? 33 years? How many days is that? 10 ,000 days. How many hours is that? I've done the math already. Trust me, I'm not doing this in the spot.

250 ,000 hours. Have you gone one hour without sinning, in thought? Jesus is my example. Jesus says, what does he say? Try to do the best you can. No, he says, follow me. Not, thus saith the Lord. That's old covenant.

God, Jesus could have stood 100 miles above from heaven and said, thus saith the Lord. He didn't do that. He came down on earth and lived around me as a man tempted in all points. He was fully God at all times, but he was tempted in all points as a man and he never sinned.

What excuse do I have today for not laying my tongue on the altar? What excuse do I have for not laying my eye on the altar? I have Jesus apparently with me, that heathen person who's getting drunk on weekends.

He doesn't have Jesus, but I have the Holy Spirit living in me. What's my excuse? What did Jesus have? He had the word of God. He had the Holy Spirit living in him. Did he have some superpower that I don't have?

But I've lowered the standard to lower people than Jesus Christ. The new covenant message is crystal clear. Jesus is my example. But when I unpack what it means for Jesus to be my example, it applies to my daily life and I have to be maniacally focused on my thought life and what I read and what I listen to because Jesus was.

That's the only reason why. And apparently I want to be like Jesus because I said I'm a Christian. Well, that's what I get when I sign up at the very beginning. But we're not hearing this in churches.

Obedience Over Revivalist Enthusiasm

I want to read something from Tozer. It is my conviction that much, much, that much, very much prayer for and talk about revival these days is wasted energy. Ignoring the confusion of figures, I might say that it is hunger that appears to have no object.

There's no there's no object for the hunger. It is a dreamy wishing that is too weak to produce moral action. The correction of this error is extremely difficult. It strikes at the whole Adam life and requires humility and cross caring.

In short, it requires obedience. And that we will do anything to escape. Because there's somebody inside of me. There's an instinct inside of me called my flesh that hates God. I will do anything. I will.

Let me read Tozer. When faced with a sin, a confession or a moral alteration in our life, we find it much easier to pray half a night than to obey God. I know it's true. I know how difficult it is to obey God when my wife needs my help, when my co-worker has sent me a nasty email.

I'm not talking about replying with my words. God's thankfully brought me a little bit further than that. I'm not saying replying with a nasty email. God's allowed me so far. I'm talking about even my thought life.

And it blows my mind that for 250 ,000 hours, Jesus never sinned. When his brothers teased him. When his customers who are buying his stables insulted him. Not one sinful thought. My focus needs to be on purity and radical obedience.

That must be my focus. That is why in my desire of what the work that the Lord has in front of me, I must reject the world's system that says define success by quantity. Quantity of what I can do for God.

Quantity of the size of my church. Quantity of how much money I have. Quantity of how much money I give for God. Quantity of something. And I need to get out of moving from quantity to thinking about purity.

Purity Rather Than Visible Success

But I also want to say that I don't have a very big church. I have a very small church relative to many other churches. I don't have any pride in not having a big church. And I don't have any pride in having a small church.

Quantity is meaningless to me. And I am not trying to keep my church small. I'm not. I'm trying to keep my church pure. This is a true statement. Our elders, our church will tell you this about true. We are actively seeking to roll out the red carpet for purity.

People to leave who are not of one accord with us. God adds to the church and God removes from the church. And we are not interested in people coming to our church who are going to be half in. We're constantly calling God, calling for God to make us a pure church.

And when we see a rejection of purity, we roll out the carpet saying, what do we need to do? Do we need to pay you? Please leave. Please find another church where you can feel more comfortable because we want a pure church.

We will not compromise on purity because the only thing serious is sin. I got that from my dad. Not cancer, not AIDS, not poverty. Cancer never sent anybody to hell. AIDS never sent anybody to hell. Poverty never sent anybody to hell.

The only people who are in hell are people who have unconfessed and unaddressed sin. A lot of people who died of cancer and died of AIDS and died of all kinds of sicknesses who are in heaven. The thief on the cross may have killed people, but he's on the cross.

