Bill Johnson - Become Who God Has Said You Are (The Dead Can't Sin) (02/05/2026)
Pastor Bill Johnson shares a funny McDonald's story to wake everyone up, then dives into rediscovering our identity in Christ. Using 1 Corinthians 3, Hebrews 5, and Romans 5-6, he contrasts carnal Christians stuck on milk with mature believers who eat the meat of the Word—leading to reigning in life through grace and righteousness, dead to sin and alive to God.
A Funny Wake-Up Call and the Heart's Hunger
Thank you, thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Okay, I'm going to say it again. I just want to give you a warning so that you can kind of prepare yourself for a response. Good morning. Good morning. Oh, so spontaneous. I love that. Thank you. So good to see you. So good to be home. And I've just had a lot of fun being in different places, serving with different people and some of my heroes of the faith. And it's been great fun. But this is the funnest to be here with you.
An elderly couple walked into McDonald's, sat down at a table near some young people who were having dinner. The old man approached the counter, placed an order for one meal. He returned, unwrapped the hamburger, carefully cut it in half, placed one half in front of his wife. Then he gently counted out the fries and split them evenly between them. He placed two straws in the soda and set it between them. The old woman began to eat her half of the burger while the man just watched. From time to time, he took a sip of the drink, but he never touched the food.
People around them started to notice and looked on with quiet sympathy. A young man approached and politely offered to buy them another meal so they wouldn't have to share. The woman smiled and said kindly, thank you, but we're used to sharing everything. Still, the man hadn't eaten a bite. He simply watched as his wife enjoyed her meal. The young man returned and offered again. This time, the old man responded, thank you, but we really do share everything. The young man paused for a moment and then asked, but sir, what are you waiting for? The old man smiled and said, the teeth. That's just sick. That's just sick. Okay, good morning. Good morning. Now you're awake.
Rediscovering Our True Identity in Christ
One of the things that I've been pondering, thinking about in my own walk with the Lord, is I feel like I'm in this season where I want to rediscover what He says about me and how He identifies me, who I am to Him. And I can give you a lot of accurate answers biblically, but there's something I'm wanting to explore that I either don't see clearly or have not yet experienced. Anyway, I just have this hunger and I believe it's from the Lord.
So, as a result, a few weeks ago, I was thinking I'd like to talk to you out of Romans chapter 6 sometime and go through something, which we'll end with today. But to get there, I need to take you on a little journey. And we're going to read several portions of Scripture. If you want to go to Romans 5 and 6, you can go there and wait for me. Or you can read with me out of 1 Corinthians 3. We're going to read there first and then Hebrews chapter 5.
Carnal vs. Spiritual: The Diet That Reveals Maturity
And here's the first part of the instruction for today. What the Apostle Paul does initially in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 is he brings up the subject of the carnal Christian versus the spiritual. The spiritual is the one who knows they're born again and lives accordingly. The carnal lives beneath what God had intended and actually lives from their senses, from what they think and what they feel apart from Christ.
Oftentimes, the church will actually look at somebody who's very skeptical or cautious or whatever and give a virtuous name to what is actually unbelief in the absence of surrender. And anytime you take a dysfunction and you give it a virtuous name, you give it permission to stay. Not only do you give it permission to stay, but you empower it to set down roots until it actually shapes the personality of that individual.
And so, a carnal believer is one who lives beneath what God intended—born again, going to heaven—but they live from their senses, from their opinions, from everything separate from what Jesus has done. So, it's like having a little Jesus flavor on your life, a seasoning of Jesus, but it's not the heart and soul of what you live for.
Milk for Babes, Meat for the Mature
And to illustrate this, he actually reveals the diet of these two, the spiritual diet of these two. For the carnal believer who is eternally the babe in Christ, it's milk, versus the mature, the one who comes into strength and fullness in Christ, is the meat.
The second is in the Hebrews passage. And he uses this concept of maturity. And he basically comes to this conclusion. When you have walked in maturity, versus meat and milk—please notice, it does not say milk versus lettuce. It's not in the book. It's not milk versus carrots, either. Or kale. Somebody gave me a little picture this morning of the walls of the cavemen. You don't have any paintings on the cavemen walls of salads. So, just to clarify.
The meat of the word is actually that which, used properly, enables someone to be mature, and therefore, a teacher of the word. Not necessarily the office of a teacher, but one who can communicate truth. All right?
