So, my goal this morning is really, really simple. This is the purpose of this message. It is simply to encourage any of us who are discouraged. And if you're not discouraged, to safeguard you from discouragement in the future. Discouragement is a really powerful and very dangerous thing. All of us deal with discouragement because all of us deal with disappointment. That's where it starts, right? You get disappointed. Things don't go the way that you think they should go. And if you're disappointed for long enough, you become discouraged. And if you're discouraged for long enough, you become disillusioned. And if you're disillusioned for long enough, you begin to disconnect. And as a as a Jesus follower over the last 25 years, someone who's who's worked in churches and ministries, I've seen a lot of people disconnect. And not that they're disconnected from God, because his love for us can never be cut off. Like there's nothing that can separate us from his love. But I've seen people disconnect themselves from maybe growth in their relationship with God, being around other believers, and oftentimes it's it's out of a deep discouragement. In fact, there was one that that hit me uh a couple months ago. There was a person that uh that that I hadn't seen in a long time. And and I asked one of their friends, I said, Hey, where are they at? I haven't seen them in a while, and you know, because of COVID and everything, it it just it's been kind of hit or miss how often you see certain people, and so you just never know what the filters are. And they said, Oh, you know what? They got divorced, and they just feel really awkward coming because they just don't want people or or you to feel disappointed in them. And like, regardless of what your experience with church has been in the past, I'll say this to you. Uh as a church, the only person we look to to model is Jesus. And the thing about Jesus is that people who had problems and struggles and failures never felt shame around Jesus. Ever. And this is always gonna be a church where that's the case. And it but it broke my heart because that that's not something that has come from us. If you've been part of his hands for a long time, you'd be like, what? Like, no, this is this is a place no matter what's going on in your life. The good, the bad, it doesn't matter. You can be here and you don't have to worry about that. But what it shows me is that there's this internal discouragement. There's this internal frustration that we have such a propensity for. And if we listen to it, it will cause us to disconnect from others and even at least attempt to disconnect from God. It's a discouragement that's hard to put into words, but I don't think I have to put it into words because I think that scripture does a really good job of that for me. Romans 7.15, this is part of the section that we've been studying. We've touched on this a little bit here and there, little bits and pieces over the last few weeks. Today we're gonna dive into it for real. Uh, Romans 7.15, this is just a little teaser. I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. Now, keep in mind that the person writing this is a man named uh Paul, known as the Apostle Paul. Apostle was a word that denoted leadership in the early church, and Paul's about as successful of a Jesus follower as you can imagine. I mean, if you're trying to do the whole resume thing, you're not gonna beat Paul, okay? Unless you have somehow written most of the New Testament, um, you know, you're not, you're just not gonna win that battle. And this is Paul, the apostle. Holy Spirit used him to start so many churches. He's he's probably the most effective evangelist uh in history. He's probably the most read author in the history of the world. When you think about how many people have read his words, and he's saying, I don't understand myself, I don't do the things that I want to do, I do what I hate. And there's this frustration that I think most of us can relate to, hopefully all of us can relate to. I really pray it's not just me, whereas a Jesus follower, there are things that I want to do, there are things that I desire to do. There's even things that I've said, I'm I'm gonna make sure that I'm this kind of husband, I'm this kind of father, I'm this kind of worker, I'm this kind of person, and then I fall short of that, and I have to sometimes look in the mirror and go, what is wrong with me? I I've given my life to Jesus, I've been baptized, I do the church thing, I read the Bible, I try my best, and yet I still fall short. Is something wrong with me? Anyone else relate to that frustration at all? Good. All right, good, good, good. It's not just me. You always worry that it's just you, you know? It's not just me. We're gonna deal with that frustration this morning, but for some context, I want to make sure we all understand where we're at. If you're new, if you're just joining us, you're just watching from home, we just so happen to be studying one of the most complicated and nuanced sections in the entirety of the New Testament. Um, we decided to go through the book of Romans. That we is a me. That's a me we. Uh, I decided let's go through Romans. And you know, it's funny because I have these convictions, and these are personal convictions. But there is this sort of idea in modern Western American church that you gotta like ease up on scripture. You know, if you want to reach people, especially people who haven't grown up in church, or maybe people who are like over it, then you gotta like pull back the reins, not so much scripture. It's more like pep talks, and then you sprinkle some some some Jesus and some Bible verses on that. And I just wholesale don't believe that. Because um, yeah, you can collapse, that's fine. Um the reason I don't believe it is because what do I know? Like I'm I'm 38 years old. I daily remind myself how little I actually understand about life, about myself. I am not a life expert. I'm still trying to figure out my own life. And so the only hope that I have in ever communicating something of value, something of lasting value, is to look to something that is inspired, something that has clearly withstood the test of time. And I believe what we have to do as a church is just get really good at taking scripture, even the difficult stuff, even the stuff that is nuanced, and just say, you know what, maybe, just maybe we're smart enough to understand it. Maybe, just maybe God actually created all of us with the capacity to understand deeply spiritual things. I believe