 have a lot and father will . We have a certain identity now. We have a certain status in him which enables us to live as conquerors in victory over sin and temptation. So we looked at the scriptural foundation of why we are saying that we can walk in victory. And then we looked at a few practical details, we looked at the importance of using the word of God as a weapon in gaining victory over sin and temptation. We also looked at the importance of walking in the spirit and how that helps us to maintain our victorious walk. So these are all things that we have been looking at. Today we will focus very specifically on one aspect of sin and temptation that we are faced with, which is the flesh. So this would be among the last few chapters in your notes. So today we are going to be talking about overcoming the flesh and what do we mean by flesh over here in the sense that the word is used. It is talking about the evil desires of our unrenewed mind as well as the evil desires of our body. So when we are saying flesh in this particular sense, in this scriptural sense, we are talking about the evil desires that arise out of our unrenewed mind and also the things that are lurking in our physical bodies. So to use an example, when we are talking about the fleshly desires of the unrenewed mind. God wants us to have a sense of dignity. He wants us to feel secure in his purpose. He wants us to feel the sense of being called by him and that I have a purpose in my life and that if I do it well sincerely, then he will reward me. So these are all very positive things that God has programmed us for in our minds. But an unrenewed mind starts thinking differently. It does not just think in terms of being called, in fulfilling the purpose for which I have been called, in satisfying my Lord and serving him well. The unrenewed mind starts to give all of this a different angle. It thinks about how I can become great and humanized. I start thinking in terms of how will this calling benefit me personally. So I start thinking of what can I do with this calling which will make me more popular. So what happens is what God wants gets sidelined. And now we are thinking of using this calling of God for our own selfish purposes. So that's just one example of how something good that has been programmed into our minds. Because we all are born with this right. Even from a young age we start asking ourselves, what am I going to be in life? Is there something that I can contribute to the world? Something that I can contribute to society? These are all things that we have been programmed with. But the unrenewed mind, if a believer is not renewing their mind, all these godly good desires and ambitions, they become fleshly. They become sinful in the sense the focus becomes me. The focus becomes the people that I want to please rather than just pleasing him. So what could have been a godly ambition turns into a fleshly desire of the mind. So in that way there are many many fleshly desires of the mind. Jealousy and then you have pride and you have greed. I mean these are all things that operate in the mind at the level of the unrenewed mind which has not been brought into alignment with scripture. In the same way there are fleshly desires of the body. To use a very simple example. We all have been programmed in our physical body to want to sleep. But then if I become lazy like Prabhupada talks about the sluggard who does not wish to put in hard work and be responsible. So something that God has programmed as a means of rest. As a means of restoring your strength. That becomes a fleshly desire where you just want to keep lying there in the bed and don't really want to go about your responsibilities and do the things which God has called you to. So something that has been good, something that has been programmed into your body to do good now becomes a fleshly desire where you are allowing that desire to go in the wrong directions. It can be the same with physical greed. So we all have been programmed with a desire to eat. I mean when we get hungry we know that now it's time for us to feed our bodies. So that is a godly desire. But then a person who becomes reckless does not even care about what kind of food he is eating as long as it makes him happy. So God takes care of his body, starts neglecting his health. Now that turns into an ungodly fleshly desire where all that matters to you is making yourself feel happy. You don't really care whether that is harming your body whether that will affect your future because the things that God wants for you if your health is really lousy because of the wrong decisions you have taken you will not be able to fulfil the purpose that God has for you. So when we say fleshly desires of the body and the unrenewed mind we are talking about things that actually were meant to be good but now we are using these things for all the wrong purposes. We are taking these desires of God, these ambitions of God in all the wrong directions and fulfilling them for all the wrong selfish motives just to benefit ourselves. So temptations in this area can be a wide variety of things but basically one thing that we would see is that all of these desires are aimed at making me happy of fulfilling what I want for myself rather than what God wants rather than honouring God so these things become evil desires of the body and mind. So this scripture that talks about how temptation can hit us and how it works in this area of our lives so in your notes you would have James chapter 1 verses 13 to 16 so if we could have someone read out James 1 13 to 16 place I mean if any of the students are actually attending the class if I could have one of them read out James chapter 1 verses 13 to 16 it's just that if someone else reads the verse it kind of gives me a chance to pause so that I don't have to speak continuously so if anyone is present in the class in today's online session if you could please James 1 James chapter 1 verses 13 Yeah 13 to 16 yes 13 to 15 Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with you neither tempted in any man but every man is tempted every man is trying away from