Good morning. My name is Daniel.
I'm one of the lead pastors here at Resurrection Church.
Welcome. Thanks for joining us.
We're in a series called Why are Things So Bad?
And we're looking at the three reasons, the three primary
reasons in the Bible, that Scripture would tell us that
there's suffering, that there's pain, that there's problem.
And so last week, Pastor Dave looked at problem #1 which is
that we live in a fallen, broken world because of sin.
And so you can't live in a broken world and not expect
things to be broken. Amen.
OK, we're all on the same page. I'm glad you listened so well
last week. Today we're going to talk about
problem #2 and then next week we're going to look at the third
problem, which is that if you are a believer in Christ, Jesus
says there will be suffering. We're going to be persecuted for
our faith. We live in America, so that
means they're going to get your name wrong on the Starbucks cup
because there's not a lot of persecution here.
But, but, but globally and historically, it's been a lot.
So we'll look at that next week. Today, though, we're going to
look at problem #2 according to Scripture.
And that's called the consequences of my own actions.
Yeah, No, it's one of those kinds of sermons.
Now, if you get nothing else out of today, this is the big idea.
And we're not going to start here, but we are going to end
here. So write this down because we're
going to land here at some point.
Here's the big idea. Forget a life coach.
I need a heart surgeon 'cause that ain't gonna cut it.
I was scrolling through social media the other day and I, I saw
this real and I actually had to like watch it twice 'cause I was
like, is this real? And it's just this young lady
and she's sobbing into the camera and she's like, listen,
you guys need to know. Like, I didn't realize that
Apple Pay is actually real money and they charge your credit
card. She's just bawling.
And she, she thought it was like a rewards program or something.
She spent thousands of dollars thinking it was fake.
And I was like, Oh my gosh. And I kept watching.
I was like, does she really think like, I guess, I guess
this and maybe you, you've been here before.
You're like, did you really think that you could do all of
blank and it wouldn't lead to blank, right?
We've all kind of felt that way. We're watching someone live a
life in such a way that we're like, hey, you know what at the
end of that road is? This is some consequences.
No, that might be funny when we get to watch it on Instagram.
But but, but I know that there are a lot of times in my life in
which I have lived my life in such a way that it doesn't seem
like I really care about the actual consequences of what I'm
doing. And that is the biblical concept
of sowing and reaping. Sowing and reaping.
We through we see this throughout scripture.
We're going to be in Galatians 6-7 to look at it.
But but it's, you know, a lot of different places.
And it's this idea that whatever actions, choices, thoughts that
a person sows, that means plants they will inevitably reap that
they're going to you're going to get a harvest of whatever you
planted. That makes sense, right.
Yes. OK, two people, excellent.
Galatians 6-7 says do not be deceived.
God is not mocked for whatever one sows that will he also reap.
Look, it's a truth alarm. Oh, the harvest, what you get is
always determined by the planting, meaning that like
begets like, you can't plant one thing and think you're going to
harvest another thing. Right.
OK, so so Andy Stanley would say it this way.
Your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver
your current results. Let me say it again, your
current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current
results. And right now you're thinking,
oh, no. And this applies physically, but
it also applies spiritually. For instance, if I eat really
unhealthy things and, and I don't monitor my, my consumption
and then I don't do a lot for my, my fitness, I did.
So I don't manage my health at all.
At some point, right, I'm going to get out of shape.
I'm going to be mentally sluggish, I'm going to be
emotionally short tempered. Man, we know now we have a lot
of science that your sugar intake directly correlates to
all kinds of stuff, heart disease, diabetes, overall
lifespan, quality of life. And actually in 2022, we just
figured out one of the leading causes of cancer is sugar
intake. It's almost as if I know it's
going to be crazy. Oh, if it isn't the consequences
of my own actions. So, so physically that happens.
But think about two weeks ago, Pastor Vance was preaching out
of Proverbs and it was all about what what the Bible says about
work. Man, if we don't steward work
well, if we don't save well, if we don't plan well, if I if I
work half heartedly, then I'm going to end up having financial
trouble and problems later. It's consequent, this idea of
consequences, consequences. And that applies physically that
lives in our life, but it also applies spiritually.
Galatians 5 has this huge description about what what it
calls the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit.
And it's looking at these kind of spiritual things and it says
this. Now the works of the flesh are
evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,
sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,
rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness,
orgies and things like this. I warn you, as I warned you
before, that those who do such things will not inherit the
Kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control. Against such things there is no
law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the
flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
It's giving us a detailed description of both some of the
sowing and some of the reaping. Spiritually, it is simply saying
this. If I in my life create a lot of
strife, as a result, I'm going to have a lot of strife.