that's true. I believe that even if you're here, even if you're just like new to the whole Jesus thing, you were created by God with a capacity to understand the spiritual stuff. Because you at your core are a spiritual person. So you might be amazed. You might be amazed at just how quickly those dots can connect when it comes to the spirit stuff. And so when we engage with something that's nuanced and difficult, if we're new to the faith or just figuring that whole thing out, don't worry. It'll click. And even if you've been following Jesus for years, these types of scriptures, these types of studies, they help us fine-tune our faith. Because the broad strokes will only get you so far. And this section that we've been in, Romans chapter six, all the way through most of Romans chapter eight, it is it is fine-tuning, it is nuanced. I've kind of shown this every single week. This is a framework that we came up with on week one to help us understand all the concepts that are being talked about in this section. All of them. There's a lot. And here's the gist of it. You were born. All of you. At one point in time, you were born. And when you were born, you got you got what we often call a nature, human nature, we might say. Just the way that you're wired. You know, you hear people say all the time, I was born this way. And when we say that, usually we're saying, please don't hold me to a high standard. Uh, I was just born this way. This is just the way I am, right? That's our nature. And and your nature, it's your thoughts, it's your feelings, your emotions, it's your talents, it's your tendencies, it's your personality, it's all those things. That's your nature. And scripture has a few different terms for it. Uh, flesh is super common. Some translations will say sin nature. And the idea of that, sin is kind of an ugly word in our culture, but the idea of sin is really simple. It's just falling short of good. Falling short of good. Now, we happen to live in a time where we feel typically, and I'm not talking about you individually, but we like as a nation, as a culture, that we're the ones that get to determine what is good. That individually I can decide what is good and what is not. Well, this is good to me, and God ought to just accept my definition of good. I have learned over the years that's not the way the God dynamic works. That when you're God, there's some perks that go along with that. When you create the world and then you save the world, when you hold the world together, you actually get this amazing perk of deciding what is good and what is not. And if people look at you and disagree, you love them. But you also go, like, no, my own children don't get to decide what is good for them in our home. They try to, they bargain. I do that with God all the time. But they're very often wrong. And so I have to lovingly, as the dad, be like, no, you're not staying up till 11 o'clock. I need you to go to bed. Like, please. I this is for no, but like honestly, no, like that's the way it works. And we just have to understand that God is the one who decides what is good. And when you look at the things that God has said are good, what's crazy is they're like undeniably good. And so we have a tendency to just fall short of that no matter how hard we try. That's because we have this flesh, and it leads to death. And that seems severe. This is the language you see often in scripture for the wages of sin is death, and we look at that and go, whoa, God, you are way overreacting to the whole flesh stuff. But but God is not saying this as a threat, He's telling us a reality, and we've all lived this out. This plays out. Because if you if you live out of this nature, it just means you do whatever you feel like doing. And all of us have experienced this. If you haven't yet, you just haven't lived long enough, where you have you've done whatever you wanted to do, and you just doing you has led to death. It's led to the death of a relationship, it's led to the death of trust between you and someone else, it's led to the death of your own self-respect. And you were just doing what you wanted to do. That's what happens when you live this way. But here's what's awesome: Jesus comes along, and he creates this whole new opportunity, this whole new category. He sets us free from this because we can't do anything in our own strength to escape this. And so we've called this study free. If I could go back and give it a name at this point in time, I probably wouldn't have called it free. I probably would change the title of the series to What the Heck is Happening Inside of Me. I don't understand what's going on. Please help. That would be the title of this series. But it's a long title. Just wouldn't, you know, Matt does our graphics, he would have just been beside himself having to create a screen for that. But uh, but the reality is you can't do anything in and of yourself to escape this. But check out what Romans chapter 8, verse 2 says. This is toward the end of our of our study as we keep going through these sections. It says, because you belong to him, because you belong to Jesus, the power of the life-giving Spirit, the Holy Spirit, has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. So what do we see here? The you're born, flesh, sin nature leads to death, but Jesus has changed things. And now you've been born again. Jesus uses this language in John chapter 3. He says, look, you have to be born again. And when you're born again, guess what happens? You get a new nature. And this nature, it wants to do the things that God desires. It actually desires the things that God says are good. It lines up with God's heart. And if you live out of that nature, you experience life. Jesus promised abundant life. And we have life and more life. We have an abundant life now. We have a life that's not just different in terms of quantity. Oftentimes when we think of the term eternal life as Jesus followers, we think, yeah, I'm gonna live forever after I die. And yeah, that's great. But it's not just a new quantity of life, it's a whole new quality of life. If we live out of the Spirit. And we've said this every week. This is the challenge, and I know that this is a lot. This is a lot of concepts. That's why I said this really nuanced section of scripture, but you're smart and you have this capacity, so stick with it. This is who you are. If you've given your life to Jesus, this is not who you are. So when you use the phrase, I was born this way, make sure you're talking about this one. Because