his own lust and entitled the other one the Lord has conceived it forgets for sin and sin when it is finished forgets for death Yeah you know so over here with the first portion verse 14 it says you know okay okay verse 13 verse 13 says it's God is the God never tempts so we cannot say oh God has allowed these circumstances to come into my life now see you know how circumstances have worked out everything has come together in such a way that now I am forced to tell a lie so we kind of pass the blame on to God and say see if God had allowed things to go differently then I would there would be no need for me to lie but look look at the way God has permitted things to come together in such an impossible manner that now the only option for me is to lie so you know in a sense we actually are blaming God and saying oh God is the one who has you know forced me into this situation where I am having to commit a sin so over here it says very plainly God does not tempt us to sin so we cannot accuse God and say oh God has permitted these circumstances and now because of these circumstances I am forced to do something sinful and there is always a righteous way of dealing with those you know circumstances so we cannot use that excuse that God is tempting us but it says in verse 14 each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires so you see the reason I am responding wrongly to these set of circumstances that have come together is because of my the way evil way of responding to these circumstances is because of the evil desires inside my heart rather than standing up for what God wants it would be more convenient for me if I can just sin in this particular situation so it's my evil desire that is making me sin it's not the circumstances themselves because circumstances can be dealt with righteously circumstances can be dealt with deceitfully so it's my evil desire that is making me deal with these circumstances because who knows there is another believer and he was faced with the very same circumstances maybe he would choose to stand up for righteousness no matter what's gonna happen I will be righteous regarding this matter it's probably the stand that he would take I am allowing this evil desire to have its way and I am saying oh see I have no choice now I have to sin so that is my evil desire that is actually dragging me into sin not so much the situation itself and then it says when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed so what happens is this evil desire within me entices me that word basically means I am being tempted and kind of being drawn into doing the sinful thing as in my willpower is being weakened the same way the longer Eve looked at that fruit the more appealing this whole idea of rebelling against God was becoming so she was getting enticed so willpower was getting weakened the longer she kept looking at that sinful act and she was thinking if I do this sinful thing then this is what I would gain from it so that evil gain began to look more and more attractive so it is the evil desire which first births in us this inclination to go and do something sinful at that point itself if we were to cut it right at the root and say no, this desire that I am feeling now is not a godly desire so I will not even go further, I will not even think about it I will no longer even dwell upon it so cutting it off right at the very beginning so cutting off the thing at the very beginning keeps the enticement stage from coming in because stage one is where the evil desire thinks why not do this sinful bad thing and the second stage is enticement so if Eve had immediately said forget it, God said not to eat the fruit so I am not even going to stand over here in front of the fruit and ponder on it it came in the form of a serpent so I am just going to turn away from you serpent and I am going to turn away from this fruit and walk away so if she had done that immediately the second stage of enticement would not even have happened so the wisest thing that we can do is when an evil desire comes the best thing to do is immediately to say this desire is not of God scripture is very clearly telling me what is right and what is wrong and I can recognize the fact that this desire is wrong so I choose to immediately turn my back on it and say no and walk away so when we choose to do that the second stage of enticement does not even come along so if you stand over there and allow yourself to continue being enticed and that option, this sinful option starts looking more and more attractive and your mind starts filling with the thoughts of what you can gain by doing this sinful thing so all that starts becoming very very attractive because you are still standing over there and pondering this sinful option when we do that this desire it conceives and gives birth to sin so if you stand there long enough and ponder that option you will reach a point where you will actually act it out so you would actually give birth to this sinful deed and if you continue doing this again and again it says in verse 15 and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death so if you continue to live in this sinful lifestyle and you keep giving in to this particular temptation again and again it becomes full grown one day and it will lead to death and destruction in your life now in some cases it may even lead to physical death depends on what kind of sin we are indulging in but in most cases when it says death over here it is talking about spiritually how you are getting destroyed how your life is being completely messed up so he says in verse 16 James says don't be deceived my dear brothers and sisters when the situation itself comes don't say how God has permitted the circumstances to come around now because of these circumstances I have no choice no there is always a choice so this is basically the process that this particular temptation of the flesh goes through starts off with a situation where it looks like the only thing that you can do is sin which of course is not true because there is always the righteous option when you go to God and say Lord I want to deal with the