If I act in a lot of anger, I'm actually going to experience a
lot of anger. However, if I grow in kindness,
you know, people that really grow in kindness tend to
experience a lot of kindness in their life.
If I grow in gentleness overtime, I experience a lot of
gentleness spiritually speaking, We also tend to reap what we sow
Now here here's what the I would tell the believer kind of two
little statements just just to kind of sum up this idea.
If I seek the flesh, if I'm constantly sowing, planting
these things of the flesh, sinful internal desires, I will
constantly be impacted by the sin of myself and others.
That is just a sort of a universal law in the Bible.
And and the opposite is true too.
If I seek the Spirit, I will continue to grow in and
experience the Holy Spirit and his fruit.
OK, both sides now and then. Galatians 6-7 goes so far as to
say God is not mocked. See, we're supposed to pursue
holiness. But wouldn't it be crazy to
think that that's not how it works?
That I would just live however I wanted and then I wouldn't
actually receive the consequences of what I'm doing.
Like like, like if somehow I could like game the system.
You ever been an arcade and someone's trying to put their
hand up the little prize machine, right?
But sometimes we live our life that way.
Like I don't want to, I don't want to live out these things.
I just want the reward of them at the end.
Like, like I'm going to trick God and, and Galatians 6-7 is
saying God is not mocked. You ever had a 2 year old try to
trick you and you're just looking at him the whole time?
Like bro, I, I feel like a lot of my life has been God.
Look at me and going, bro, let me give you an example.
I've had the privilege to walk with a lot of people, different
walks of life, different backgrounds in discipleship over
the years. And one guy in particularly this
is years ago, I was walking with he had just I just met him.
He just started coming to church and he was recovering from like
really serious drug addiction and just absolutely covered in
tattoos, including some across his face that expressed his
thoughts about law enforcement and, and he couldn't drive to
church because he had multiple DU is.
And so he would come, you get a ride and he would sit with his
pregnant girlfriend on this side.
And then his friend who was female on this side, who it
turns out he was cheating on his girlfriend with this one.
And they would, they would come in together and oh, and he had
an explosive temper. And so like it's a mess.
And then he would, you know, I got to walk him a little bit and
then he'd get mad at God. He's like, I think God hates me.
And I was like, what do you mean?
He's like, why can't get a job? And my girlfriend broke up with
me. I was like, well, Juan, you
aren't you cheating on your girlfriend?
And he was like, well, yeah. And I said, you can't get a job.
He said no. I was like, what did I say?
F the police on your eyelids. Do you think that might have
something to do with it? No.
I think God hates me. What he was experiencing some.
Not even all, just some of the consequences of his own
decisions. By the way, that's normal,
right? That's just, that's normal.
It turns out that what happens in Vegas does not in fact, stay
in Vegas, right? No, no, no.
Maybe we got, we got lots of people in here from lots of
walks of life. And so maybe you grew up kind of
like I did. I had a phenomenal upbringing,
far better than I deserved. Maybe you didn't.
Maybe you grew up and, and you were brought up in a family that
was dysfunctional. Maybe there's a lot of abuse.
Maybe you, you just grew up in a, and your background is a lot
worse than you deserved as a child.
And, and if only there was a way to kind of level the playing
field regardless of your background, right?
So, so that even if you didn't have a great upbringing, we
would all be able to learn or have an understanding of what,
how to make good decisions, what good decisions were.
If only maybe, you know, those have got like a, like a guide or
maybe a maybe a manual of some sort to kind of set us all right
about, you know, every decision, every attitude, every, every
posture from physical to to thought life to to spiritual to
eternal. If only there was, if only there
was something that could address all of those things for us.
And I don't know, maybe they could, they could type it out or
put it in an app on a phone so you could easily get a hold of
it. Well, gosh, it's handy that this
is just right here. I mean, imagine having a guy
that that addressed every part of your life from physical to
spiritual, emotional, what's good, what's not good.
Maybe it could be so accessible that you could find it anywhere.
In fact, it'd be so accessible, maybe the if you couldn't read,
you can just go to your phone and hit play and it would read
it to you in hundreds of different languages so that we
would have no excuse. Well, that 'd be convenient.
We'll keep our eyes open for that, right?
Really, if we had that and we didn't have an excuse, being a
pastor would be pretty easy because you know, I would have
to do is that I go like, hey guys, here's here's the rules.
Here's the great advice. 12 minute message.
That's a new record. Make good decisions, don't make
bad ones. Read the guide.