usually we we don't think of ourselves like this. Usually, even if we've been following Jesus for 20 years, when we say things like, Well, this is just how I'm wired, or I was born this way, we're always referring to this one. And the reality is, no, no, no, you were born again. And so there is a joy and a love and a peace and a passion inside of you that you were born with. And we have to get to the point as Jesus followers where we really truly believe that this is the real me, this is the imposter. We often think opposite. Yeah, this is the real me, and yeah, I gave my life to Jesus, and you know, I'm trying my best to kind of fake it and be this person. No, no, no, no. This is the real you, this is the old you, this person, for all intents and purposes, is dead. Died on the cross with Jesus Christ. We do a really good job of keeping this person on life support. Really good at that. But but this person, like this Justin, his fate is sealed. He will die, he will one day be no more. This Justin, that's my name if you didn't know, uh, will never die. This person will always live in relationship with Jesus, and the same is true for you. So we have to think in these terms. Now, mapped out like this, it's really clear. I'm a guy, I think really logically. That's how men, not now, I'm not trying to stereotype, I know that there's logical women and emotional men, but men, how many of you think logically in clear categories? Okay, ladies, how many of you are that? I'm a logical person. Yeah. Well, maybe I'm just totally wrong. How many of you don't like to raise your hands when you're in a room and someone asks you quick, okay, that's what it is. Because, you know, logically, it's like, yes, I'm gonna choose to live this way and not this way. That would be great. The problem is it feels like this. This is like how it actually plays out. This is the diagram we have used to describe uh what's going on inside of us. This is who we are. Uh, this, by the way, is a great diagram for the way that Paul wrote this section of Romans. It's a giant mess. It's really fun to teach. And this, by the way, is what freedom looks like. You ever look at a group of children who have been given freedom? Right? Like if you go back to the garden, to our kids' area, that's what we call it, and you see a group of children who are walking in a line quietly, that's because they don't have control. They have not been given freedom. Someone is controlling them, someone is is dictating to them how they they want things to go. But if you if you go to any group, take 25-year-olds and be like, just do whatever. This is what it looks like. Right? And there's a beauty in that. It's hard because on one on one hand, we don't like freedom because we we want things structured and organized, but at the same time, we do desire freedom. It's just that we want freedom without the mess, and freedom is messy. Jesus has set you free. The reason you're dealing with the messiness isn't because it hasn't worked, it's because that's what freedom is. It's kind of messy. And if you want to live in freedom, you have to be okay with some messes from time to time. So that's what we've been exploring. And with that picture in mind, I'm just gonna read a really big chunk of Romans. We're gonna read the entirety of Romans 7. So go ahead and either tune out or lock in. It's up to you for the next few minutes. By the way, if you have the His Hands Mobile app, all of these scriptures, I'm just reading it right from the app. And so I'm gonna read the entirety of Romans 7, and this is, I think, is a beautiful illustration of what Paul's about to say. So here we go. Now, dear brothers and sisters, you who are familiar with the law. When he says law, he means uh the religion that they had been following in his time. The Jewish people had the law of Moses. Think basic Ten Commandments, love God, love people, worship God, don't lie, don't steal, don't kill, that kind of stuff. And then they had a lot more laws expanded from that. He says, You who are familiar with the law, don't you know that the law only applies while a person is living? For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point. You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who has who raised you from the dead, who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we've been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God not only in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit. Everyone's still with me? We're still good? Awesome. Okay, here we go. Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not. In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting was wrong if the law had not said you must not covet. But sin used the command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me. If there were no law, sin would not have that power. At one time I lived without the understanding of the law, but when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life and I died. He's talking about a spiritual death. So I discovered that the law's commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me. It used the commands to kill me, but still the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good. But how can that be? Did the law which is good cause my death? Of course not. Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commands for its own evil purposes. So the trouble is not with the law for it's spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don't really understand myself. For I want to do what's right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I'm doing is wrong, that shows that I agree that the law is good. So I'm not the one doing wrong. It is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature, my flesh. I want to do what is right, but I can't. I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what's wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing wrong. It is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle in life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another power within me that is at war with my mind, and this power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death. And if we end it there, it is just a huge downer. But it goes on, and it says, Thank God, the answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is in my mind? Yeah, you can clap for Jesus. I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin. And what he's saying is that he he feels this way. He feels like he's a slave. But literally, two verses later, we read it