Pastor Billy Myron begins a new series on the Christian life, focusing on practical daily living rather than a list of rules. The series explores how Christians can have victory over sin and spiritual enemies, what it means to be spiritual versus carnal, and how to live under grace through a renewed mindset instead of law or works. He references Romans 6:3-4, emphasizing that believers are buried and raised with Christ to walk in newness of resurrection life. Colossians 2:12-13 and 3:1-2 reinforce being co-raised with Christ, urging believers to set their minds on things above where their life is hidden with Him in God. This positional truth enables a changed walk.
Eternal life is in the Son (1 John 5:11-12), and 1 Corinthians 2 highlights the Holy Spirit’s role in revealing God’s truths, contrasting the spiritual person (who discerns and manifests Spirit-led things) with the carnal (fleshly) believer who exhibits envying, strife, and divisions like infants in Christ. Paul could not feed the Corinthians meat because they walked as mere men. The Christian life is mental: a frame of mind that abides in Christ (John 15:4-5), where the branch bears fruit only by remaining in the vine—”without Me you can do nothing.” Good works and fruit are the product of abiding and being spiritual, not the cause.
Humans consist of body, soul, and spirit; only the spirit is saved at the new birth (John 3:5-6). The mind interfaces with both soul and spirit, so distinguishing them matters. Christians can still sin and be carnal (1 John 1), as the Corinthians demonstrated through fleshly behavior. Victory over the sin nature comes through reckoning oneself dead to it and alive to God, then yielding to Him (Romans 6:6-14). Victory over Satan involves resisting with the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). Victory over the world means not directing agape love toward it (1 John 2:15-16). Distinguishing these three enemies is crucial because each requires a different response: reckon/yield for the sin nature, resist for the devil, and refuse to love for the world.
Salvation has three tenses: past (justification by believing the gospel, 1 Corinthians 15; sealed with the Spirit, Ephesians 1:13), present (working out salvation as God works in us to will and do His pleasure, Philippians 2:12-13; being filled with the Spirit rather than carnal, Ephesians 5:18), and future (redemption of body and soul at the rapture, 1 Peter 1:3-9). Past salvation guarantees future salvation; the present focuses on living spiritually now. The series will examine these distinctions in detail, emphasizing a mental frame of abiding in Christ under grace to manifest new life and bear fruit.