I'll see you next week. We're going to be early to
brunch, right? How come it doesn't work that
way? It seems like this should be
really easy. I mean, you know, I'll be
honest, my pastoral job would be a whole lot easier if it did
work that way. 12 minutes sermon.
This is great. I had a friend named Forrest
years ago. Super great guy, loved his wife,
loved his family, just just love the Lord.
And I'm, I distinctly remember a really, really interesting
conversation I had with him one day.
We're just sitting together and he just said Daniel, so
frustrated, man, like I, I'll go to like a marriage retreat or a
men's retreat, right? And I'll be so fired up to like
pursue holiness and, and serve my wife and disciple my kids.
And I'll come back and I'll do like really good for like a week
or 10 days, maybe even 2 weeks. And then it seems like it like
it like it fades and I and I can't, I can't do it.
And I, and I am so frustrated because I want to do it, but I
can't keep it up. And I don't understand, like,
what is it that I'm actually supposed to do?
Have you ever felt that way? Anybody?
Oh, got some honest people in church.
That's cool. I would say I felt that way so
many times in my life. Like that might have actually
been the norm. I gave my life to Christ.
I surrendered my life to Jesus. I believe everything in the
Bible is true and perfect and I want to live this thing out.
And yet for like these huge portions of my life, I feel like
no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to consistently be
selfless, be humble, be gentle, make sacrificial decisions.
I know I'm supposed to love my wife like Jesus loves the
church, so how come I lash out in anger at her?
I, I, I listen most of the time. I know I'm supposed to keep my
mouth shut. I do not keep my mouth shut.
Why? How come I know I'm supposed to
grow impatience and yet I'm, I'm just so off and I refuse to wait
on the Lord in in relationships with my kids.
I, I rush in and I demand I get my own way.
I want to make something happen and I just mess it all up.
Can you feel me? It's like, oh wretched man that
I am, who will save me from this life of sin, this body of death?
That's Romans 724. So we're going to look at 2
questions today. 2 questions. Here's the first one.
What do I do when I cannot seem to make good decisions?
I feel like it's just such a big question.
If you're anyone here feel this in their bones, Like I feel this
question in my bones. OK, so I want to talk about this
like, like, and I think that in order to answer this question,
we're going to have to cover some distortions, some, some,
some areas where we're looking at something the wrong way and
it's sending us down the wrong path.
And, and, and the truth is this, forget a life coach.
I need a heart surgeon. See, the problem isn't not
knowing what to do. It's right here.
The problem is wanting to do it. Amen.
Like, hey, doctor, it's not my head, it's my heart.
It's it's not a lack of knowledge that's hurting me
right now. It's a lack of want to and so I
I want to explain the first distortion.
I think that we, we we run across all the time and it's
this idea. It's righteousness as a list,
righteousness as a list. And I like whiteboards.
Anyone else like a, like a good whiteboard session?
I love a nice big whiteboard, right?
And I could, and I, I imagine this list is like this giant
checklist on this whiteboard. And, and I think what happens is
it, you know, listen, if you're reading the Bible, if you, if
you're familiar with the Bible at all, you know that a lot of
the Bible is about right living, about moral living, about
guidelines, about things that are good and things that are
bad, right? But but the Bible was never
intended to be this giant set of rules that someone, maybe God
would sit there and he would grade you on.
Went to church today. That's a Gold Star.
But most of us have come to an education system where we're
used to grades, right. And so, so like we, we a lot of
us imagine that somewhere, somewhere, maybe in heaven,
there's this giant checklist and God is grading our performance.
What's the problem with that? Well, let me tell you what the
problem is for me and maybe you can relate to this.
The problem for me is it's not very long of me trying to follow
the check boxes before I begin to realize I'm missing a lot of
check boxes. Like a lot like, OK, I'm going
to church and I gave some tithe and I was nice to my neighbor.
I'm trying to read my Bible like I want to do good.
And then all of a sudden I snap at my wife and I lose my temper
at my Co worker. And I don't think the best of
somebody that I'm interacting with.
I think the worst of them all. Things that have happened to me
in the last two weeks. But I'm not talking about
ancient history. And I'm going why man?
How many, how many of these check boxes can I even?
I can't even keep up for I do not understand my own actions
for I do not do the thing that I want.
I do the very thing that I hate. That's Romans 715 private, the
desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
Amen. That's Romans 718.
Can you relate to this struggle, man?
I this is the heart of the human problem, right?
Like you don't come to church because we're all nailing the
checklist. I stumble into church going dear
Lord help me. So I find it to be a law that
when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
Romans 721. It's almost like, it's almost
like, and just just just walk with me here that this, this is
the default state of a Christian after they give their life to
Jesus, that, that, that Christ has saved me and, and in the
moment that he saves me, I actually see how terrible I
really am. You come to Christ and for a
moment there you almost feel worse because all the lights
came on and all the sin I was hiding in the corners.