earlier, Romans 8.2, just a few verses after this, he says, No, because I belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed me, has freed all of us from the power of sin that leads to death. But as you can tell, this is really messy. I mean, that again, this is how you would describe what we just read. What in the world is going on? I believe that this chapter, this section that we're we're looking at today, I think it's so vital for us as Jesus followers to understand, or even if you're on the front end of that decision to follow Jesus. Because I would never, I never want to lie to you and tell you, oh yeah, you know, and there's people by the way that'll do this. Hey, if you just if you just follow Jesus, and usually you also have to write big checks to their church, but if you do those things, then you're healthy and you're wealthy and everything goes well for you, and you're just blessed, and you always get the best parking spot when you pull into Target, and it's great, and it's wonderful because God loves you. And and some of us, like we laugh at that, but like there's a part of us that believes that stuff. Because shouldn't it be that when I give my life to Jesus, everything just like goes the way that it should? Shouldn't everything go smoothly? And you have to ask the question well, how smoothly did things go for Jesus? I'm pretty sure he was living in God's will. I'm pretty sure he was doing exactly what God the Father wanted him to do, and smooth would not be the way I would describe his life, but I would describe it as good. And I would rather have a good life that is very rough around the edges than a smooth life that's actually just death in disguise. It's about having something good, not having something smooth. So it's messy, but it's okay. But here's the deal: God doesn't want us to live this way and just be at war with ourselves and experience no peace from that. That is no way to live. And that's what Paul's kind of walking us through. Remember, he doesn't stop there. He doesn't say, so hey, we're all just a big mess, sorry, and then it's over. He says, no, Jesus has done something and he continues on. But it's vital that we understand this section of Scripture because it's teaching us how to understand why things are the way they are, why we still deal with the mess, that frustration and discouragement that I talked about earlier. And it's all because of this thing that we've talked about a little bit here and there called sin. Now, a few weeks ago we we barely touched on this, but oftentimes in Scripture, oftentimes, sin is personified. So it's not just the things that we do that aren't as good as they should be, like we sin. No, sin is often talked about as a force acting in opposition to you, trying to undermine your ability to know God and experience all the good things that God has for you. First time we see the word used is in actually Genesis chapter 4, verse 7. God is speaking to a man named Cain. He said, Cain, you're going to be accepted if you do what's right, but if you refuse to do what's right, then watch out. Sin is crouching at the door. It is eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master. So sin is personified. And I think we all understand that, right? If you've ever felt like, man, there's this force, and it's like active, and I feel pushed, I feel compelled to think about things, to do things. I have to fight really hard sometimes just to be a decent person. What's wrong with me? Well, Paul would say, No, that's not you, that is sin in you. See, you're free, but you're not left alone. You are free from the power of sin. You're free. 100%. Romans 8, verse 12 says, Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. Now, a few things are clear in that scripture. You're free. No obligation. You don't have to do it. You used to. You used to have no other choice. Because that's just who you were. That was your only nature. But you are free. You're not obligated. Sin has no authority over you, but it still has influence. You know, my children have no authority over me, but they do have influence. It says that sin is still urging us. And so we're free, but we're not left alone. And the reason that life feels messy is because you're being messed with. I heard a pastor say it once this way, I might be done with sin, but sin is not done with me. And this chapter helps us understand the way that our enemy operates. You know, if you want to be successful in anything, you gotta know yourself. You gotta know your strengths, your weaknesses, and whatnot. But you also have to know and understand the forces that are actively working against you. I'll give you an example. My wife recently started gardening. It's like a new hobby, something she's trying to do. So we have planters now in the backyard and soil and like all kinds of stuff, and she's planting stuff, and she's having to learn right now what are those forces that are actively opposing her being able to grow the things that she's trying to grow. And they're forces like the weather. It froze. Just a few, like a week ago, a week and a half ago, we had a hard freeze, and she had things that she had planted, thought she was in the free and clear. There's growth, she's excited, death. You know, it's the weather. Right? That's a force. There are rodents, there are bugs. I don't know, you go out of town for five days and your husband forgets to water your plants. It's stuff like that. You know? Just that stuff. That's half she did go out of town for five days, and I did mostly water most of the plants. But for the most part. They're the forces that are actively opposing you. And the reality is, no matter how much you want to or desire to live this awesome life for God, and I know you do, you've got something working against you. And look, it used to be, and I'm talking in generalities right now, but it used to be that I think the church, Christianity, religion, whatever you want to call it, you know, we we say all the time, his hands is a place where it's Jesus, not religion. By religion, we mean like rules and regulations, the things you've got to do to make God happy with you. That's not the way this works. Jesus did not come to start a new religion, he came to actually end a religion and give us a relationship with God, right? So we use that language. But what I mean by, yeah, you okay. Just because one person claps does not mean it's okay if that person wants to solo clap. You all don't have to, I'm just teasing. You're good. But it is funny, it is funny from my