The Key to Victory

Now, all of us are writing our own spiritual biography. Some of us have two volumes and some of us have one.

It has nothing to do with age, but rather it has to do with the relationship to Jesus Christ. If you've never been saved, you have one biography. One volume has your name on the front of it and it says under your name B.C., that is before conversion. Now, you may die in your sins and that's the only volume you'll ever have. But if you've trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have two volumes.

One volume has your name on it. Under your name it has B.C. before conversion. The other volume has your name on it and under that name there are two letters that say A.C. after conversion. B.C. before conversion. A.C. after conversion. And those two volumes ought to be absolutely and totally different because B.C.

was when the old man was in charge. A.C. is when Christ is in charge of your life. It is A.C. that I want to talk about primarily because we're talking about believers who have received Jesus Christ as their Savior.

They're already in volume number two, but instead of having victory in volume number two, they're acting like sometimes they are in volume one. So here they are saved and saying, how is it that it's A.C. after conversion, Christ in my life, and here I am acting B.C., acting like Jesus Christ isn't even in my life. Why is it that I continue to fail even though I know that I'm saved by the grace of God? Now let me ask you a question. What is the temptation that most defeats you? What is the one thing in your life you think, Lord, if I could just get this thing in my life straightened out, I believe I could handle the rest.

No, you couldn't. But it just may seem to be that way. Usually that's one of some people's lives, two or three things that bother them continuously and continually defeat them.

Just when you think you've got it licked, bang, down you go again. Well, there is a key. It isn't a mystery, but it is a key. And we've been talking about the life that wins, the life wherein Jesus Christ is living his life in us and through us, not living our life, but Christ in us, living his life through us and expressing himself through us so that our life will be the fulfillment of the purpose that God had in mind in the very beginning. And the fruit of the Spirit, which is love and joy and peace and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and meekness and longsuffering and self-control, all of these fruits will be the natural, normal life for all of us.

But the problem is that it's not true in far too many people's lives. And so the question is, what is the key to that victory? Well, that's what I want to share with you today. And it's to be found in verse 11 when he says, Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed and to sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, through Jesus Christ our Lord, or in Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, if you recall, when we talked about the crucified life, at the very end of the message, we mentioned three words. We said, There's something we ought to know. There's something we ought to reckon. There's something we ought to yield.

So we talked about those three words being the key three in this whole life that wins. But we sort of know what it means to know something as he describes in verse six and what it means to yield. But I want to underline the whole concept of reckoning. R-e-c-k-o-n-i-n-g, reckoning. What do we mean by reckoning something?

Well, first of all, let me remind you and refresh your memory of what the word means. It is an accounting term. That is, you put in the ledger what has already happened. That is, you put in the ledger facts, the history.

Something has already happened here, so you write it in the ledger. When he says we are to reckon something, we are to put in the ledger something that has already taken place. So it means to consider something done. It means to look at it as a finished work. It means to look at it as something completed. So when he says we are to reckon something, we are to see the thing or declare it as already finished. Now let me show you a difference here that I want you to understand very carefully. When we say that we are to reckon something, it is an expression of faith.

But now watch this. Faith, the word in the Greek pistos, which is the Greek word for faith, I can have faith in something in the past, faith in something in the present, and faith in something in the future, because faith can be past, present, future. I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, faith in something that happened in the past. I believe that Jesus Christ will speak to your heart right now, faith in right now. I believe that tomorrow so and so is going to happen, faith in the future. But now the word reckon in essence is faith that is always relegated to the past, never in the present, never in the future.

Not reckoning, not going to reckon, but something that has already been done. It has already been applied to the books, already accounted for, it is already history. He says it is history that if you are saved, your old man was crucified. It is history that you were buried. It is history that you resurrected. It is history that you are seated in the heavenlies and that is also in the present tense and also will be in the future tense. So when he says reckoning something, something is not, listen now watch this, something is not going to happen because I reckon it.

I reckon something because it already has happened. Reckoning is always past tense. Faith can be past, present, future. Though reckoning itself is an act of my faith, but always relegated to something that has happened in the past. So he says likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed to sin.

Declare that something has happened in the past. Something that has happened in the past is the old self died when Jesus Christ died, therefore we have been freed and liberated from the power and the enslavement of sin in our life. That is the meaning of reckoning. Now, what is this that we are to reckon? Look if you will in verse 11. Likewise he says, having talked about what Jesus did, reckon ye also yourselves.

