Hi and welcome to the We Are Zion Sermon Podcast.
We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.
We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will
encourage, inspire and instill fresh faith in you.
We continue our series titled All Roads Lead to Rome, which is
a study in the book of Romans. As we study this letter written
to the Jewish and Gentile believers in the city of Rome,
we ask that you put yourself in their shoes, for our context is
not that different after all. Our hope is that through this
series you would experience the fullness of knowing who God is,
what He did for you through Jesus, and how you can live a
life that honours Him and blesses others.
Hi Church, it's my joy to bring God's word to you today.
Again, last week we looked at Romans chapter 12, one of my
favorite chapters in the Bible. And we looked at how we are
called to be living sacrifices and living sacrifices are tried
by fire. We looked at how the Holy Spirit
works in our lives to cleanse our lives and take out all that
is not of God. And this week we're going to be
looking at Romans 13 and 14. And these are a continuation to
the practical side of what we believe, right?
We looked at Romans chapter one verse chapter one up to 11,
which was really just our doctrine establishing why we
believe what we believe. But 12 onwards is really the
practical outworking of why we believe these things.
How does that actually affect our lives?
How does that get showcased to the world?
And so that's what we are going to be looking at for this week
and the next. But today we're going to be
looking at Romans chapter 13 and 14.
And before we get into this, I just want to show you this news
clip that I saw just a few days back in our newspaper.
So what had happened was there's this picture and it showed how a
young girl of age 23 or 24 was riding a bike with her brother.
Her brother was driving it. She was seated behind.
They were driving through a part of our city when they
encountered a pothole, stumbled over it.
The a bike on which they were fell, fell over.
He felt one side, she felt one side, and she was run over,
unfortunately, by a truck and died on the spot.
Her brother was treated for injuries later.
But there was this one line at the end of this whole narration
of this incident which really caught my eye.
And it said the pothole was subsequently closed up.
And as I was reading it, it felt so harsh and it felt very
anticlimactic. You know why?
Because here was a life that was lost, a precious life of parents
who are left without a daughter, a child in her prime who was cut
down. And all that could be said in
conclusion, as if an afterthought.
You know that the pothole was then closed.
And as I was reading it, I really believe that it was God's
doing that I would see that line.
And I realized that so many of us in our lives have
unconsciously or consciously allowed these potholes or these
stumbling blocks to come into our lives.
We've allowed them to come in at different seasons and without
our knowledge. They've tripped us up and
inevitably tripped someone else up.
And so today our sermon, I've titled it Get Rid of the
Potholes. It's based on Romans chapter 14,
verse 13, which says, therefore, let us stop passing judgement on
one another. Instead, make up your mind not
to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother
or sister. And the truth is that all of us
have a pothole or two minimum. And these potholes get
introduced at some point, maybe because of a lapse of judgement,
because of a certain situation that we allowed it in.
And sometimes they grow out of control until they tarnish our
lives. And even if they haven't yet
tarnished our life, they start tripping others up.
And the thing about these potholes is that they're blind
spots in our life. Jesus talked about, you know,
how we overlook the plank in our eye and we look at the speck in
someone else's eye. And a lot of times, these
stumbling blocks that we have allowed into our lives, we are
so unsuspecting of it. Or even if we see it, we show
ourselves so much grace that we overlook it.
But the sad thing is, in the Christian walk, we don't live in
silos. We don't live for ourselves.
We live and do everything for God's glory.
And we do it in the context of community.
There are people around us who are running their races as well
towards eternity. And inevitably, if these
stumbling blocks, these potholes in my life are not looked at,
are not dealt with with the power of the Holy Spirit, they
will trip someone else up. And I want to ask you that have
you allowed yourself to look at yourself closer and say, hey,
where am I tripping up on in my faith journey?
What is tripping me up? Is it bias?
Is it an attitude? Is it a racial preconditioning
that I have? What is it in my life that is
tripping me up, which is not letting me live in my fullness
and which is also tripping up a brother or a sister?
Let me give you a few examples. You may have a certain idea of
marrying within your caste and you've enforced it on your
children for years. That now that your children are
of marriageable age, their options have become so limited.
