1 00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:13,080 This morning our teaching scripture comes from Romans 2 00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:18,560 Chapter 7 verse 14 through chapter 8 verse 2. 3 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:25,280 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold 4 00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:29,600 into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own 5 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:34,200 actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I 6 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,080 hate. Now if I do what I do not want, 7 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:40,680 I agree that the law is good, but in fact it is no longer I 8 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:43,160 who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 9 00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:47,800 For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is in 10 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:51,360 my flesh. For the desire to do the good 11 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:54,640 lies close at hand, but not the ability. 12 00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:59,560 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to 13 00:00:59,560 --> 00:01:03,200 do, I do. Now if I do what I do not want, 14 00:01:03,560 --> 00:01:07,400 it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. 15 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:13,120 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, 16 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:17,560 evil lies close at hand for a delight in the law of God, in my 17 00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:20,560 inmost self. But I see in my members another 18 00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:25,240 law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the 19 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:27,680 law of sin that dwells in my members. 20 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:34,200 Wretched person that I am, who will rescue me, rescue from this 21 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:39,640 body of death, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 22 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:43,800 So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but 23 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:47,760 with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin. 24 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:53,480 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are 25 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:57,480 in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of 26 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:03,400 life is Christ Jesus, who has set you free from the law of sin 27 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:06,920 and of death. God bless the reading of the 28 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:11,039 Word. Hi, everybody. 29 00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:14,560 We're probably a little light on attendance this morning because 30 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:16,200 I put that text in the newsletter. 31 00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:20,880 So, you know, if anybody looked it up, they were like, maybe 32 00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:26,640 I'll go to brunch. So a few weeks ago, I watched 33 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:31,960 the 2010 film The Way, directed by Emilio Estevez and his 34 00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:34,280 father, Martin Sheen. Has anyone seen that movie? 35 00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:39,200 Yeah. So Sheen plays Tom, a California 36 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:44,200 ophthalmologist whose son Daniel drops out of his PhD program to 37 00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:48,520 travel, a choice that Tom finds foolish. 38 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:53,880 And early on in the film, Daniel dies hiking the Camino de 39 00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:58,720 Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of 40 00:02:58,920 --> 00:03:02,880 Santiago de Compostela, the the traditional resting place of the 41 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:08,080 Apostle James in Spain. And so Tom travels to collect 42 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:12,840 his son's remains, but ends up walking the Camino himself in 43 00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:17,120 his son's honor, and he meets several fellow pilgrims along 44 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:20,040 the way. So I'll be honest, I'm sorry if 45 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:25,520 you like the movie. It's pretty mid, but there's one 46 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:29,200 scene that really stayed with me after watching it. 47 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:34,360 Near the end of the journey, the pilgrims find themselves worn 48 00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:39,480 down from the road, tired, sore feet, the whole thing, and they 49 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:43,360 spend a night at a luxury hotel in Lyon, Spain. 50 00:03:43,720 --> 00:03:48,120 And by this point, we've come to know most of their flaws and 51 00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:52,200 their quirks and their insecurities, the reasons that 52 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:54,000 many of them have come to the Camino. 53 00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:59,560 And in the privacy of each of their suites, we see them sort 54 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:04,400 of ease back into their patterns of drinking and flirting and 55 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:07,320 numbing out. Yost, who is from Denmark, 56 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,560 joined the pilgrimage to lose weight so that his wife might 57 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:12,760 take him back. And so we see him eat an 58 00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:15,040 enormous meal and then weep into it. 59 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:22,960 Jack is an aspiring novelist, and he has a manic episode in 60 00:04:22,960 --> 00:04:26,000 his room, sort of babbling into a tape recorder, trying to 61 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,080 capture the perfect memory of the trip so he can write his 62 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:33,400 book. Tom is chasing some kind of 63 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:37,120 enlightenment and grappling with the loss of his son, and he 64 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:41,960 collapses in front of the TV. And Sarah, who swore she would 65 00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:44,640 quit smoking at the end of the journey, lights another 66 00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:48,280 cigarette. The pilgrimage they have found 67 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:56,160 has not fixed them remotely. It's a picture of the human 68 00:04:56,160 --> 00:04:59,320 life. The journey that we are all on 69 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:04,720 is one that exposes us, but it is not a journey that can heal 70 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:09,360 us on its own. And so we are full of the best 71 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:15,720 intentions and at the same time full of restless longings that 72 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:18,960 sort of pull our lives in One Direction or another. 