So he's in heaven because he got his sins addressed. The only thing serious is sin. And so I have to ask myself and I ask myself very often, is the devil scared of me? Is the devil scared of my church?

Will he be scared of me when God and the devil have a conversation like they had about Job? Will the devil and God who see much more than what humans can see, will God and the devil say, will God tell the devil, have you considered my servant?

You put your name. Is the Lord and the devil having that conversation about me? And what then is the devil's response? Well, God, come on, you see what he's thinking about. Next, let's go to the next one.

Let's go to your next servant. He's a pushover. I'll trip him up like that. No problem. By the deceitfulness of riches or the worries of this world, or the desire for other things, maybe, so that he won't be fruitful.

I don't believe that the devil is scared when people get converted. I think we heard some of that earlier today. Because it can be like the seeds sown on the rocky soil. It can flourish up in a moment and then wither off when affliction comes.

Not bear any fruit and be no longer existent. There's joy in heaven when a sinner repents. Absolutely. But the devil is not shaking in his boots when somebody gets converted. He does start to sweat when a convert becomes a disciple.

When Jesus goes from becoming a great person, and Jesus goes to being more than just the number one person. But when Jesus becomes the only one who matters, then the devil is sweating. He's not the great thing.

He's not the main thing. He's the only thing. This is the very first call of discipleship. If you don't hate, Father, your most loved possessions compared to me. You're not worthy of me. You cannot be my disciple.

So I'm a little bit more careful now when I say that I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ. Because it's saying, Lord Jesus, you're not just a great person. You're not the one who died for me. You are the only one who matters.

And I know who I'm saying, who relative to Jesus is next to me. My wife. My precious children. It's a difficult statement. But it's the statement of Jesus and it's the requirement of God. Jesus must be the only one.

Whom have I in heaven but you. There is, there are five people I desire on earth along with you. Is that what it says? Psalm 73, 25. There is no one. This is the heart of worship. I don't care if you can't sing on tune.

Music's got nothing to do with worship. Worship is saying, whom have I in heaven but thee. There's no one on earth I desire but thee. I'd like to think that Jesus couldn't sing on key. But he said, I have no one in heaven and there's no one I desire on earth besides you.

He was a worshiper. Because when, when the devil came to him with all the kingdoms of his world, the world and its glory, Jesus didn't say, hold on, let me go play a CD of music. Let me get my singing and praise on.

He said, no, I'm a worshiper. I've been a worshiper for 30 years. And you will worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And I've been doing that. Why, Jesus? What have you been doing for 30 years?

I've been cutting up my selfish will, a will that does, wants to do its own will. I've been putting it on the altar faithfully. So the devil sweats when a convert becomes a disciple. And the devil sweats when two become one.

The Church as a Unified Body

Because when two people become one, when two or three are gathered in my name, that's the church. And the church has a unique power that the individual Christian doesn't have. The church is the only entity that can defeat the gates of hell.

The individual Christian cannot. God didn't give us that authority as individuals. But he says, on this rock, I will build my church, the rock that Jesus is the Messiah, son of the living God. And he said, the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Against the church. I can't be the church. I have to be a part of the church. It's the body of Christ that will defeat the gates of hell. And so that is why I said purity is paramount to me. Because I need a united set of believers.

When I understood that truth, I knew that any kind of personal ministry was over with. I had no desire to speak in a pulpit, in any pulpit across the country or the world. I had a desire to be one. As the father and the son are one, I sought to be one with other brothers and sisters.

Now it's easy for me to be one with the brothers and sisters in Armenia and India and Russia. Easy. They never bother me. But the people in my local church, that's another matter altogether. But I wanted power.

I wanted gates of hell shaking power. And all night prayer meetings wouldn't do that. Singing worship songs wouldn't do that. All the thoughts about revival wouldn't do it. But when two became one, God gave me that power by the authority in God's word.

And so those are the things I have sold out for. Dear brothers and sisters, please sell out for two things. One thing, Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ in a personal devotion to him and to his body, which is the local church that God's calling you to.