Paul's Rebuke to the Corinthian Church
So, now let's back up and get into the Corinthians passage. 1 Corinthians chapter 3: And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. Now, brand new believers as a baby in Christ—that's never a problem. A one-year-old is cute. A 20-year-old who lives like a babe is disgusting. All right. That's what we're talking about here.
I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it. And even now you're still not able. This is amazing. He's talking to the church at Corinth that had, in many ways, come into the function of the gifts of the Spirit beyond what other churches had experienced. And Paul is still saying to this group, you're babies. You're babies.
Just because you're able to function in these things doesn't mean it comes from maturity. Amen. And even now you're still not able, for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?
Acting Human vs. Living as a New Creation
Are you guys alive and awake and everything? All right, what did he just say? He said, you're carnal because you're acting human. He said, you're babes in Christ. You're carnal. It's obvious to me you've been feeding, you've been nursing as a 20-year-old because you're acting human.
When you were born again, you actually became what the Bible calls a new creation. Now, in Genesis 1, we have the six days of creation. Glorious story. Whether it was six days or 6,000 years, I don't care what it was. I just know He spoke things into being. When you were born again is the only time anything new was created in all of history. A new creation. You have the DNA of the Lord Jesus Himself, the resurrected One, in you.
You are qualified to live like Jesus in absolute power and absolute humility. Yes, yes, yes. That is reality. Inferior thoughts that appear to be humble are actually the subtlest form of pride because they deny the Word. Yes, yes.
Maturity Through the Word of Righteousness (Hebrews 5)
Let's move on to Hebrews 5 and we'll just take this to another level. Hebrews 5 verse 12 says: Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
Now this tells us something about the meat of the word versus milk. What is milk? Milk is that which comforts, it soothes—it's important, all of us need comfort. What is meat? It's the word of righteousness. What's the difference between the milk and the meat of the word? The word of righteousness is that which promotes and provokes change. It deals with my own righteous lifestyle, thinking, and living.
So when we talk about the meat of the word versus the milk, milk is the result of food that's been digested by someone else. Meat is something that you go and get either at the store or boom. Are you getting the picture? The mature eat on their own as well as receiving from what others have digested.
Exercised Senses to Discern Good and Evil
The comfort is an essential and important part of life. But if that's all I gravitate to, I'm revealing my own spiritual immaturity. Because spiritual maturity says, I want to dive into the places of Scripture that confront in me wrong thinking, wrong perceptions. I want to have it adjusted. I want to live authentically in the mind of Christ with the character of Christ being displayed in and through me.
So he says, unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. Solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
So here's a couple things. We've got the meat of the word produces people who, by their maturity level, should be teaching, and their experience is they discern good and evil through their senses. Are you tracking with me? Kind of? All right.
Your body is not just something that's getting old and is going to die. Your body is actually an instrument to recognize the Lord. In this culture, that's played down a lot. We emphasize and exalt concepts and things of the cerebral area much more than physical senses.
Training Our Senses in God's Presence
But your body was actually designed to be able to recognize the Lord. It's why the psalmist said, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. It's possible as a worshiper to spend time on a regular consistent basis in the presence and the glory of the Lord that recalibrates your own physical appetites where there is this craving in you for the presence of the Lord, for the Word of God, for that which God is saying and doing.
It becomes as much a part of your appetite as you would wake up in the morning wanting to eat breakfast or lunch or whatever. It's actually an appetite that God has created in you and it gets recalibrated the more we get exposed to this glory and this presence.
Don't waste your moments in worship as we come together corporately. Let it set a standard and an actual high watermark for you to rediscover at home when you're on your own. Because in that presence, honestly, things just get rewired.
We're not looking for a one-time fix where we come in and clap and sing and we walk out transformed. We're looking for a lifestyle that so permeates our subconscious that no matter where you take an examination in my life you see the hand of God doing a work.
Recognizing the Real vs. the Counterfeit
People who are trained to recognize counterfeit money never study counterfeit money. They only study the real currency. And I've been told that those who will spot counterfeit currency don't always know what's wrong with the counterfeit money. They just know when they look at it it's not consistent with what they've studied.
And then over time they can begin to dissect and figure oh this is different this is changed this is wrong but initially it's just how this doesn't feel right. As you and I become more and more immersed in this glorious presence in the incredible privilege to worship God corporately, we learn to recognize that something just doesn't feel right.