situation righteously you show me how so stage one you choose to believe that the righteous option is available and God will show you how to deal with the situation righteously second so once that evil thought comes you immediately say no I will not even consider this wrong option I turn my back on it I choose to walk away so when you do that then it helps you to avoid this whole process of enticement where that sinful option starts looking more and more attractive so the next stage is if you stand over there long enough you will give birth to that sinful act so best not to allow the enticement to happen and a person after giving birth to sin if they continue to do this again and again then that sinful thing in their life starts getting stronger and stronger it becomes full grown and it leads to destruction and death in their lives so James says don't even get into this whole process do not allow yourselves to be deceived is what he says so having understood this whole background regarding the process involved in sins of the flesh we will go on to look at other things regarding fleshly sins so Romans 8 3-8 is a good scripture passage I guess it's a lengthy passage okay we are kind of familiar with the first portion already Romans 8 verses 3 and 4 we've talked about that before so the law told us what is good the law told us what is holy so we have a desire to do what is holy before salvation we did have a desire to live a good godly life but we were weak in the flesh because we still had this sinful spirit in us that spiritually dead disconnected spirit which is not connected to the lord we were born with that sinful nature we were in that pathetic condition even though we wanted to follow the law we could not we were in that kind of a position and so what did Jesus do it says in Romans 8 verse 3 that God decided to send Jesus Christ in the likeness of us human beings so he sent us in that same helpless frail human condition what we failed to do he would achieve so he kept the law perfectly did not break it even once and by doing that we learnt that he condemned sin in the flesh he declared to sin see sin I have not given in to you even once so you have no right over me you have no authority over me so having declared that now because he was victorious in this all those now who choose to come under his covering who choose to come under his grace it says in verse 4 Romans 8 verse 4 that through the grace of Jesus the righteous requirements of the law will now be met by Jesus in us so he will enable us now to live righteously because in the same way he overcame he will impart that ability to us he will help us in each of our situations he will enable us to choose the righteous option rather than sinful option of dealing with that particular situation so he will make all of that happen and how will that happen it will happen to people who are choosing to live according to the spirit so if I am going on listening to the cry of my body and the cry of my unrenewed mind if I am catering to those cries and those needs no I will not follow the Lord Jesus on the other hand rather than listening to those greedy cries of my unrenewed mind and flesh rather than doing that if I am choosing to follow the gentle warning of the spirit where he is saying no don't there is another option follow what I am saying if you are sensitive to his leading if you are living according to the spirit then it says Jesus Christ will enable the righteous requirements of the law to be fully met in your life he will help then we have verses 5 to 8 so if someone could read out please verses 8 5 to 8 5 to 8 for the dead after the flesh do mind the sins of the flesh but the dead after the spirit the sins of the spirit or to be continually minded is dead or to be spiritually minded is life and peace because you cannot mind that this enmity is destroyed what is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be so then do that do that in the flesh cannot please God yes I mean so it says over here we need to set our minds on what the spirit desires that would be in verse 5 so those who have their minds set on what the spirit desires they are able to live in victory because those who are not setting their minds on the things of the spirit what happens their mind starts getting governed their mind starts getting controlled by the flesh that's verse 7 where it says the mind governed by the flesh so this is a mind which is getting governed and controlled by the flesh because each time the evil desires come along your mind is like okay how can I cater to these desires of my mind and body what can I do what loophole can I look for in the word of God so that I can actually do this thing I know it's supposed to be bad but if I could just find some loophole and do this thing so we start thinking in those terms you are actually training and educating your mind to go down the wrong path so because you are thinking about doing the wrong thing and rebelling against God your mind starts getting controlled and governed by the flesh rather than being controlled and governed by the Holy Spirit because now you are actively asking yourself how can I fulfil these desires and you have no desire to actually honour God so if that is the attitude then that kind of mind starts getting governed starts getting controlled by the flesh and the thing about such a mind is that this kind of a mind starts getting increasingly hostile towards God I mean this is something that we know we probably might have noticed in our lives at times when we are living in conscious sin and we are choosing to ignore what the Holy Spirit is saying to us when we are in that kind of a space going through that kind of a sinful phase of rebellion have you noticed the things of God don't interest you anymore and in fact you feel hostile towards Godly things I mean this is something that I remember once I was having a conversation with a person and she was saying back in the days she used to listen to a lot of wrong kind of music she was saying I actually used to feel anger and hostility when I would hear Christian worship music I mean there is nothing in