73 00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:22,600 And it's only to the degree that we're willing to give a 74 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:26,760 realistic assessment of our condition and wrestle with what 75 00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:31,000 that means for the journey, that the journey itself can have any 76 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,320 kind of effect. So last week Jared introduced 77 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:37,440 the new series that we're starting on the spiritual 78 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:41,280 journey and essentially looking at, you know, what does it mean 79 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:46,320 for us over the course of a life to pursue the love and 80 00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:49,600 fellowship of God in community with one another? 81 00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:52,800 And so this week what we're going to do is we're going to 82 00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:56,520 look at the very beginning of that quest that we're calling 83 00:05:56,760 --> 00:06:00,720 the spiritual journey. And so we're talking about the 84 00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:07,000 human life before Jesus. So Romans 7, the passage that 85 00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:10,320 Tori read for us is famously debated. 86 00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:14,720 Is it before Christ? Is it after? 87 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:19,600 Is it Israel under Torah? Is it Adam's story? 88 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:23,920 Is it Paul's autobiography? Is it sort of a psychological 89 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:27,280 assessment of the apostle or humanity as a whole? 90 00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:31,440 What I want to do this morning is completely sidestep all of 91 00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:35,040 those questions and not even begin to wrestle with any of 92 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:39,360 that. I want to make the claim that 93 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:44,440 it's relevant in the sense that it names the human condition 94 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:50,480 apart from knowing the love of God, and it names an aspect of 95 00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:55,080 the human condition that continues once we have known the 96 00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:57,880 love of God. I think this is a text that's 97 00:06:57,880 --> 00:07:02,160 universally relevant to every human being who could possibly 98 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:06,960 read it. It describes finding the love of 99 00:07:06,960 --> 00:07:11,240 Christ for the first time, and it describes the ongoing tension 100 00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:15,200 that we feel until God's Kingdom comes in its fullness. 101 00:07:15,240 --> 00:07:18,880 And so the experience that Paul is describing is one that we all 102 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:21,840 share. And if you heard that and you 103 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:25,000 couldn't see a little bit of yourself in it, I just want to 104 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:29,200 suggest that you should maybe do a little bit of self reflection 105 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:38,320 because we're talking about the human life before Christ. 106 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:43,360 I want to emphasize that in this passage and in lots of others 107 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:46,880 throughout the Scriptures. The Scriptures point us to a 108 00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:52,320 real ontological change, a real sort of crossing over, like from 109 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:56,680 being one thing, from having one experience of life to that thing 110 00:07:56,680 --> 00:08:00,800 changing and becoming different. So if you've been around for a 111 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:03,440 while, you remember earlier in the year we did this long series 112 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:06,640 on being saved. What does it mean when the 113 00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:09,200 Scriptures talk about being saved? 114 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:13,640 How, how do we think about the idea of conversion or having a 115 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:16,960 life that's converted to Christ? And, and we, we emphasize 116 00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:19,800 throughout that series that this is a thing that happens in a 117 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:23,240 moment and it's a thing that's unfolding across the whole 118 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:27,160 landscape of our entire lives. And what I want to just say 119 00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:30,520 right up front is that this morning we're going to draw some 120 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:33,720 attention to the moment. You know, it can feel really 121 00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:37,760 comfortable to not sort of point to that moment and say there is 122 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:40,880 a moment, there is a real change that takes place in us when we 123 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:42,919 decide to live a life toward God. 124 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,760 But the truth is there's there's a lot of of literature that 125 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:51,800 would say that there's something observably different when we 126 00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:54,720 decide to sort of hand our lives over into the faithful 127 00:08:54,720 --> 00:09:00,400 stewardship of Jesus Christ. So every spiritual tradition 128 00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:03,120 talks about some kind of restlessness, some kind of 129 00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:08,760 hunger, longing, A loneliness, A fundamental ache that's at the 130 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:11,320 heart of our experience of human life. 131 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:15,600 And in many ways, that's where the spiritual journey begins. 