Even though you know now that in Christ all are one, there is no
division. Maybe you're someone who hasn't
had an opinion on how much to pay to the government.
You feel if a government is not worthy of my income, they don't
get my tax. And you found clever ways to
evade it. When you read the word of God,
Jesus himself says give to Caesar.
What is Caesar's give to God? What is God?
Don't get mixed up. What you owe the government, you
give the government. And because of your rebellion in
terms of, you know, the revenue and the taxes and things, you
are confusing others around you about how to live their lives.
Maybe you are of the notion that a certain class of people are
beneath you. Or maybe you're of the notion
that a class of people are above you and you cannot mix with
them. In Christ, all are equal.
What if your demonstration of inequality is causing others to
despise Jesus and his church? A stumbling block in our lives
is not just something that makes us stumble, it causes others to
stumble as well. And today we're going to be
really looking introspectively. We're not going to point the
blame on anyone else. We're going to look at
ourselves. God, where does this concern me?
Where am I so blinded that I have been putting these
restrictions on others? I've been putting these blocks
before others and tripping them up.
It's really going to be more about you and God.
It's going to be me and God. We're going to put a magnifying
lens on our own lives. Where am I overlooking the plank
in my eye just to pick on the speck in someone else's eye?
And I believe there are about four potholes that Romans
chapter 13 and 14 talk about. We're just going to quickly look
at what those four potholes are. And I can assure you that you
and I will fall into at least two of the above categories.
OK. The first pothole is rebellion
against authority. Romans chapter 13 verses one to
seven, it says let everyone be subject to the governing
authorities. For there is no authority except
that which God has established. The authorities that exist have
been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels
against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted,
and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers, hold no terror for those who do right, but for
those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear
of the one in authority? Then do what is right, and you
will be commended, for the one in authority is God's servant
for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid,
for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason.
They are God's servants, agents of wrath, to bring punishment on
the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to
submit to the authorities, not only because of possible
punishment, but also as a matter of conscience.
This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's
servants who give their full time to governing.
Give to everyone what you owe them.
If you owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue.
If respect, then respect, then honour.
Honour them. When we talk about governing
authorities, we're not just talking about government
leaders, we're also talking about bosses.
We're talking about team leaders.
We're talking about that client that we provide a service for.
Every single person that we work with or work for comes under
this. It also comes down to the
government authorities that are placed over us at the state
level, at the district level, at the country level, whatever is
due us as those who are, you know, within their authority
structure below them, we owe it to them.
I hear a lot of people say young people say when they when they
have a boss who's old or he's a boomer, his mentality is
different. I can't get him.
I don't understand why he's like that.
I don't have to listen to him. I'll do my own thing.
Rebellion starts out small, but it is real, and it is something
that does not set us apart from the crowd.
It just makes us merge in. But God is calling those who are
in this new way of life, those who are following hard after
Jesus, to submit to God first and then to submit to earthly
authorities. They are placed above you for a
reason. Even if they're unjust, even if
they're unrighteous, God has placed them there for a reason.
And our job, for our hands to be clean, our conscience is to be
clean, is to submit. What are our excuses?
Many times, well, they're corrupt, they're hard hearted,
they're unkind, they're self-serving.
All of that may be true, but the Christian's role is different.
The Christian's posture has to be one of submission.
Have you been tripping yourself up because of your rebellion
against the authority that God has placed in your life?
Have you been tripping others up because of you choosing to evade
taxes, evading the things that are due from you to the
government? What is it that you are doing
that could be tripping someone else up?
Pothole #1 rebellion against authority.
Pothole #2A dislike for people we like, those who are like us.
It's just the fact of the matter, all of us.
And we find it harder to love those who are completely
different from us, those who have different opinions, Those
who look different, rest different, act different.
But God is calling us into a place of loving everyone the way
He loves them. Romans chapter 13, verses 8 to
10. He continues by saying, Let no
debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one
another. For whoever loves others has
fulfilled the law, the commandments.