Yeah but what's wrong with it? I don't know it's not sitting right. Having senses trained—I remember a number of years ago sitting where I was and the mosh pit was open for all the other worshipers and sometimes there's more mosh than other times but I remember this young lady came stood in front of me right there and she was moving her hands around kind of differently but you know we have so much strange stuff happen here that if it seems strange to you you're probably visiting.
A Personal Story of Discernment Through Senses
We just get numb after a while is really what it comes down to. You know it's the guy that ran through the sanctuary one Sunday morning with a sword and his face was painted half blue because he was doing Braveheart and it was a part of his worship expression. I went, alright I don't think there was any fatalities let's just keep on moving.
There was that one Sunday I'll never forget where a guy's doing cartwheels I mean he flips. Now, I know I'm making our guests nervous. I'm sorry, but this is our reality. He's doing flips. And he runs this way, does flips. Runs that way, does flips. He runs this way, does flips. And he looks at me and I went, one more. I didn't want to end it because I didn't want to take his experimenting away from him. But I also didn't want anyone to break their neck. And so he did it. He was amazing.
And I realized as he was doing this, I thought, now I know why they call this a circus. And she was doing what she was doing. But the strange thing that happened is it became physically cold around me. And I remembered my brother—Bob, wave your hands so everybody sees. My little brother. My little beastie brother, bodyguard brother.
Bob had a demonic encounter in his office once. And his office was connected to a series of offices. And his office turned cold. They're all on the same heating system. And the other offices were warm. And that came to mind while I'm standing here.
From Romans: Grace, Righteousness, and Reigning in Life
So I thought, well, let me find out. So I walked over here about 10, 12 feet away, perfectly warm. Temperature was fine. I walked back over there. I went, all right. So I went over to Summer, who was our head dancer at the time. I said, Summer, I need you to dance during worship. I said, just need you to dance. We need to break something.
And she got up. And the moment she went across that stage, this gal in front of me collapsed to the ground as though she were held up by puppet strings. Exactly alike. And somebody cut them. She literally just collapsed down into just a pile. And it was just a demonic thing that was going on. It just got broken through what Summer did.
And so I leaned over to Benny and said, she needs a deliverance. And so Benny began to pray for her and gave her a group discount. And got rid of all of them. And it was beautiful. And just introduced her to the one-step program. And however many steps it takes is great, but that one happened to be only one. Out of darkness into His marvelous light. That was one step. And she got wonderfully set free.
But the point was, it felt to me like the Lord was shutting down my capacity to use my normal tool for discernment. My ability to recognize in here through peace or whatever, what was happening. I couldn't recognize what was happening. It had to be through my senses because He wanted me to be trained in the senses. Does this make sense to you? Yeah.
Abundance of Grace and the Gift of Righteousness
A few years ago, I was at a hotel. Plane rides kind of get to my back and neck. And I was thinking, man, what I really need is a massage. So I was at this hotel. They had massages down in their gym or whatever. So I was thinking, sometimes it's weird. And I don't want weird. I just want somebody to rub the knots out of my shoulder, you know.
And so I walked down there and I'm thinking, I don't know, is this weird? Is this all right? And I'm praying. I walk in. And here's the desk. And there's the clock. And it says 9-11. I went, good enough for me. I'm good. It may have been paranoia, but I don't care. I've never fallen off a cliff because I don't get close to cliffs.
So having your senses trained to discern good and evil, what God is actually saying and doing. And here's the cool thing is the rest of your life, you can work on that to learn to recognize when God—and you'll get it right and you'll get it wrong. But that's with everything. When you started walking as a child, you fell after five steps and everybody cheered, you know, it's because of the five steps you took, not because of the fall.
And that's how we grow in the kingdom is we learn to walk with and before other people and we come into places of great maturity. So that's the subject of the day.
The Power of Grace to Reign in Life (Romans 5)
Let's go to the passage I really want to read. Romans chapter 5. You guys still okay? Everybody still all right? All right. So we're building just to get to one verse. Romans chapter 4 is the chapter of faith. And you read chapters 4, 5 and 6. And it's this absolute gem, a section of scripture that teaches us about our salvation.
It's important to understand this because he says, why? Because if you're really mature, you ought to be teachers, which is what you need to understand. So you can communicate because in the communication of truth, there's faith released and there's the grace for transformation. And I mean it.
So chapter 4, chapter 5 introduces us to grace. Law requires, grace enables. Grace is what enables us to live following Christ in a way that's beyond our human capacity, capability. Chapter 6 talks about what salvation actually looks like.
Let's read verse 17: For if by one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.