This is what the Lord has blessed me with, gripped me with. And thankfully, the Lord has brought some other believers who I can say I have enjoyed fellowship with them. Fellowship. That word fellowship, 1 John chapter 1 says, the fellowship that we share with the father and the son, this is the fellowship that we want to share with you.

That's what John says. The fellowship that I share with the father and the son, I want to share with you. That's a high bar of fellowship. But that's the level that God's saying, I want you to be one that way.

To have that fellowship that way. This is not community. This is not club because of common interests. So we like the same style of music. We like the same style of theology. We like the same style of preaching.

This is way deeper than that. This is the fellowship that we share with the father and the son. The new covenant life is accessed by faith. That's the next word I wanted to say, faith. You know, I work in IT.

Faith in God's Promises

And one of the areas I work with is in cloud security. Cloud, let me tell you what cloud is. Cloud is basically you can access something over from any phone, laptop, anything. Gmail, if you use Gmail, that's accessing it in the cloud.

Now, one of the big things that people have in IT about cloud is that it must be always available. Like, for example, my phone, if it's not going to turn on half the time, I'm not going to buy it. Now, the cloud is all on the Internet, and it just needs to be available all the time.

So when I type in google .com, it comes up. If it doesn't come up half the time, I'm not going to use it. So there's a word called availability or guarantees. And Google, Gmail, all of these guys, they never give you 100 guarantee that Gmail will be always up.

I'm pretty sure every time you use Gmail, it was up, but they don't give you 100 guarantee that Gmail will always be up. In the legal language, they'll always say 99 .999 or something percentage. And in the industry, we call it the number of nines.

So we'll say Gmail gives us a five nines assurance. And some other people will be like, well, don't go with Gmail, go with us. We'll give you six nines. That means 99 .99999, but they'll never get to 100 because they know that means a lawsuit.

On the one rare chance where some guy pulled out a plug somewhere in Asia, there goes the 100%. I wonder if some of us think of God's word's promises. How many nines do you have on the promises of God's word?

Or is it 100 Faith is the assurance. Faith is the confidence. And I've started to see that. I've seen that one of the things that when much my Christian life hinged so drastically was when I realized that I had to live with God's word and I had to apply God's word accurately.

And if I did, I had 100 confidence, 100 confidence. And I discovered through the teachings of the new covenant, through the teachings that I heard from my dad and things like that, that this Bible could be understood.

The promises couldn't be randomly applied, just arbitrarily applied, but could be applied when taught and understood the right way to where you could have the 100 guarantee. I don't know. I don't know, dear brothers and sisters, if you believe that about God's word.

But that just doesn't mean you apply it arbitrarily. Let me give you an example. There are many verses that God says that God will give you, make you rich. How do you apply that verse? Do you think the prosperity preachers are just pulling verses out of nowhere?

No, they are not applying it correctly. They're not teaching it correctly. What is the right way? I must read those verses that tell me that God will bless me and make me rich. Spiritually, not physically.

My kingdom is not of this world. Jesus was establishing a spiritual life. That is why now I can understand that God says he has blessed me with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Every. Faith is mine, patience is mine, kindness is mine in Christ.

In Christ, it's available to me. So now I understand how I can walk around in life saying, I'm a very rich man. Most people will say, show me your bank account. I'll say, you're not, you're not thinking right.

You use a different dictionary than I do. I use this dictionary. This tells me what riches is. And the new agreement, it's not the whole Bible because there are a lot of verses in here that were for the old agreement.

That were supposed to be applied only in the old agreement. Doesn't make it mean it's not God's word. It's the Old Testament. But we have to be careful to understand that we're not applying old covenant promises to us.

It doesn't apply. God tore it up. I used to work for a different company. I can't go and say, hey, you still owe me money. No, we tore it up. You stop working for me. I'm not working for a different company.

Now that company gives me the agreements. We are working under the new agreement. That's why we call our church new covenant. Another word for covenant is agreement. Because we were so touched and it just blew our hearts open when we understood the new agreement.