You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall
not steal, you shall not covet. And whatever other command there
may be are summed up in this one command, love your neighbour as
yourself. Love does no harm to a
neighbour. Therefore, love is the
fulfillment of the law. Like we talked last week, the
agape love of God, it feels so big, it feels so selfless, it
feels so boundless. But God is calling us to a place
where the evidence of our love for Him who we cannot see is in
the way we love his people who we can see.
And that is what we need to do. God is calling us to move past
our dislike. Do we have these biases of this
people group, this part of the country, this part of the world,
They are like this. I cannot like them.
Or maybe there are people in your work spot, your
neighbourhood we just cannot get along with God is calling us
into a place of loving them. It's interesting.
It says love your neighbour as yourself.
Loving ourself. Even that is sometimes hard.
But most often have you noticed we show ourselves so much grace.
Oh well, you know what, I can overlook this about myself.
We tend to overlook the things about ourselves that are in
others face. If we can do the same with
ourselves, why not do it with someone else?
That is the second pothole, a dislike of people.
The third pothole, unfortunately, is undisciplined
living. Romans chapter 13 verses 1113.
It says this and do this understanding the present time.
The hour has already come for you to wake up from your
slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first
believed. The night is nearly over.
The day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of
darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let us behave decently as in the daytime, Not in carousing and
drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not
in dissension and jealousy. There's nothing to explain here.
Do I become devoid of temptation just because I live the new life
in Christ? No, I still live in a fallen
world. I'm still encountering my flesh.
My flesh still was against me. The Spirit, like Paul writes so
clear, so beautifully, he says I'd never do what I want to do.
I do exactly what I don't want to do.
And so this is a real struggle. And, and The thing is, all of us
have been set free when we accepted Jesus.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Whoever believes on the Son is free, indeed we know this.
And yet this freedom was hard won.
It was purchased by the blood of Jesus.
And so we cannot cheapen that freedom by living however we
want. This freedom is actually calling
us to be free in the presence of our God, free to live in a way
that honors him, that brings him glory.
So often we get it confused and say I can do whatever and his
grace is like a blanket. It covers me.
I can do anything again and again, it doesn't matter.
We need to use our freedom to draw closer to God, to live the
way in a way that honours him, in a way that expands his
Kingdom. We cannot use our freedom to
satisfy our appetites, our desires, our selfish ambitions.
That doesn't please God, It doesn't bring him glory, it
doesn't. And so there are so many things
that he talks about. He says the key is to stay
awake, stop slumbering, stop thinking that this way of living
is OK. It isn't.
You don't just harm yourself. For those who live
undisciplined, too many marriages have been spoiled
because of sexual immorality. In marriages, too many children
have been left abandoned because parents decided to choose
alcohol, to choose partying over staying over loving them, over
living in a disciplined way. Today God is calling you.
Have you been a pothole in the life of your family?
Have you been a pothole in the life of your your work Because
of your undisciplined living? Have you started being painful
to the ones who work around you? God is calling you to address
that. The 4th pothole is self-imposed
traditions and restrictions. There are some things that we
that have been taught to us from the time we were children.
I remember growing up my grandfather had this rule in his
house where on Sundays he would never switch on his TV and he
had a TV, a small little TV on which only DD 1-2 and three
would be there. So on Sundays we were not
allowed to even watch those three channels.
It was the days before Netflix, before cable, and I remember all
of us 8 cousins were forced on Sundays to go play outside, to
hang out in the garden, to make new friends with the neighbours
there, to do anything but sit in the house and watch TV.
And when we all grew up and went into our own homes, I remember
my mum imposed that on us. She said you know what, Sundays,
no TV. And it worked well for our
family of four because you know, we would use Sundays to really,
you know, get closer to our parents.
We would have family time, go out with friends and things like
that. But when I got married and had
my children, I realized that that had become such a stringent
rule that I was actually losing out on a lot of precious time
which I spent with my kids. Sometimes all I get was, you
know, a Sunday afternoon or an evening to watch a Disney movie
with the kids or to watch an online service of another church
with my husband. And in the name of tradition, I
was missing out on even that. And so it had to come to a place
where I decided that tradition, that restriction that happened 2
generations before, didn't necessarily have to work for me.