From Death Through Adam to Life Through Christ
In Genesis, we have Adam and Eve. We'll call him the first Adam. When the first Adam sinned and partook of the forbidden fruit, death was released, not only to all humanity, but to everything on the earth, everything under his dominion, death was released. Everything changed. Death was released into all of creation through the sin of the first Adam. The curse was released on the earth through the first Adam.
And he says here in this chapter, if death was released through the offense of the one, how much more is life released through the obedience of the last Adam? He's not just the second Adam. He's the last Adam.
When Jesus was raised from the dead, he was not the first person to be raised from the dead. Jesus raised Lazarus. But Lazarus died again. Everyone else who was raised from the dead in the Bible died again.
I think the greatest miracle in the Bible, besides the resurrection of Christ, is that army of dry bones. A valley of dry bones. These are guys that are a long time ago dead. And God says to the prophet, prophesy. He prophesies. And flesh starts forming on these bones. The bones come together. They're reconnected. Flesh comes. Sinew comes. Life comes. Blood comes. Breath comes from God. And we've got an army.
But all of those who were raised in the Bible died again, with the exception of Jesus. He is called the firstborn from the dead. The firstborn born into life through resurrection, never to die again.
Jesus was able, after his resurrection, he appeared to the disciples. He's on the banks of the sea. He has fish cooking. He's able to eat with them because he has a resurrected yet physical body. Not a fog. Not an ethereal shape. He's a person with a physical body that can walk through walls and travel at the speed of light.
So, Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, is the picture of the Christian life.
The Holy Spirit and Conformity to the Glorified Christ
Here's one of the most appealing and challenging things for me in the Bible. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit could not be given to the disciples while He was still on earth. It said, those believing in Him would receive the Holy Spirit for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Think about this. Why was the Holy Spirit not given? The Holy Spirit was with them, but not in them. Why was He not released to take up residence in them? Because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Why is that significant? Jesus was raised from the dead. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, and in that place of ascension was glorified. The Holy Spirit's primary focus in your life and mine is to make us like Jesus.
And if He was given to the disciples before He was glorified, the Holy Spirit could be conforming them into the image of the Christ headed to the cross, and not the Christ seated at the right hand of the Father.
In 1 John 4:17, it says, Because as He is, so are we in this world. As He is. This is a reality that is equal in truth to the resurrection.
Reigning in Life Through Grace and Righteousness
So what does this verse say? Verse 17: For if by one man's offense, that's Adam, the first Adam, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.
Notice the phrase reign in life. Reign in life does not mean reigning over people. It's not lording it over. That's inferior human government. This is kingdom. Where everything that you are empowered with makes you more capable of serving and loving well.
Brian Simmons, the man who was doing the Passion Translation, he and his team, I had a conversation with him a few years ago. We were talking about the book of Proverbs, which I love the Passion Translation. He's almost done with the whole Bible. So I'm so thankful.
He was telling me, the word proverb comes from a word that means to reign. So, in essence, that means wisdom is the tool that God uses to enable us to reign in life. It's this verse. The abundance of grace is to give us the enablement to reign in life.
Reigning in life is not reigning over people. It's that in reigning in life, I don't live in the fear of man. I manage my relationships. Money doesn't control me. I control it. As I'm positioned in life.
And I'm telling you, there are some people that will only be won to the Lord by how you illustrate the effect of the Lordship of Jesus over your life by you being victorious. If you don't believe it, read Psalm 67.
Dead to Sin, Alive to God (Romans 6)
Chapter 6. Now let's get to the verse I meant to read. Verse 7: He who has died has been freed from sin.
Paul is using water baptism to illustrate death and resurrection. So, if you can imagine a tank of water, a person is immersed underwater. That's burial. When they are brought up, that's resurrection. So, he's using a physical illustration to reveal a truth.
So, he says, if you're buried with Christ, then you're also raised with Him. Verse 8: If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Reckoning Ourselves Dead to Sin
This is talking about you. This has some brilliant information for you. And remember, truth sets free. So, anytime you and I join our hearts to that which God says is true, liberty is the evidence that we've heard it.
Likewise you also, reckon yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let's say we go down to the morgue. I bring in a dead body. Does that person struggle with lust? Are you sure? Do they... Are they greedy? What's their thought life like? Are they carrying bitterness? No, why? Because they're dead.
We have to think the way He thinks. When He died in our place, me being that dead to sin is what He considers to be real. And I can hold to my perspective all I want, but I'll be wrong.