I can see it. All of a sudden I go, Oh, I look
in the mirror when I wake up like whoa, I did not know it was
that bad. And I want to do right.
And I begin to realize, my goodness, this is freaking hard.
It's almost like that's so normal that the Bible wrote an
entire chapter about it. Romans 7.
So, so I just want to tell you this, if you're here today,
you're watching online, you're watching this on YouTube later,
whatever. Before we go any further in
here, like like if, if, if this is your struggle, if you're
feeling this, if you walked in today feeling discouraged
because yet again, you have failed in some some checklist in
your life. Don't you hang your head because
listen, the very fact that sin is convicting you, that your
poor choices are actually showing you and highlighting you
that you are weak, that should actually encourage you.
Here's why. That conviction means that you
are spiritually alive because spiritually dead people don't
feel conviction because spiritually dead people don't
feel anything at all. So, so that very conviction is a
sign that God loves you. He's pursuing you, He's chasing
you, He's correcting you, He's pulling you toward holiness and
righteousness. So, so if so, if this is you
today, like let's let's get into the first person.
Say me OK, listen, three things. 3 encouragements.
I just want to give you 3 encouragements if you, if you
really feel this too. Here's the first.
It's actually not a list, It's learning a new lifestyle.
It's not a list, it's learning a new lifestyle.
Here's what I mean by that. For the believer, there's this
thing called the law of Christ and, and the Bible says in the
New Testament that if you and I have been saved by Christ, that
we're actually under the law of Christ.
So, so it's not some list of the 10 commandments because it's
both 1000 times harder than the 10 commandments and
simultaneously 1000 times more liberating.
Pastor Dave talked about this last week in his sermon.
Like, like about, you know, we want to learn how to hate sin
because God hates sin, but you don't learn how to hate sin.
That's just wrong decisions for choices by staring at the sin
you learn to hate sin by staring at Jesus when?
So when we get saved, the Bible says that we were given a heart
transplant, a new heart, a heart of flesh that can feel Man, a
heart transplant is a pretty major surgery.
Amen. But the amount of rehab, if you
actually go and got a heart transplant, the amount of
rehabilitation that you would need, the physical therapy that
you would need to learn how to do life with this new heart is
pretty significant. We got a guy in our church right
now named Dennis Harvey earlier this year.
He had a lung transplant. I'll be honest, I didn't even
know you could transplant a lung, but apparently you can.
And he had one. You got a new lung.
And, and, and I was thinking about, he's been down at Cedars
Sinai for like 6 months in recovery.
And I was thinking kind of about his situation because we've been
praying for him a lot and his family.
And the first is this, it's so similar to what we go through
when we come to Christ because the first admission that that
Dennis had to make is that he couldn't give himself a new
lung. He needed somebody to do it for
him. And it's the first admission
that you and I make when we come to Christ is that we can't fix
ourselves because we have a bad heart and we need someone that
has the power to actually give us a new heart.
And the secondly, the hardest part for Dennis was not that the
surgeon gave him a new, a new lung.
He, he was, he was passed out for that.
He was under anaesthesia. That wasn't hard.
The hardest part was waking up and learning how to live with
the new lung. His, his rehab over the last six
months has been brutal. It has been intense, man.
It has been so hard that over and over again, he's actually
he, he, he's, he's been really tempted to give up.
And what I, what I want you to hear is that after God saves us,
sometimes we stare at the mess that our life has become because
of our own choices. We, we, we, we stare at some of
the sin and the poor choices. We get a better realization of
how bad and terrible we really are.
And we look at that amount of work and, and we almost want to
get discouraged and give up because man, following Christ,
that life is going to be so much different than our life before.
You might even convince yourself that it's going to be impossible
to get all that work done. And so I want to encourage you
the same way I want to encourage Dennis.
Hey, it's worth it. That new life is worth it.
You see, you had no chance with the old heart.
He had no chance with the old lung.
But now there's a new life ahead.
And it may start in every one of our lives.
It may start with some really difficult moments, a difficult
path, a difficult journey of walking out what it looks like
to live. But the man, the end of that
path is beautiful. So, so don't lose heart if
you're struggling right now, don't give up.
Don't become exhausted. We're learning a new lifestyle.
You're learning how to live with a new heart.
Secondly, the one of the things that we have to do move away
from this idea of a list is this.
We're learning the difference between emotions and the Holy
Spirit. And so that means as you begin
to realize that, that means that that my default state after I
come to Christ is I'm probably wrong.