Christian worship music to make a person angry it is the most harmless music there is but she would say that whenever she would hear it she would automatically feel anger rise up in her so the thing about a mind which is controlled by the flesh is that it actually feels hostile towards the things of God so it is so dangerous to allow our minds to be governed by the fleshly desires to be controlled by fleshly desires because we start feeling more and more hostile towards the things of God so it is a very dangerous road to go down and also it says those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God because more and more their mind starts wanting the wrong things so it becomes so difficult for them to please God so we need to consciously on a daily basis set our mind on what the spirit desires and that is the only route when we take that route we start wanting to please him more we start aligning our life with whatever would honour him so if we on the other hand are being careless about what we are setting our mind upon we can get led away by all these evil desires that we have within us and to use one example so let's take the example of the Corinthian believers so we are looking at 1 Corinthians 3 versus 1 to 4 if someone could please read out 1 Corinthians 3 versus 1 to 4 1 Corinthians 3 verse 1 to 4 and I brethren could not speak unto you as unto the spiritual but as unto as unto cannot even as unto baby in Christ are not with me for either to you are not able to bear it whether the yet now are you able for you are yet cannot for where are the eyes among you living and strive and division are yet not cannot and work as men verse 5 verse 1 verse 4 as well for why one says I am a pope and another I am a apolu are you not cannot okay so over here in the NIV they are called worldly that's the term that is used so it's in fact used 3 times where these people are being called worldly and in verse 3 in fact it says how you are not acting like mere humans is the term that is used so the world thinks in a particular way okay so on the other hand the people of God are supposed to think the way God thinks so there is a difference so he is basically saying see you are thinking the way the world thinks and so you are acting like mere humans is what he says in verse 3 so the particular example over here in what way were they thinking the way the world thinks the world basically wants to establish the people of the world want to establish their superiority over others they want to show that I am better than you what I have is better than you than what you have status is greater than your status so that is one that's the way the world thinks as far as this particular example is concerned so over here these people were actually doing that it's like as if they were having this attitude of I am a follower of Paul and Paul's teachings are have solid meat so I am a better believer than you people who are listening to the teachings of Apollo Apollo's teachings are not very good so you guys are not very spiritual so it's ridiculous so Paul says people are acting like people of the world and he says you are acting like mere humans no you are not supposed to be behaving like this you are not even supposed to be thinking like this you are supposed to be thinking the way God thinks so when we kind of make the same mistake it's so dangerous because we all have this attitude sometimes we think oh my church is better than your church my denomination is more doctrinally correct than your denomination so when we take this attitude Paul infact would say to us he would say you are behaving like mere infants you have not even grown to a level where you can acknowledge the fact that God is at work in all believers so he says don't go down the road which the world goes down exercising jealousy quarrelling and all of that don't be like that rather think the way God's people are supposed to think so here how were the Corinthians being fleshly in what way were they giving into their fleshly desires they were thinking the way the world thinks so whatever is important to the world they were applying the same rules over here in the church the world says I need to prove my superiority I need to prove that I am better than you so they brought that same worldly principle and thought pattern into the church and they were like trying to show off and say oh my leader is better than your leader so when it comes to spiritual walk my spiritual walk is superior to yours so all of this was going on so Paul says you need to stop being worldly you need to stop thinking the way the world thinks instead choose to think in a way that in the way that God would think so that's just one example of how a person can be fleshly and other worse okay when we look at first Peter chapter 2 verse 11 it says something important about something you know it gives us a warning about fleshly living so first Peter chapter 2 verse 11 if someone could read out please yeah go ahead yeah first Peter 2 11 dear friends I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners to keep away from worldly desires that waged against your very souls so it says over here that these sinful desires are waging a war against your soul okay so if a person is following sinful desires what is happening is they are fighting against their own soul they are harming themselves so they are defeating themselves in that sense they live self defeated lives by attacking their own soul by harming their own interests they are defeating themselves they are not giving themselves a chance to live in victory so the really dangerous thing about sinful desires and entertaining them and giving into them you are actually waging a war not against somebody else in fact waging a war against your very own soul you are harming and destroying your very own life so this is the really serious danger which is by even Galatians 6 7 to 8 also gives a very serious word of warning Galatians 6 7 to 8 if someone could read out Galatians 6 7 to 8 Galatians 6 7 to 8 be not deceived God is not mock for so ever a man's word that shall also reap was it for he that sowed to the flesh