So here's the deal. He says, you were buried with Christ. You were raised with Christ. Likewise, reckon or consider yourself to be dead to sin. What is he saying? Do you believe in the resurrection? Do you believe in the death of Christ? Death and resurrection—of equal value and truth.
Equally true is that you are dead to sin. To believe this—Jesus died and raised from the dead—but not to believe this is to voluntarily embrace the carnal Christian lifestyle because I'm living from an inferior reality.
Believers Who Still Think They're Sinners
Now, here's the point I want to make. One of the great tragedies of today's culture, in some ways the greatest tragedy in my thinking is that we have men who think they are women. And they really do. And there are women who think they are men. They don't need to be mocked. They don't need to be teased. They don't need to be politicized. There's just serious issues. Healing, deliverance.
But what is even more disturbing is there are born-again believers who think they are sinners. Wow. This is true. The Bible says, let God be found true but every man a liar. So in other words, if I think different, I'm wrong. This is Jesus in print.
Some of it I understand. Some of it is mysterious. And that's the fun of the journey. It's a relational journey. But He's challenging me and He's challenging you. You say you believe in the death of Christ. Yeah, I do. I really do. And you say you believe in the resurrection. I do.
Equal to that is what that made possible. And that when you receive Christ, you became a new creation and you're dead to sin. As everybody in this room knows, when you got born again, He didn't remove your ability to sin. He just removed your ability to enjoy it.
You get angry and you say what you shouldn't have said and you're driving your car down the road and you can't get it out of your mind because the hound dogs of heaven. And it's a wonderful gift, let's be honest. Otherwise we'd just build air on air.
Living Out Our New Identity Daily
So this wonderful Holy Spirit is in us to make us like the Christ—resurrected, seated at the right hand of the Father. Glorified. And when He gives us assignments like disciplines, it's because He sees who He's made us to be. He assigns us that which is equal to our identity.
So when we fall short in identity, it's not a time for guilt and shame. It's a time to re-engage with what Jesus says about us. I can't manufacture strength. I can't somehow make myself different than I am. But if I truly have the resurrected Christ living in me, the Holy Spirit Himself living in me, then this lifestyle of triumph and victory is not only possible, it is probable.
The way you come into these truths being more than just a point of theological agreement but actually becoming a part of who you are—the way that happens is through engagement with this living Word.
You find that He says something. Oh, He says I'm dead to sin and man, I do not feel dead to sin at all. So what do you do? I know you're right and I'm not. So I want you to teach me.
You take the Word. You read it. You pray it. You write it out. You put a 3x5 card in your pocket if you need to. You bring it out throughout the day. Oh yeah, I'm to think of myself that I'm like that dead corpse that has no ability to sin. That is the reality of His conversion in my life that has made that a reality.
That is not only possible, it is probable. And you pray it. You meditate on the Word. You run it over in your heart and mind until it becomes just a part of your reaction.
The Power of Confession and Proclamation
And this is really the key to just about every victory you and I can think of. You want to be used in healing. You want to have greater health in your own body. It's discovering what God has said. You don't feel forgiven, but are you? You don't feel healed, but are you?
Why would He say let the weak say I'm strong? He's not trying to keep us busy with positive attitude. He's not trying to keep us busy with some kind of pretend activity. There's something profound and powerful about the effect of our own confession.
I don't care who has abused that concept. It's in the Bible. Abuse by another doesn't legitimize misuse in me or no use. Life and death is in the power of the tongue. And this is a voice-activated faith. And it's through the decree that we make over our own lives.
At the time when does let the weak say I'm strong? When is that person supposed to say they're strong? It's when they're in the worst part of weakness. In other words, it's the opposite to the way I feel in the moment.
So I'm going to confront that with not just a soft-hearted positive thought but a proclamation that comes out of my mouth that says, no, I am strong.
Help us again. Help us again. Father, I do pray for that grace to see ourselves the way you do and to actually think of ourselves as dead to sin.
Let me ask a question real quickly. Is there anybody in the room that you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus but you know you're here for that reason and you really want more than anything else. You want to be able to follow this one who died in your place to make salvation possible.
If that's you, I want you just to raise a hand and by doing so you're just saying, Bill, I don't want to leave the building until I know I've found peace with God. Real quickly, just put a hand up. I want to make sure that everyone... The same goes for our wonderful online family. If there's people that are watching online right now that don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, please acknowledge in the chat box and the pastor will be right with you. Amen.