I know, I know Americans hate to say this.
Say it with me. I'm probably wrong.
See, now you've said it once, at
least in the last 10 years, I'm probably wrong.
Look, I should be really good at apologies because I'm probably
wrong. When I came to Christ, which was
an admission that I couldn't fix the problem, that Jesus had to
do it, that God had to give me a new heart, then all of a sudden
everything changes. And so with that, what should
come for you and I is a full confession and a full admission
that everything we learned about how to do life before Christ was
being, was based on being spiritually dead in a
spiritually broken and fallen world.
And so, like logically, it should make sense to us that we
probably learned a lot about habits.
We learned a lot of bad reasoning, a lot of bad logic,
and we probably relied on our emotions a lot too much.
And so it should come as absolutely no shock to any of us
that again and again and again in our in my life, I'm going to
start to lean on my old rationale, my old heart, my old
reasoning, and head down the wrong path.
Like I, I'll try to do things like I did them before I was a
believer and I'm going to need to be corrected.
So it's almost like my default state is like I'm probably wrong
and I got to learn how to do it the right way.
Now. You know, the problem with that
is we all hate being wrong. Amen.
That we hate being we hate admitting wrong.
We hate being wrong. We hate being called out,
corrected about being wrong. At least I do.
You OK, All right. It might sometimes for some of
us, like the hardest thing to do in our entire life would be to
admit that we're wrong and apologize.
Hey, can you forgive me? I messed up.
But that also means that I I went from living a life based on
emotions, how I feel, to a realization that the moment
Christ saved me, I should not be trusting my emotions.
I tell you this all the time, the Christian life is not a
Disney movie. Don't follow your heart, it will
get you in trouble. The Bible says the heart is
deceitful above all else. Who can know it?
So I can't trust my emotions. The Bible says that to follow
Christ, I must die to myself. That means over and over and
over and over again. I'm going to be tempted to
follow the old way of life and not Jesus.
So we got to get really quick at realizing, hey, that that thing
I just thought about that thing I just started to do the way I
spoke to that person that's taking me off the rails, that's
taking me off the you ever been driving on the freeway and you
drift a little bit and you hit the rumble strip.
Yes. What are they there for?
They're a warning, right? They're a warning.
Well, they might wake you up too if you're tired.
They're a warning. You're going off the road.
And because our emotions and the way we thought before Christ
often do this, the list isn't going to help us.
We need some rumble strips. And a lot of times the advice in
the Bible is a rumble strip. It's trying to tell you, hey, if
you keep down this path, you're going to end up off the road.
Let me give you 5 real quick rumble strips in my life and
maybe you'll find one that you can relate to.
Here's the first one. In my mind, it's a thought that
starts this way. It is so unfair that that's a
rumble strip. I'm about to think something in
which I have lost gratitude for the mercy and grace of Christ
because I've decided what is unjust and unfair in my life and
I'm not that judge. Second one, I just can't believe
that they would rumble strip. The moment you catch yourself
thinking it, hey, you're headed out of the lane.
You didn't even put on a turn signal #3 I don't deserve that
kind of. Let me be really clear, I
deserve death, hell, and damnation for my rebellion
toward God. But God, that's what I deserve.
So the moment you decide that you don't deserve blank brother,
you are on the rumble strip. 4th 1.
I just have to get this off my chest.
No, you do not. For the love of Jesus, keep it
on your chest. That is the precursor to an
excuse to say something simple or in a sinful way.
You want to get it off your chest.
It's a there's this thing called prayer.
You can yell at God, you can argue with God, you can get it
off your chest all you want that way.
Stop using that as an excuse to say uncharitable things. 5th I
know what the Bible says, but I feel y'all, y'all, y'all don't
trust your feelings. They're liars.
Those are rumble strips. OK, just for later, there's a
little nugget. You wrap that up in a napkin and
put in your pocket for, for afterwards.
Just a little little treat. All these types of thoughts.
OK, These are all every one of these things I've thought like
150,000 times, right? Every one of these things I've
thought, and it's a precursor to something that takes me off of
this path of pursuing Christ. And, and So what I'm trying to
tell you is all of these are based on emotion feelings in my
life. And what I have learned over
time in pursuing Christ is every one of those is a rumble strip
that will lead me off the path of pursuing Christ.
So I want to be really careful when when anything starts kind
of like that. Here's the third thing.
All the measurements have changed.
OK? This is actually an
encouragement for you because often times the reason you're so
discouraged is you're measuring the wrong thing.
All the measurements have changed.