I want to ask you, what self-imposed traditions have you
brought in or restrictions that you live by because it works for
you? Have you started now imposing on
others? Romans 14 verses one to four
says accept the one whose faith is weak without quarreling over
disputable matters. One person's faith allows them
to eat anything, but another whose faith is weak eats only
vegetables. The one who eats everything must
not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who
does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God
has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone
else's servant to their own master servant?
Stand or fall and they will stand for the Lord is able to
make them stand. Sometimes we think our rules are
keeping others in check and in reality they are accountable to
their master just as you are accountable to your master.
And it's amazing because he says the Lord is able to make them
stand. A lot of times we impose these
rules on them and say you need to dress a certain way.
You need to, you know, save a certain way.
You need because if you see them spending a lot, you feel you
should give them, you know, rules from your life.
What works for you may not work for someone else.
The traditions that you follow for yourself.
First of all, you need to examine them if they're really
of God. If they are, keep them to
yourself. If they're not, get rid of them.
It's so easy to use the boundaries that we have built
for ourselves as a, you know, fetter on someone else.
I remember reading about how the Israelites actually picked up
these traditions when they moved into foreign lands.
They had to establish certain traditions to protect, you know,
the way of life that was taught to them to protect the the law
that had been given to them and how they applied it.
And what happened was they started making these rigid rules
and they started imposing it on their children and into the
people that were marrying into their families.
So by the time Jesus came, these had become traditions that the
elders had taught them was not biblical.
It was not of the law. It was something they had come
up with because they had to be still set apart.
But here in the time of Jesus, it was no longer relevant.
And therefore Jesus had to keep telling them.
He addressed the Pharisees and their hypocritical ways, the way
in which they had these double standards because it had
happened. The origin of these traditions
were from such a shaky ground. And so today I want to ask you,
have you brought certain things into your life that worked in
another season that were necessary?
Maybe, but at this point you started imposing it on yourself
to the point of rigidity and you started pressing it down others
throats as well. Romans 14 verse 8 continues.
It says if we live, we live for the Lord.
If we die, we die for the Lord. So whether we live or die, we
belong to the Lord when our understanding of everything we
do and say is for God. That's why I said it's very
introspective. I cannot point this at you and
say, you know, this is how you should live.
If I'm living as if every single thing I do and say is for God,
it changes the way I live. Romans 14 verse 12 says so then
each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
How much lesser would we judge someone else?
If I live with this awareness of you know what I'm going to give
an account for today to God, at some point I'm going to give an
account to God for such and such.
It changes the way I look at someone else's issues.
It changes the way I'm I'm spending so much of time and
money judging someone else. It changes the way I perceive
others because here I am completely accountable to God
alone. Keep your rules to yourself.
Don't impose them on others. I love that Paul continues in
Romans 1416 by saying, therefore do not, do not let what is a
good thing for you because of your freedom to choose be spoken
of as evil by someone else. If I choose to dress a certain
way and I start imposing on that, that on someone else,
they'll turn that around and say she's a judgmental person, she's
a hypocrite, she's like this, she's like that.
And it gets spoken of as evil. Don't allow what you condone to
condemn you. That's what Paul was saying.
It's important that we learn to mind our own business.
It's something Geshram created for the kids when they used to
get in each other's hair and, you know, mind each other's
business of their own. He used to say, myb, mind your
business. Paul is essentially saying how
others eat, how they dress, what they do in their free time, what
they do with their money, what they do with their influence is
not your business, it is theirs. You run your race well.
You are accountable to God for your actions.
You are accountable to God with your money.
You are accountable to God with how you carry yourself.
Don't worry about others. Romans 14 verses 19 to 23 says,
Therefore, let us make every effort to do what leads to peace
and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God
for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is
wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone
else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or
drink wine or do anything else that will cause your brother or
sister to fall. So whatever you believe about
these things, keep between yourself and God.
Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he
approves. What have you and I been
approving of? It's very important we live in
an age of grey scale. I the, the company policy is, is
such and such on, on inclusivity.
It's better to just conform to that rather than to take a stand
and say, no, that's not what I believe in.