You can't reckon somebody else. We are talking about a fact that is applicable to your life. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed to sin's reign and enslavement and rule in your life. I didn't say sin's presence because it's there. I didn't say sin's power because sin does have a power in our life if we yield to it. But sin has no power to enslave us unless we yield, unless we give to Satan, we give him by an act of our will, we give ourselves to him. Because all that's been cancelled, sin's power to enslave the believer has been cancelled.

It cannot happen unless I choose deliberately and willfully to disobey God. And you see there are many people who are saved who are in volume 2 AC after conversion acting like volume 1 BC before conversion and they can't figure out how they're saved over here, they're acting like that. We call them carnal Christians are living in the flesh. Well what is he saying that we're to reckon? He says we are, listen, we are to declare, we are to accept as a fact what?

That our old man died when he died of course, we're in the heavenlies now and that sin's power to enslave us cannot happen. That is it is a finished product and God has taken care of that. So that's what we're to reckon. Now if that's true and it is true that means that you and I never again have to be enslaved by sin.

That's what we're to reckon. What we're really doing is we are declaring our victory. We are shouting the victory that Satan has been defeated at the cross, Jesus Christ defeated him for my sins in saving me and he is defeating him constantly as Jesus Christ is saving me from old self in my daily life. Now that being true we have to ask this question. What is the key to making Romans 6 and what is the key to making this life the way God wants it to be?

I want you to watch something here. If you'll notice in verse 6 he says knowing this. In verse 11 he says reckon ye and in verse 13 ye old ye.

Now watch. I cannot reckon myself dead to something that I'm holding onto for dear life. If I'm going to reckon myself dead to sin, if I'm going to believe what God said and I'm going to act on that I cannot be holding some habit or some desire or some sin holding onto something and saying I reckon myself indeed to be dead. If I were dead to it I sure wouldn't be holding onto it. So one of the reasons many people are defeated is because they're saying I reckon myself indeed to be dead to sin.

They got a deadly grip on that thing and they're not about to let it go. There is no way for that to happen. You see I must be willing to yield if I'm going to reckon on myself under victory. So you cannot separate yielding and knowing from reckoning. He says knowing this I'm talking about the past. I reckon what? Something that's happened in the past. I must yield what is in the present in order that I may experience the victory.

You cannot separate those three. If a person just goes around reckoning and reckoning and reckoning and reckoning what they're doing is using a matter of mind over matter. If I say it enough it'll happen. You can say it till you are blue in the face and fallen absolute and out of defeat because that's not God's way. Now I want to show you five simple steps. Now listen we're going to have to make a choice and so what is that choice all right? These are the five words I want you to get down because this is the process if we go through. Now we may take 10 minutes to go through it but you've got to go through it in your mind rather quickly if you're going to be victorious all right? Step one first of all is to recall.

To recall something and if you'll just put down recall the facts. When temptation comes your way whatever it might be first of all you will recall the facts all right? What are the facts? The facts are that when Jesus Christ died I died. Jesus Christ has freed us and liberated us from the enslaving power of sin. The facts are I do not have to yield to that. It doesn't make any difference what it is I do not have to yield because God says what he did in the past freed me and liberated me from the enslaving power of Satan so that I do not have to yield.

That's fact one. Fact two is that I must recall is that to commit sin and to live in disobedience to God is foreign to the very nature that indwells me. The nature that indwells me is the nature of God. He says ye have the mind of Christ I in you and you and me so that it is foreign to the nature that we have which is Christ Jesus living within us. It is foreign to the nature.

It doesn't make any difference how emotional it may be you still have the power which is in your will to choose to obey God or disobey him because sin's enslaving power has been canceled in the past once and for all and I'm to recall that fact. The second word, second word I want us to notice is this and that is review. First of all I'm to recall something. What am I to recall?

I'm to recall the facts. The second thing I'm to do I am to review my present position. What is my present position? My present position is in Christ Jesus and seated where? In the heaven is right.

Now watch this. Anytime Satan hits you brother he's got to hit you from the bottom because spiritually he says you and I are seated in Christ Jesus in the heaven is that's our protection. Sin's power has been canceled can't be enslaved in the heaven is and what I need to do is to recall what the facts. To recall the facts that he cannot enslave me any longer without my giving him permission to do so and secondly the very fact of sin in my life is foreign to my nature and review my position.