Here's what I mean by that. One of our biggest frustrations,
I I know for me and probably for for many of you because I got to
talk to you, one of our biggest frustrations as a Christian is
we thought that it would get easier, faster.
Amen. Come on.
Like, like, OK, everything changed, but not everything's
fixed, Amen. So, so we thought like I came to
Christ and now it's like, I don't know, fairies and unicorns
and rainbows. And it's like, no, this is hard.
I mean, the Bible talks about a spiritual warfare and a trench
warfare. So I don't know where you got
unicorns from. Not me.
But it turns out that it's actually pretty hard, Amen?
Spiritual change takes real time, like real time.
And we live in a culture that expects instant results.
So you've been trained by living in this culture that everything
was just supposed to be fixed. Like you went through the drive
through it in and out, that it might have actually taken a
while. But but you know what I'm saying
right now, here's the thing. I just want you to think about
this and this. I want this to encourage you.
Thank God that it takes time. OK, If him changing one small
thing in my life feels this disruptive, Can you imagine if
he changed everything at once? He corrects you on one little
thing and you're like, right, if he had corrected everything, I
don't think I'd survive. My pride couldn't handle it.
So that's, that's the first measurement that needs to
change, right? We, we measure in years, not in
days. So stop measuring like, oh, it
hasn't changed. It's been three whole days.
Here's the second thing. We don't measure from a list.
We measure from the fruit that is produced.
That's what Galatians 522 and 23 was telling us.
We're measuring it. Are we increasing in love,
increasing in joy, increasing in peace, increasing in
self-control, increasing in kindness and goodness and
faithfulness? Not a check box.
It's are these things happening in my life and beginning to
spill over into other people's lives now?
Three things I want to encourage you.
There's a small group of people and it's not really a type of
person. It's just a season because I've
because I've been both of these people at different seasons in
my life. So there's a small group in
here. And maybe you're in this season
right now where you don't feel like this at all.
And so like this hasn't really resonated for you.
You're like maybe for someone else because you actually feel a
little bit differently than this.
You also have turned righteousness into the list, but
instead of feeling like you're failing your distortion is this.
I don't know what the problem is.
I don't know why everyone else can't live like me.
Now, you don't say it that way because you're really good at
false humility. I know I'm a false humility
expert, but but your real issue is you're like, look, I am
crushing this thing. If people would just watch me,
they'd figure it out. And you think I'm exaggerating,
but you turn in the Bible and Jesus talked to this guy.
He's called the rich young ruler and he comes to Jesus and he's
got everything going for him. And he says, Jesus, what must I
do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus says, you know the
law, like there's a whole checklist of stuff, right?
You know the law. And he goes, oh, yeah, I've kept
every single one of those since birth.
Does anyone in here believe that guy never broke a single rule in
Judaic law since broke up? Come on, man.
Man, there have been seasons in my life where I've been this guy
where I look at the list and I go, Yep, killing it, killing it.
And then it's like gossip and I'm like skip over killing it,
killing it. And it's like, think the best of
someone. I'm like skip over and and then
I just, you know, I just kind of erase.
We put it on a whiteboard for a reason, right?
So I can. And then all that's left on my
checklist is the boxes that I've checked.
So I'm pretty much perfect. I mean, I'm not perfect, but I'm
better than, you know, Gary and, and we play the comparison game
where we're not actually looking at righteousness anymore.
We're just look, as long as I can find somebody that's
struggling more than I am, then I'm good, then I'm good.
And so any area that we fall short, we just, we conveniently
build a blind spot and we and we act like that that isn't really,
but very important. We find some justification, some
excuse for why we're, we're, we're not really sinning and we
just live in denial. It's not just a river in Egypt.
That one takes a while. But here's the reality of living
that way. OK.
And I'm just from from from experience.
I was to tell you from my life, the reality of living that way
is there's very little joy in your life.
And the reason there's not a lot of joy when we begin to live
like that, we have this, this, this, this self righteousness
that cut when we cover it up with this false humility is that
I haven't repented of my sin in years.
Because what is there to repent of when you're crushing it like
I am? And we call that legalism.
But The thing is that even after coming to Christ, when you begin
to live that way, it it never produces joy because to feel
self justified to to feel like, like I'm actually doing right
even though I'm not pursuing holiness, it requires me to
constantly excuse or turn a blind eye to the sin and listen,
sin is poison whether you close your eyes while you eat it or
not Amen. Hear me, sin is just as
dangerous whether you acknowledge that it's sin while
you do it or not. It doesn't become less sinful or
less poisonous or less dangerous if you live in a self justifying
little bubble where you act like it's OK.