Maybe you're a teacher working in a school and you're coming up
with a policy and the policy is, is completely not in line with
your faith. Are you just OK to condone it
and fit in rather than to take a stand and and probably have to
make a decision? Blessed is the one who does not
condemn himself by what he approves.
What is it that you and I have been approving of?
The disputable matters are of food, clothing, things like
that. But there are some things that
are indisputable. What have you and I been
condoning that is causing someone else to stumble or
falter in their faith? Have you been condoning an
extramarital affair? Have you been condoning usage of
curse words? Have you been condoning
moonlighting in your job without the company knowing it?
What have you been condoning? Because what you are condoning
will cause condemnation because someone else somewhere who is
watching you, who is influenced by you, will be LED astray.
Luke chapter 17 verses one and two says Jesus said to his
disciples things that 'cause people to stumble are bound to
come, but vote to anyone through whom they come.
It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a
millstone tied around their neck than to Causeway one of these
little ones to stumble. What a scary thought.
Stumbling blocks are all around, but if you and I, as followers
of Jesus, carry the stumbling block and place it in front of
someone else who is innocently running their race beside us,
who is in our circle of influence, who is someone who's
close to us, who's leaning on us, if that stumbling block
disrupts their life, there's a problem.
So what is the solution? You're probably saying, OK, so I
should live in such a way that I don't put stumbling blocks in
front of others. So what are you saying?
Are you saying that we should please everyone or do what works
for everyone? Absolutely not.
I believe that we are called to live in such a way to please the
King. Romans 14 verses 17 to 18 talks
about God's Kingdom not being a matter of eating and drinking,
but of righteousness, peace and joy.
The message version says is so beautifully it says God's
Kingdom isn't a matter of what you put into your stomach for
goodness sake. It's what God does with your
life as He sets it right, puts it together and completes it
with joy. Your task is to single mindedly
serve Christ. Do that and you'll kill two
birds with one stone, pleasing the God above you and proving
your worth to the people around you.
I want to remind you, you and I, we are subjects in the Kingdom
of God. We live on earth, we have
leaders, we have people above us, we have certain systems,
there are hierarchies, and all of that is real.
But more real than the world we are living in is a spiritual
environment around us and we are part of the Kingdom of God.
We are subjects in the Kingdom of God.
And it says here where you prove your worth to the people around
you and you please the God above you, Our worth is already set.
We are invaluable to God, right? Our worth is not because of what
you and I do for God is our worth is because of what God has
done for us in Christ Jesus. And so as Kingdom subjects, we
carry the King's presence with us, his spirit within us.
Wherever we go, whichever space, whichever place, whichever city,
whichever town, whichever you know, enclosure we walk into,
the Spirit of God comes with us. The King's spirit comes with us.
So I don't live for myself anymore.
Whatever I do, I do it for the King.
I do for the kingdom's Causeway. I do it for the advancement of
the Kingdom of God. And So what happens is when I
introduce these potholes in my life, probably because of, you
know, hearing growing up that taxes were bad.
You just decided you don't want to pay taxes.
Or maybe that your undisciplined living carried on from your life
before Christ into the life after Christ because you
thought, who's going to know who is it affecting?
Or maybe you thought that, you know what, not liking certain
people is completely cool because you know what I do?
Me. I'm living my truth.
But God is calling us now into a place where we're part of a
Kingdom. We're no longer living for
ourselves. We live for the king and we're
living with fellow subjects. And all of us are running this
race headed towards eternity. And he's saying that when you
introduce a pothole in your life, it doesn't just affect
you, it affects the ones in the Kingdom as well.
And the interesting thing is these obstacles, these stumbling
blocks eventually become a snare.
A snare is a contraption which grabs your ankles and makes you
trip and fall. Undisciplined living, lack of
submission to authority, not loving people.
All of these, all of these, the self-made traditions and
restrictions, all of these can become a snare in your life and
can eventually, if left untreated, can become a snare
for someone else. Try it and see.
Anything that you leave, you know, undealt with any stumbling
block in your life will eventually become a snare to
your spouse. It could become a snare to your
children. It could become a snare to the
ones you live with, your roommates.