perspective. Like one person will clap, and then like one other person, like, I guess we're clapping, and then and I'm like, I didn't feel like a clap moment, but it's fine. Um, no, I'm teasing. So anyway, I love this place. So, like, what in the world was I even saying? That clap threw me way off. Jesus, probably something, religion. There we go. Okay. So the way it works is that is that like in the past, I think sin was overestimated to a certain degree. And so some of you maybe grew up in a church culture if you went to church as a kid where it was like everything was just sin. You know, like I mean, if a woman wore pants, it was sin. Like God is against pants for some reason. I don't know. Like it's only dresses and like you know what I'm talking about? Like, there was this sort of like obsession with sin and to an unhealthy degree. I think things have kind of swung the other direction in our culture now, even in church culture, where we have a tendency to kind of underestimate it and maybe have a flippant attitude about it. And like sin is fine with either of those, because both are pretty effective. You don't want to underestimate your enemy. You have to understand what's what's happening, what's working against you. And what this tells us is that sin personified is really opportunistic. Sin can work with anything so long as it's flesh. Sin can work with all flesh. So he uses this really interesting example. He talked about the law, and he said, Hey, the law was good. Like you can't read the Ten Commandments and go, like, I have a serious issue with any of these. I think people should lie to each other on a regular basis. You know, like you wouldn't say that. But but the law, even though it was good, it's like sin looked at it and said, Ah, you know what? I can use this. I can use this. And sin actually used the law, Paul said, to arouse desires. Because it makes sense, right? You say something's forbidden, it makes people want it more. You know, I was I was laughed because at home we've got all these doors in our house that just lead to nothing, right? It's like a storage closet and there's just old stuff in there. But if I put a sign on one of those doors in our house that said, no one except mom and dad may enter this door. My children, it would be the most important door that has ever existed in the history of the world, just because there's something that says don't. And so that's what sin does. It used the law, and and Paul said it aroused all kinds of desires. Well, sin does that. It uses good things, and we have to understand this. Because we like to think about sin taking advantage of our weaknesses. You know, so I have I have a weakness. Um, well, I have several, actually. Um, but but one of my weaknesses is I I can be um, I mean, I can just be someone completely driven by what I feel like doing. Okay? I'm not a I'm not a hyper disciplined person. It's like when I was in college, I got really good grades, but not because I was disciplined. It's because when people would come to my room and be like, hey, we're gonna go do this thing, or there's a party, you wanna come, I was like, no, I don't want to. I would rather read this book than go do that, which is weird. But I just did what I wanted to do. It's just that it looked like I was disciplined. People were like, oh, Justin, he's really self-controlled. No, I'm just doing what I want to do. The problem is what do I do when I want to do something that isn't good? I still tend to do it. So I very often live just sort of doing what I feel like doing. And sometimes that leads me to really good things, and sometimes I don't feel like doing the thing that I ought to do. Okay, that's a weakness that I have. And sin obviously takes advantage of our weaknesses. But have you ever thought about the fact that sin, being so opportunistic, so resourceful, can take advantage of your strengths? See, if we go back to this original little diagram that we had here, uh this flesh stuff, some of it is just obviously not good. But there is something that we can we can call good flesh. Good flesh. And good flesh, it's not really like a biblical term, but it's just the idea that there's parts of your flesh that work. They work for you. It actually leads to some success. But it's still flesh. It's still not spirit. See, sin can't use the spirit. It can fake spiritual stuff, it can do like an imitation of the spirit, but sin cannot use your spirit. Your spirit is completely and totally cut off from sin. And the way I like to use that language is scripture says that the Holy Spirit is joined with your spirit. I know we're talking about a lot of concepts, but just stick with me. The Holy Spirit inside of you does not have an issue with sin. So if you struggle with substance abuse, okay, maybe you're addicted to alcohol. No, no, your flesh is, but your spirit is not an alcoholic. And if you struggle with pornography, that's your flesh. That's not the spirit. Your spirit does not struggle with sin. You're just learning how to live out of your spirit instead of your flesh. If you're someone who just gossips, you know, you just you you hear something and you go, like, I got it, I got it. You even do that thing where you're like, I will not tell anyone. And then like, then you go to someone like, now don't tell anyone that I'm telling you this. And then they do that, that's how it goes. Like the Holy Spirit can keep a secret. But it's our flesh. And what we have to understand is the enemy, sin, it is so good at what it does that it will use your strengths. So let's say you're someone who's hyper-intelligent. You know who you are. Well, sin can look at your intelligence and go, ooh, you know what I can I can do with that? Arrogance. I can take the intelligence and I can I can help this person just sort of put so much confidence in that that they're actually arrogant. And if you're really arrogant, you end up doing foolish things no matter how intelligent you are. So it works. But sin is opportunistic, it uses your strengths. Let's say you're someone who's hyper-driven. Like I've always been a driven person. I like to do things, I like to accomplish things. Well, sin can use your drive that works for you. It's good flesh. Sin will use your drive to make you self-reliant. And now you're someone who doesn't really go to God and say, Lord, I need your help. I need you to do this. I can't do anything on my own. Because deep down inside you kind of think you can, because you're so driven, and that drive has worked for you in this life, but