It's just as harmful to our relationship with God who wants
us to walk in freedom, where we make honest mistakes and we
repent. And it's a common practice to
confess sin and repent that I'm wrong and turn from it and enjoy
the mercy and forgiveness that God extends.
And listen, it is hard to enjoy that when you think you don't
need it. Legalism is a lonely affair, I
will tell you, because I can't ever bring anyone real close
when I'm living this way because they might see all the eraser
marks on my checklist. And so it gets real lonely.
In fact, it's it's cold, windy and lonely up on the moral high
ground at night. Tough place to live.
Now here's the interesting thing for both groups of people, the
answer is actually the same. The solution is the same.
Even though those seem like such opposites.
We are not looking at and enjoying God enough.
So, so so here's what I mean. When I'm down on myself for
missing the mark and I'm and I'm kind of in this self
condemnation and I'm discouraged because I can't seem to check
all the boxes. It's because I'm staring at the
list, not the one who authored the list.
And when I think I'm crushing it because, like, you know,
everyone else is falling short and I'm kind of doing well, it's
because I'm still looking at the list and I'm looking at others,
but I'm not looking at Jesus because I would realize if I
did, how far from him I really was.
So. So whenever I'm falling into one
of these distortions, even though they seem like they're on
the opposite ends of the spectrum, the solution to both
is actually the same. I need to invest more time and
energy and affection and attention into knowing Christ.
And I know that that sounds like a Sunday school answer.
Like if you don't know what I mean, back back when they had
Sunday school for kids, you go into Sunday school and if you
didn't know the answer, you just go Jesus.
I'm like, you were right like 75% of the time.
So I know that sounds like that. But listen, hear me because this
is like the most important thing that you're going to hear about
the gospel, probably about about the sermon today.
If I desire to be transformed into Christ likeness like if I
desire to make better choices. And I have at least the logical
understanding that I don't seem to be able to do it.
Here's what I want you to know. God has a plan for you to do it,
like He has a plan for my inability to rise above my
emotions. And I want to show you that He
actually wrote that out in Scripture so that when you got
discouraged, you would see it and realize He did not leave you
where you're at. If you turn to 2nd Corinthians 3
verse 18, God is going to describe for you the process by
which to begin to improve, making better choices even when
you feel like you can't. Here's what it says and we all
he's talking to believers. So if you put your faith in
Jesus and we all with unveiled face, that's a weird phrase.
He's using some symbolism that simply means this.
It means that unveiled face, before Jesus came, we could not
see what the solution for man's depravity, for all this
brokenness was. We didn't know we were, it was
veiled from us. But now if Jesus has woken you
up from spiritual death to spiritual life, you can see it.
So you have an unveiled face. And we all with unveiled face,
beholding the glory of the Lord, the goodness of God, the beauty,
the character, the faithfulness, like the reverence in awe of who
God is, are being transformed. Current tents.
It's happening right now into the same image, into Christ
likeness from 1° of glory to another, not 30° at a time, not
giant leaps, 1° of glory to another.
The way to become like Jesus is to focus on Jesus and it takes a
lot of time. I want you to think crock pots,
not microwaves. You ain't getting, you ain't
getting the microwaves, Christian.
It's a mess. By the way, they explode.
For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Now how do we do this? How do we focus on the glory of
God? Well, all you have to do is skip
down 1 chapter, second Corinthians chapter 4, and he
tells us. Here's what it says for God, who
said let light shine out of darkness?
That's a quote of of God from the creation story when he made
light out of dark, right? For God, who said let light
shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Like, whoa, whoa, what does that mean?
OK, first of all, I don't know if you catch this, but he just
said that our hearts were so dark that it was the equivalent
of when light didn't exist. That's a pretty dark.
If you're wondering on the scale of darkness, light not existing,
it's pretty dark. He just said before Christ, your
heart was so dark, so evil, so depraved that there was no
light. And God not only at the
beginning of creation, said let there be light.
When he saved you, He went into your dark heart and said, let
there be light. And then he says God's glory.
So the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
What what, what does that mean? God's glory is expressed to us
in the face of Jesus Christ. OK, It's it doesn't mean like
you have to actually know specifically what Jesus face
physically looked like. That would be tough because we
don't have Google Photos from back then, right?
Nobody went back that far. Mine go like 11 years,
definitely not making it 2000. So it's not physically the face
of Christ. What is it saying?
Listen, if you want to understand what the physical
manifestation of all of the glory of God is, all of His
character, all of His perfection, all of His goodness,
all of His power, all of His mercy, all of everything that is
good about this universe and creation, He took all of it and
put it into a physical man, a baby born of a woman, wrapped in
flesh. And He walked amongst us.