It extends across whichever season of our life we are in.
Careful of the potholes and the Kingdom life requires that we
address these potholes with the help of God's Spirit in US and
come to a place of closing it up with His power, because if it is
left undealt with, it will become a snare to you and to
others. What are those things that you
have permitted? What are the things that you
have condoned? It could have been one
permissive encounter with someone that you connected with
online. It could have been one wrong
call, one wrong text, one wrong e-mail, one wrong glance.
Has it started affecting the way you live?
What about the rules that you've imposed on others even though
you don't follow any rules? What about your dislike for
certain people? Has that started passing to your
children? Has that started infecting those
around you? Or do you connect with those who
exactly think the same way as you, so all of you have the same
understanding of, you know, your dislike for certain people?
What about your rebellion? It could be a very silent
rebellion, a very quiet one. Or maybe you're more vocal about
it. Whatever it is, have these grown
to become full-fledged snares that have bound you and have
caused others to lose their way because of you?
I want to encourage you that it's not too late and the
solution is given in the very text we are reading, Romans
chapter 13, verse 14. I want you to highlight this in
your Bibles. It says, rather clothe
yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about
how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
All of these potholes we talked about had to do with our flesh.
When I rebel against an authority, it's because I think
I know better. It's because I have a certain
ambition which I need to fulfill in my timeline.
It's me wanting to save money instead of giving the tax.
It's about me. It's about my flesh.
It's about having more in hand. When I choose to dislike certain
people, it's because I have decided they just don't work for
me. When I decide to have a
tradition or a rule that I'll impose on myself and on others,
again it comes down to gratifying my needs.
All of these potholes we talked about have that as the primary
focus, but God is calling us into a place of clothing
ourselves with Christ. And this didn't leave me
because, you know, I realized that at the time of salvation,
the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in us.
Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
We know that he's indwelling, but what does it look like to
clothe myself with the Lord Jesus Christ?
What does that look like? Clothing is to put on and I
realized that the idea of clothing ourselves with God is
not a new one. I want us to look at Judges
chapter 6 verse 34 and this talks about Gideon.
It says the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, then he blew
the trumpet and the abbesserites gathered behind him.
And the actual meaning of that, the spirit of the Lord came upon
Gideon. The action meaning is clothing.
The Spirit of God clothed himself on Gideon.
Meaning imagine an empty glove, right?
Imagine the empty glove and imagine putting your hand into
it is basically meaning fit on like a glove.
The Spirit of God clothed himself on Gideon and because of
which Gideon was able to do a mighty thing against the
Midianites. You remember that story?
300 men with Gideon overcame a huge number of Midianites and
got the land free from their oppression.
But the interesting thing is that in the Old Testament when
we read of these stories, when the Spirit of God came upon
someone, I've read it another time and I think it's in the
Book of Kings or Chronicles where it says the Spirit of God
came upon Amasa. And when he came upon Amasa,
Amasa spoke out and told David, we are with you.
This is just after David had been had become king.
He says, we are with you. We'll do whatever you ask us to
do. They pledged their loyalty, but
it was an utterance that came because the Spirit of God came
upon a Massa. And in the Old Testament the
Spirit of God clothed people as and when they needed it for a
big victory, right. And talks about Elijah the
Spirit of God came upon him and he ran ahead of Ahab into the
city of Jezreel faster than a chariot.
So you see what I'm saying, Those were those moments, big
moments when the Spirit of God came upon certain people to
accomplish certain things. But today, thanks to Jesus,
thanks to the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, we
don't have to have these one off high moments or one off high
victories. We get to live in that place of
victory. We get to live and and breathe
with that kind of strength. The problem with these one off
moments when we get clothed and then decide we don't need the
clothing of of Christ or the Spirit of God is that's when a
pothole gets introduced. And that is seen in the life of
Gideon. If you look at Judges chapter 8
verse 27, he's had this huge momentous victory.
He finishes up the tribal heads of the Midianites comes back
victorious. He has seventy sons.
He's got a lot of concubines. And in the midst of that, they
say, we want you to rule over us.
The Israelites tell him, we want you to rule over us.