What is my position? I'm in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is in me and I'm seated in the heaven is. There's a third word and that is the word release because here's where we get into our problem.

As we said before you cannot separate reckoning from release. If I'm saying now Lord you know this thing in my life that has a grip on me and I want to get rid of that and you see oftentimes the reason it's got a grip on us is because at one time we had a grip on it and you see if we can understand that you can't play with sin you see well you know a little bit of that's not going to hurt me but it's like a rattlesnake and before you know it then you're caught. You see God holds us and we fall in falter he still has us. Sin reaches out and tempts us. We yield and before we know it we are in the grip of sin but it's because first of all we reached out to it because for the believer you see we don't have to reach out to sin has no power to enslave us it's totally opposite to our nature. Christ is living within us we must choose to disobey God.

So what do I mean by release? I mean simply this if I am going to have victory in my Christian life when the temptation comes first of all I recall the facts old sin nature's dead no longer enslaved review my position in Christ Jesus then I must be willing to release my desire for that thing whatever it might be. I must be willing to release my desire to give it up to yield it to God whatever the cost may be. I cannot have victory holding on to something that God does not want me to have. I've got to be willing to yield it to him that's why I must recall the facts review my position and release my grip on any desire anything in my life that is causing me to falter or fall in my relationship to the Lord. Then the fourth word is to reckon. To reckon says that based on the fact of the word of God I am free. Based on the fact of word of the word of God I do not have to yield. When you reckon yourself dead indeed under sin as he says you are declaring victory. And then the last word is received because what's really happened? Temptation comes along and you're tempted. So what do you do? You recall the past facts.

What are the past facts? That you've died old sin. That the old man's been destroyed and that sin is foreign to you. You review your position. You're in Christ Jesus looking down on all this spiritually. You release the thing that you have gripped in your life and you've desired so often. Then you reckon yourself to be dead indeed to sin which is an act of faith and then what do you do? You receive the victory.

You just accept the victory. But listen here's what we want. We want feelings then we want facts. But there must be first of all there must be the fact then my faith then comes the feeling.

If I want feeling before faith and before facts it'll never happen that way. So those five words they're very simple but you'll try to then you'll say oh my goodness I failed again but now listen you can't just hear this one time right in the thigh-leaf of your Bible and say well I've got the answer. You've got to meditate on it. You've got to chew on it.

You've got to try it. You've got to apply it. You've got to think about it and think about it and apply it to your heart and you're gonna fail here and there once in a while but if you'll just apply those steps in your life on the basis listen you can't just listen to a sermon you've got to get in the word. Read Romans 6 again and again and again.

Read Romans 6 and 7 and 8. If you will just saturate your mind and heart with those three chapters then what I've been saying all of these weeks will become a part of your thinking because you see you can't practice this because I said it. You've got to practice it because you choose to and because it is the truth. Not because I said it but because God said it. And you see the more convinced you are by reading the scripture that that is what God says that it will work the more victory you're gonna have. The key is we will only choose disobedience because we want to not because we have to. The key to living the life that wins is a reckoning process going through those five steps and what you're doing is you are you are declaring as reality in your life what God says is in actuality reality that you died buried risen walk in newness of life seated the Father's right hand in the heaviness it is ours for the claiming. So I want to ask you what is that thing you thought about a few moments ago that came to your mind that if there's one thing you could take care of that would be it. Then I want to challenge you to get on your face before God somewhere and go through those five steps and claim God's victory over whatever that is in your life.

Not because you're gonna struggle to do better but because you're gonna trust him to keep his word. Let's pray together. Now Father we thank you that you've not left us to ourselves. We thank and praise you that not only did Jesus Christ die on the cross for our sins but he's risen in order to save us from destroying ourselves even after we're saved living within us through the power of the Holy Spirit greater than the power that is in this world.

We praise you today Lord Jesus for being everything we need you to be absolutely and totally adequate to meet every single need of our life always super abundantly more than adequate. So I want to pray for somebody who's lost that they'd be willing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. And Father I pray that every single believer who has heard this message would take it seriously because it is a life and death matter. It is a success or failure matter and I pray that the Spirit of God would give them the courage and the persistence to keep on trusting and believing until it becomes a vital marked way of their life to recall to review to release to reckon and to receive what is rightly theirs already been provided for in Jesus Christ. And this I pray Father in his wonderful name. Amen. Thank you for listening to The Key to Victory. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.