And that is the glory of God. And if you would get infatuated
with that, it'll change your life.
You can get infatuated with fantasy football won't change
your life. You can get infatuated with a
new hobby or a relationship won't change your life, but man,
if you will begin to be devoted to that, you'll begin to
experience the glory of God. What the Bible says is if you
will begin to experience the glory of God, you will start
getting changed 1° at a time. That's how transformation works.
That if we would get, if we would fall more deeply in love
with Him, it would change us. Hey, guess what, that's good
news. Amen.
Because that means there's hope for knuckleheads like me who
can't seem to make the right decisions.
What I have to do in my life is now architect a way to focus on
Christ more and on lists less, focus on Christ more and
comparing myself to other people less.
So I wanted you to consider two things today, Two ways to do
that. One thing you start doing, one
thing you stop doing. We'll make this really easy.
I put a list in your bulletin. Here's the first.
I want you to make a list of this.
What are things I can do to grow in Christ?
Man, there's so many ways to grow, right?
The Bible talks about all these different ways we get better at
prayer or pray more, build a good Christian community around
us or or learn how to serve other people, build generosity,
work on our on confession, reading our Bible, building
gratitude and thankfulness, all reverence and on and on and on.
There's lots of good things, say me, you could put yourself in
environments and communities, in moments and disciplines to help
in the rehab process of what it looks like to live with this new
heart. And that's what this is.
We're doing rehab. We are all doing rehab from our
addiction to sin. Church is a recovery center.
You're an addict. I'm an addict, addicted to sin,
but God, now I can make a list of, of these things that I want
to do, right? And, and, and how do I, how do I
make a list and it not become legalism?
If I make a list of stuff to do and I get back to the check
boxes, didn't I get back to the place I started?
Oh my gosh, here's here's how I can help you with that list.
OK, whatever you're going to write down to your list, I just
want you to think there's one thing, OK?
Every time you look at a doing a thing, I want you to think, how
does this stir up my affection for God?
How does this stir up my passion for God?
OK. And this is the difference.
So if you put read my Bible daily and then you read your
Bible for 15 minutes, then you check the box and you walked
off, we've missed the mark. But then if I open the scripture
and I get one verse in, but it begins to stir in me an
affection for Christ. Now we're getting somewhere.
So it's a it's not just a what I'm doing, it's a how and why I
do it. I'm trying to meet someone and
know him better. OK, So what will stir me up?
What will help with my humility? What will strip away my pride?
What will grow my generosity and gratitude?
It's a relationship, not a robot.
So one thing to start doing, right?
You're going to make a list. One thing to stop doing.
How do I strip self from every part of my life and replace it
with Jesus? AW Tozer says that the primary
thing that holds you and I back from truly experiencing the
goodness and presence of God in our lives is self life.
So, so where in my life have I been relying on my own feelings,
my own emotions, my own sufficiency?
And let us confess that and repent and instead be desperate
for God in that area of our life.
Because if you will start to to answer these questions, right,
if you will, you'll begin to add some things to your life to stir
up your affection and strip away those areas that where you're
focused just entirely on yourself.
You'll do that Monday through Saturday.
Let me tell you something, your life is going to change.
Maybe you, you've been listening online or you've been hanging
out with us today and, and you've never heard most of this
stuff, right? This is kind of foreign to you
or, or you're just skeptical of, been skeptical about it.
And maybe you've never realized that it's not a life coach you
need, it's a heart surgeon. Maybe maybe you've been looking
for advice, therapy, comfort, knowledge, gimmicks, lots of
things, and none of them seem to work.
And so it's just for the last moment or two as we wrap this
up. I just want to, I just want to
ask you if God has grabbed a hold of your attention today,
it's because he wants to save you.
And He is at this very moment awakening your soul to the
things of heaven. He is replacing your heart of
stone with the heart of flesh. So I want to give you a chance
to respond to the call that God has on your life today.
The Bible says in Romans 10/9 and 10 Because if we confess
with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart
that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.
For with the heart 1 believes and is justified, and with the
mouth 1 confesses and is saved. And so if you would like to
surrender to God today, I want to give you that chance.
Will you bow your heads with me? Close your eyes if you're
willing to ask God for forgiveness for salvation.
I just want you to repeat this prayer after me.
You do it silently. You do quietly, however,
whoever's comfortable. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner who
can't save myself and I want you to save me and adopt me into
your family. Be my Lord, Please.
Jesus, have you said that prayer for the very first time?
Will you be brave and raise your hand for me to see?
Thank you, thank you. You put your hands down in Jesus
name. Amen.
Real quick, if you just gave
your life to Christ, welcome to the family.