And in an act of false humility, Gideon says, no, no, I don't
want to. But then I think it was a moment
of insecurity. And he said, well, give me all
your gold. Let me make an ephod.
And he creates a Pagan altar. He decided that he needed to get
them to gather at one place and worship.
He got their gold. Verse 27 says chapter 8, Gideon
made it into an ephod and set it up in his city Ofra, and all
Israel played the harlot with it there.
It became a snare to Gideon and to his house.
There's that word what you introduce into your life, if
you're not careful about it, in a moment of a lapsed judgement
call, in a moment when the Spirit of God is no longer
clothing you with power, you can make a mistake of this
monumental size. And he does that and it says it
became a snare and eventually oppression starts again and they
need another rescuer. I want to ask you, have you been
living for those momentous, powerful moments just on and off
when you need a Spirit of God come upon me?
Or are you prepared to clothe yourself with Christ every
moment of every day? What if it becomes our prayer
every day? Lord, I clothe you on.
I put you on today so that when I put you on, the potholes in my
life become quite visible and with your help I can close them
up. What if when I clothe myself
with Christ, I'm able to overcome my flesh's needs and
live and walk and talk? By the Spirit's power from
living inside you, you can call Him to clothe you completely.
I want to ask you, as we close today, what are some of the
potholes you identified in the course of this 40 minutes?
What did you identify in your lives?
I know as I'm speaking, conviction has fallen on me in
certain areas of my life, certain ideas, certain notions
that I have believed to be true that I've passed on.
We need to be very clear that it doesn't just affect us, it
affects others. And Paul keeps saying make sure
you're not a stumbling block to someone else.
Will you look at the things in your life and identify which
ones are central and which ones are peripheral?
There are some issues that are central to our faith.
They are non negotiables. The sanctity of marriage, the
Trinity, Trinitarian concept of our God, the power of the Holy
Spirit by which we live His death, His resurrection power
that lives in us, The move of the Holy Spirit in today's
world, the gifts that he's giving his church.
All of that non negotiables. Living a life of integrity,
living a life where faithfulness is evident.
Faithfulness to the marriage covenant you have made,
faithfulness to the children you have birthed, being faithful to
the parents, the families of origin that you have come from,
all of that. Those are according to the word.
But what are the peripheral things that you can let go of so
that you are not a stumbling block to someone else?
Have you been imposing your ideas on someone else?
Has your dislike of someone been causing that person to receive
alienation from larger circles? What is it that God is calling
you to identify and close up? That is the question for us
today. And so even as we close, I just
want to pray for us that we will walk in freedom from the snares
that have held us down. Even if you are living in a
place where your undisciplined life has started to show up,
it's not too late. You can call and invite God to
clothe you so that you no longer give in to the desires of the
flesh. Can we just pray?
Father, I pray each of our obstacles are many.
Each of our snares are many. Each of the things that we have
permitted in the name of self protection or preservation, God
are many. But God, I pray that each one of
us who are listening in, who are here right now, will clothe
ourselves with Christ. And that God, we will live
moment by moment with your power, with an awareness of your
goodness, with an awareness of who you are and what you have
planned for us. God, I pray that we will no
longer live for ourselves. We will no longer point the
finger at others. But Lord, we will look at
ourselves with reality, with an understanding of who we are and
what you have done for us. I pray your Father, that we
would love others as you have loved us.
I pray your Father God, that you would help us to live with a
greater vision, with a Kingdom vision.
Help us to live as subjects of this Kingdom faithfully until
the very end. I pray your Father that you
would uproot and close up every pothole in our lives.
Things that we are unaware of. Reveal it to us.
Things that we are so ignorant about.
Show it to us. I pray for those who have
already put an impediment in front of their families that
today or father they would repent for it and it would be
moved out. We pray generations will be
blessed again. We pray homes will be blessed
again. Relationships will once more be
renewed. We pray Spirit of God, that you
would clothe us, that you would help us.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen, Amen.
God bless you have an amazing week.
I pray that you would live free of those potholes and if there
are any, you'll be unafraid to get rid of those.
God bless you. Thanks for listening to this
message. We hope you were blessed to hear
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