now you're self-reliant. And guess what? When it's when it's you versus sin one-on-one and God's not involved, you're gonna lose that battle. Let's say you're someone who's really self-disciplined. Like you're you're good at self-discipline. It's just it works for you naturally. You can go on diets, you can go to the gym, you can you can organize your life, and your closet is like color-coded, and things are where they're supposed to be. Like, that's not my life at all. I never know where anything is. I don't know where anything is. Getting dressed is like an emergency, it's like an emergency every morning. Where are my underwear? It's a problem I have every day. Like, I just can't figure that stuff out. That's not me, right? But but you're super organized. Well, I have seen people that I thought were so disciplined that it was like a spiritual thing. That, oh wow, they're really spiritually mature because they're super disciplined. And actually, I learned that, whoa, that that's their flesh. Because that discipline clearly showed up at times to be self-righteousness. Where now they were like, I'm really good at this stuff, and you ought to be too. And there was no grace for people that struggled with that. People who like don't know where their underwear is on a daily basis. Like me, okay? I'm your pastor, by the way. Pray for me. Okay? So I am wearing underwear. I just feel like I need to say that at this point in time, because I thought someone is wondering right now. I promise, I found it, we're good. Okay. All right. That was not in the message notes, but we're good. Okay. Sin will use anything. Let's say you you're someone that likes to joke around, and your humor does you well because you get out of situations and you can make people laugh. Sin will use that like it just did with me, and you'll say something inappropriate on a stage when you shouldn't. Because sin uses anything. That is my point. Okay, it uses anything. And you've got to understand this because sin is not messing around with you. It doesn't pull back, it doesn't, it doesn't pull punches, sin, it's not trying to just sort of mess with your day. Sin wants to destroy you. And if you're a Jesus follower, sin, Satan, all of that stuff understands that you belong to God. There's nothing that Satan can ever do to change that. But if Satan, if sin can keep you from being an effective witness to other people for Jesus, if sin can keep you from experiencing the joy and the love that Jesus wants your life to be filled with because he's freed you from that old nature, if sin can do that, it will. You have to understand the enemy that you have. Because the result of this battle, the result of everything that we're talking about, well, it's it's what we looked at earlier. It's a big mess. Sin is messing with you. Yes, you have been freed by Jesus from the power of sin, but you haven't been freed from the influence of sin. Sin still wants to mess with you, and if you let sin mess with you, you will deal with a lot of mess. So we've got to start understanding that we can't mess around with sin. What do we do? What's the solution? I just want to give you three quick things. This really will be quick. All right. Three simple things. Be aware, be decisive, and be encouraged. Like I said earlier, this is ultimately about encouragement. Number one, you just have to be aware of your enemy. Like we're talking about this stuff, and I think it's clicking, it's making sense. I'm seeing heads nodding and things like that. Like, oh yeah, I have seen sin take advantage of even my good stuff. That's how that's how good it is. But I if you're aware of that, if you can see it coming, oh man, it's so powerful. Like, I remember the first time I realized that one of my children could fake cry. And it was like a light bulb. Because as a parent, you hate it when your kids cry. Like you hate it because you love them and you want to see them happy, and also it's just an annoying sound that you want to stop, right? So you'll do anything sometimes to stop it. But I remember the first time one of my kids was crying, and I was like, oh my goodness, they are totally faking this. And I called them on it and I was like, you are fake crying. And they stopped. And it was like they were like, How did you know that I could do that? And I was like, uh-uh, no, I'm not doing this anymore. And it just shut the whole thing. It was awesome. It was awesome. When you when you learn to recognize, when you become aware of what your, excuse my children as the enemy, uh, what your enemy is doing, when you become aware of that, like you get a lot of power. So, so when we become aware, that's what Romans 7 teaches us. When we become aware of how sin operates, it's like you'll spot it. Oh, I see what you're up to, sin. Quit it. Go away, leave me alone. Like you have authority. Sin doesn't have authority, it's got to trick you. It's not your master, it has to actually deceive you now to get you to go along with it. But if you can spot it, take it seriously, be aware of it, you will. 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 8 and 9 say, stay alert. In other words, be aware. Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering, same kind of struggle that you are. So look, be aware. Sin is gonna mess with you. When you find yourself being really confident in yourself, being being really like, oh yeah, I'm doing it, I'm I'm killing it, I'm crushing it, this is good, like, ah, sin comes along, and you feel a little pride, you know, you feel a little bit of self-reliance and those types of things. So you just learn to spot it. Learn to be aware of it. And all of a sudden you'll start seeing sin showing up really quickly, and you can take authority over it. You can say, uh-uh, sin. Like, no, not today. I see what you're doing. You're fake crying. Stop it. You know? And sin is gonna do what my children do. There's gonna, okay, and it's gonna like walk away, but it comes back. Number two, be decisive. There is so much simple power in just making a decision. And because you're not obligated to do what your sinful nature desires you to do, you can just tell it no. You can decide, no, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1 says, Therefore, since we're surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, people are watching. Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. Let us run with endurance the race that God has set for us. It just says, look, cast it aside. And it sounds so simple, but oftentimes we're like, no, it's more complicated than that. But is it? Is it though? When you recognize sin is what it is, you're like, this is not good, this is not for my good, it's not for my benefit, it's not of God. Just be like, no, I'm not doing that today. And I say today, that's actually really important. Jesus taught us how to pray. Matthew chapter 6, you can read this, the Lord's Prayer. Really, really short. It's like 11 seconds long if you do it. He says, My Father in heaven, you know, may your name be kept holy, may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He says, Give us this day our daily bread. So right in there, you know that he's intending this to be a daily prayer. And he says, Forgive me my sins, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us, and do not let us yield to temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. So daily we're supposed to be in prayer, going, Oh yeah, I'm gonna get tempted today. When that happens, deliver me. And if you're daily remembering that, oh yeah, I'm gonna, sin's gonna show up. It's gonna mess with me, and when it does, I'm not gonna give in. See, if you don't think that way, it'll surprise you. And sometimes you don't even recognize the sin. But if daily you start praying, Lord, like make me aware of it. Pray that. Pray it every day. Lord, make me aware of the sin that I don't even recognize. He'll show you that. And then when you see it, just decide, uh-uh, I'm not going along with you because you don't want good things for me. And ultimately, finally, this is the big one. Be encouraged. Be encouraged. Look, all of us struggle. And we don't need to celebrate the struggle. It's nice to be in a safe place where you know that you can struggle. We don't need to celebrate the struggle, but we can celebrate the fact that God has loved us through the struggle. And he's given us the freedom to sort of figure out freedom. He's given us the freedom to struggle. But that discouragement that I talked about earlier, that discouragement of like, I'm a wreck, no, I'm a fake, I'm a phony, I fail, you are not meant to live discouraged in your faith, even when you struggle. You know, we have to believe what Jesus says. We have to believe the promises in Scripture. God never, He never falls short of keeping a promise. And he tells us that He will He will finish what He starts. Jesus is described as the author and the perfecter of our faith. Jesus is the one that initiates things for us, right? He came to the earth, he died. Like He started that. We didn't start that. But He's also the one that finishes what He starts. When you deal with the mess, like when that mess is happening inside of your heart, when you're like, I'm I'm a wreck, I've got all these struggles. If people only knew, when you feel that way, and and the enemy wants to discourage you and make you feel like maybe you're not a real believer after all, maybe you're not really saved, maybe you're maybe you've been faking it this whole time. You're a hypocrite. Has anyone ever felt the the enemy call you a hypocrite before? Like I have. You're not a hypocrite. You're not. In fact, I love the fact that our church, I would say this really confidently, there's very few hypocrites in our church. Maybe none. And the reason for that is because a hypocrite is not a person who believes in Jesus and struggles. The word hypocrite actually means actor, it's the Greek word for an actor. A hypocrite is someone who acts like they don't struggle. And I love the fact that our church is filled with people who are like, oh no, I have lots of issues. Like, you're not a hypocrite if you can be honest to admit that you struggle. But Satan wants to use your struggles to discourage you, to make you feel like, oh, see, it's not real, it's not working for you. No, it is real. In fact, sometimes the mess is actually a sign that you're really someone who belongs to Jesus, because why on earth would the enemy work so hard if that person was already someone that they had control of? Sometimes when you face extreme temptation, it's actually a confirmation that your spirit is alive because the enemy is working really hard to quell you. That might mean that the enemy doesn't like the idea of the person that you're meant to be. That the enemy, our enemy, that sin itself doesn't like the idea of all the things that you could do, all the things that you can be living connected to Jesus. It maybe bothers sin, maybe it bothers Satan, maybe it even scares sin and Satan. And it's like, man, we better do something. We better bring this person down. We better discourage this person on a daily basis. Because if they realize who they really are and what they're really capable of doing, do you know how many people they could affect? Do you know how many people they could change? We're not gonna have that. And so, sin, Satan, the enemy, whatever words you want to use, it wants to pull you down. But you've got to be encouraged because Jesus wins. You know, Paul said in that that giant mess of scripture that we just read, it's a beautiful mess. He said, Who in the world? Who in the world? Can save me from this, from this wreck that I am. Oh, yeah, Jesus. You've got to be encouraged because maybe, just maybe, God can use your mess to do something really awesome. I'll wrap up with this. I have a I have a painting in my house that brings me a tremendous amount of encouragement and joy. And it's uh it's a painting that Marlon painted. Uh sometimes I use Marlon's paintings too often. He's the guy who painted all the paintings on our walls, and he also hates attention. So maybe I'm just messing with him by using. But it's the only painting. I'm not really an art person. Like it's just never been something that, like, I've just never been someone who ever, ever thought, let's go to an art museum. That's how I'd like to spend my side. I've never been that person. Um, but I I want to be more like that because my wife loves art and I want to I want to do that stuff. But uh but this was different. This was a painting I walked in, I saw it one day, and I was like, wow, that is like it spoke to me on such a huge level. It reminded me of who I am and how God works with me and encouraged me greatly. And it's funny, the painting's kind of a mess. And if you look at any specific spot on the painting, it's just an indiscernible mess. And so I'll show you a few pictures. Um, like this is a close-up of one of the spots of the painting. You guys can bring that up. Yeah, it's just it's just a mess, right? There's no discernible shape, it's