to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that sowed to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life okay so here also very clearly to say do not be deceived God cannot be mocked God has laid down certain spiritual principles and that's exactly how things are going to turn out so don't think that you can do something sinful and get away with it the spiritual principle that God has laid in place is that if a person keeps sowing seeds which are catering to their fleshly desires the crop which is going to come out of their life is not going to be a good one so don't be under the it's like the same rule that works even in the natural realm if I go on sowing seeds of mango tree and I keep telling myself I will get coconuts it's ridiculous how much ever I may say to myself and try to convince myself that I'm going to reap a harvest of coconut trees it's not going to happen because the seeds which I have been sowing are mango seeds so in the same way coming to the spiritual realm it says over here do not be deceived God cannot be mocked there are certain principles that God has laid in place and the outcome will be on the basis of those principles so if you have as a believer chosen to go on reaping go on sowing seeds seeds of rebellion seeds of fulfilling your fleshly desires if that's the path that you're going down then stop thinking that the outcome of your life will be good that nothing bad will happen that you will somehow escape no the spiritual principle that God has set in place will operate and the harvest which comes out will be one of destruction because you are sowing seeds that are pleasing the flesh it says the flesh will reap destruction so so both of these verses are warning us about the serious dangers involved in entertaining a fleshly lifestyle where you are choosing to please the flesh and that is harmful now in your notes there are a few practical points given on how to overcome the flesh the very first point that is given about how to overcome the flesh it says know that you are free from the power of sin now this is something that we've touched upon again and again and again because it's fine it all rests on this if I'm still thinking in my mind that I'm not really free from sin I'll be like that person who says oh circumstances are all against me I have no choice I must sin in this situation that's basically where you would end up with that mindset so it all begins with this basic knowledge of what was done for us on the cross and we need to acknowledge the fact that yes we were set free from sin so we'll not really look at that in detail because we are so familiar with that concept by now Romans chapter 6 verse 6 again and again we've talked about that because that is where it is so clearly put in simple language it says over there that our old self was crucified with him it's a plain fact so that sinful spiritually dead spirit that you and I were born with that sinful nature that we were born with it says very very plainly that got crucified on the cross in that moment of salvation when we chose to submit ourselves to the Lord so he did that for us and it says so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin so this is an established fact so we need to accept that and we need to accept the fact that the Holy Spirit has now birthed a new creation we have been made into a completely new creation it's not that he just took the that sinful spiritually dead person and kind of repaired them a little bit no he totally replaced that that old sinful me was crucified, done away with and he has now turned me into a completely new creation so I need, I am no longer a slave to sin so when the temptation comes earlier when the temptation would come I really didn't have much of a choice I would try to fight it I would try to resist but in the end I would give in because I was helpless I was a slave to sin but now I need to recognize that no longer am I in that helpless situation now actually I do have the power of God to overcome that sin why because I am a new creation so this is an established fact that we need to just absorb into our mind it's maybe the probably one of the first things that we need to renew our mind about and make our mind clearly recognize the scriptural truth that we are no longer slaves to sin so it says in Romans in over 6 verse 14 for sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under the law but under grace so you know we talked about this as well we talked about how what is our legal standing now we are not under the law we are not being held under condemnation but rather we have now come under the grace of Jesus Christ so Jesus Christ through his grace he will fulfill the righteous requirements of the law in us because we are choosing every day to walk in the spirit walk in step with the spirit listening to him trying to live in a way that pleases him so even as we are just doing that on a daily basis Jesus Christ because we are under his grace he will fulfill the righteous requirements of the law in us so these things are the very fundamental scriptural basis and we need to keep these things in mind on a daily basis and another scripture 2nd Peter 1 3-4 says something so beautiful if someone could read out 2nd Peter 1 3-4 so it says over here this is a promise this is God saying something so we need to accept this as a fact it says over here his divine power has given us everything we need so we were slaves of sin but now our new status is this by his divine power we have been given everything we need for a godly life so no matter how big the temptation is no matter how strong you know that thing which comes against you that sinful urge that comes over you it doesn't matter how strong it is God's divine power his divine resurrection power has now given us everything that we need for a godly life and then in verse 4 Peter goes on to say he has that Jesus has given us great and precious promises so that through them you may participate I cannot fear okay we will take a break we will come back from the break so at 11 if we can all log back in we will resume the class at 11 alright yeah thank you