just a bunch of colors. I mean, I'm sure my children couldn't do this, but it looks like at first glance, oh, this is just haphazard. This is like a child. What's going on? All right, here's another close-up of another section of the painting. Again, it's just a mess. There's nothing discernible that's good or or no shape, no form. Um, this is how my heart feels very often. Uh let's look at one more. There it is, just another mess. And the whole painting, the whole painting is like this. But if you see it in its totality, if you step back, this is what it looks like. See? It's a mess, but it's also beautiful. Like something good is happening there. And the first time I ever walked and I saw that painting, I was like, oh my gosh, that like that's that's me. And it reminds me that when I feel that mess and struggle and the discouragement that comes with it, it reminds me that maybe I have a God who's really good at taking messes and making good things out of them. Be encouraged. Be encouraged. God is gonna use everything in your life for an ultimate good. And yes, you may struggle with sin. Yes, you may have issues, but I I really mean this. Some of you today, you need to have a really frank conversation with your sin. And this is what it needs to sound like. Hey, uh, hey, sin, whatever that sin is. Hey, greed, hey, lust, uh hey, anger, unforgiveness, resentment, fear. Look, we need to talk. Uh you've won a lot of battles, and you even won one today. But I have news for you. You will not win this war. Your time is short. Victory is at hand because my God has won the battle. And so you can like, you can have your little victories here and there, you can have your little daily battles where sometimes I struggle and fall short, but sin, I just need you to understand that you're gonna lose. That a day is coming when you will have no more influence on me whatsoever, when I won't listen to you, when you try your hardest to get me off track, you won't even register. Because I have a spirit alive inside of me, and daily, even when I don't, even when I don't believe this is true, even when I don't feel it, my spirit is growing closer and closer to the Holy Spirit inside of me. In sin, I'm just telling you that your days are numbered, and one day you won't matter one I oda. You need to have that conversation with sin because that is true. It may win some battles, but it will not win the war. Be encouraged because Jesus has won. And that is why Paul says, Who in the world can rescue me from this miserable state? Oh yeah, Jesus. Like have some oh yeah, Jesus moments in your life this week and be encouraged, all right? We just covered an entire chapter of Romans in a day. So I'm gonna stop. Does this all make sense? Yes. Could you all regurgitate everything that we've talked about today? Yeah? All right, good. Uh-huh. It was a lot. I appreciate you for bearing with it. Look, we're gonna wrap up, but but first we have something really awesome happening. We have we have a few people getting baptized, which is always exciting. It's like our favorite thing. And so I know I say this on a regular basis, but the baptisms, they are the exclamation point of our morning. It's the most important part of our of our celebration together. Because this is these are family members. You know, when you guys walk in, I talked about this last week, that big light fixture in our lobby. Uh, that is a way to visualize every person that's ever gone all in with Jesus here. And on the ground, there's all these spotlights. Every one of those spotlights represents 300 people, and then there's 300 lights, individual lights on that fixture that you see when you walk in. And it's just it's there to remind you of a few things. When you see a new light that's on, someone's joined the family, someone, not the his hands family, family of Jesus. Someone's gone all in with Jesus. And when you see those lights that aren't on, that's just someone who hasn't had that happen yet. And that's probably someone you know. So share your faith. Love people, serve people, talk to people about Jesus, pray for people, invite them to church, whatever. Because they're just waiting for that light to turn on. Today, we've got a few people that are doing that. And if you're here and you're listening to all this stuff about encouragement and spirit and life and being free from sin, and it all sounds like an impossibility to you, it all begins. It is real, but it all begins with trusting Jesus, with giving him your life. And that's what these people are doing. They have made a decision internally to follow Jesus. Now they're going public with it, okay? So this is the exclamation point on our morning. Uh, and then the food trucks, that's just the aftermath. Um, so I'm gonna I'm gonna hand it over right now to uh we guys, you wanna go ahead and make your way out? All right, cool. Um, I'll pray and then we'll we'll transition. But first, first person getting baptized is a young dude named Xander. He's nine years old. Everybody make some noise. For Xander. And uh I got to talk to Xander this morning. He's gonna be baptized by his mom, Jennifer, and he literally said, I asked my mom to baptize me because she's the one who got me into all this, you know? And I was like, there you go. So let me pray, and then we're gonna we're gonna hand it over to Jennifer as she baptizes her son. Father, thank you for this day. Lord, I love this church, I love this, I love this family. God, I love being here. I love just being reminded that you can make something beautiful out of our mess. And yeah, God, we struggle. Yes, Lord, we have sin and issues, and sin still has an effect on us and influence on us, but we are not obligated to do what it says. And I pray, Lord, that you fill us with a power, the power, Lord, that comes from believing that we are under no obligation to do what our sinful nature desires. We've been made into new people, new creations. Your spirit is at work within us, and we can actually begin to walk out that freedom that you've won for us. And that's something that Xander is experiencing right now in a really big way, along with some others. And so we just want to pray that this moment for him and for everyone else is really special. And that as a church, we're committed to these people, committed to being like a safety net around their lives, that no matter what happens, the good and the bad, we're here to help. Thank you so much, Lord, for what you're doing in this church and in our lives. We pray this in your name of Jesus. Amen.