132 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:20,440 You know, if, if you can think about your own story and where 133 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:23,480 you may have made a decision to sort of live a life toward God, 134 00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:29,160 You can probably think of a time when that that internal tension, 135 00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:34,200 when that ache became such that you were either drawn to beauty 136 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:37,680 in such a way that you would say, I'm going to begin my life, 137 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:39,720 begin to live my life differently. 138 00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:43,240 Or there there was sort of a a palpable anxiety. 139 00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:45,880 There was that that tension got to a place where it was like, I 140 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:50,680 need relief from this. Something must help me resolve, 141 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:52,280 you know, what I'm feeling inside. 142 00:09:52,520 --> 00:09:55,320 And what I would say is that universally, all of our efforts 143 00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:59,560 to explain spirituality or God are named at this. 144 00:09:59,560 --> 00:10:04,080 What do we do about the desires that we feel that are both 145 00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:09,080 helpful and destructive? Judaism says that the answer is 146 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:13,200 covenant faithfulness. Islam would say that submission 147 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:16,520 of 1's life to Allah is is what'll get us there. 148 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:21,480 Buddhism says it's detachment. Hinduism says it's union with 149 00:10:21,560 --> 00:10:24,160 with all of creation and you know, with all that's out, all 150 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:28,440 of all of humanity. Sikhism says that it's devotion 151 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:32,160 and service. Secular humanism would say that 152 00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:36,080 it is authenticity and the fully realized human life. 153 00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:41,840 You know, each of these take the ache seriously and there's 154 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:44,080 something beautiful and there's something to be learned from 155 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:47,240 each of those perspectives. But this morning's text says 156 00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:51,120 something distinct. It says that the answer is not a 157 00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:54,320 path that we climb. It's not a philosophy that we 158 00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:57,320 follow. It's a person who comes to us. 159 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:02,560 And so in the Gospels, it's never, here are the five steps 160 00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:05,720 to inner peace, or here's a checklist. 161 00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:08,000 And if you move through this checklist and you integrate 162 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:12,200 these practices into your life, you'll become, you know, a whole 163 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:14,600 sort of more enlightened spiritual person. 164 00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:24,440 It's always Jesus the man saying, come follow me. 165 00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:30,240 It's Jesus who says to weary fisherman, leave your Nets and 166 00:11:30,240 --> 00:11:34,560 come with me. It's Jesus saying to hungry 167 00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:41,560 crowds, I am the bread of life. It is Jesus saying to the 168 00:11:41,560 --> 00:11:46,240 grieving sisters, I am the resurrection and the life. 169 00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:52,800 And so the ache cannot be resolved by our own discipline 170 00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:57,520 or devotion. It can only be resolved by 171 00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:02,680 meeting Christ himself who carries us where we cannot carry 172 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:05,800 ourselves. At least that's the claim that I 173 00:12:05,800 --> 00:12:09,720 would like to make. And when I say that Christianity 174 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:13,360 makes a unique claim in Christ, a particular claim in Christ, I 175 00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:17,640 don't mean the chest thumping version that's tangled up in 176 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:20,840 culture wars or lust for power or influence. 177 00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:27,600 The difference is not domination or nationalism, and it's not 178 00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:30,520 about drawing battle lines or proving some kind of 179 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:32,600 superiority. It's a person. 180 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:37,480 That Jesus way of life is not about grasping for control. 181 00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:43,920 It's about being met by the uncontrollable love of God in 182 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:47,680 our own weakness with its tenderness and its mercy. 183 00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:53,240 Are you with me so far? So talking about life before 184 00:12:53,240 --> 00:12:58,600 Christ is not about some kind of elitism or supremacy or 185 00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:01,480 superiority. The love of God we're talking 186 00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:05,080 about is not absent from any person on the face of the earth. 187 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:08,960 We just this is so important to start there if we're going to 188 00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:11,200 consider the spiritual journey and what that means. 189 00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:14,920 This love of God, this boundless, capacious, 190 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:20,400 indescribable love of God is not absent from any person on the 191 00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:27,200 face of the earth. It's the only power that is 192 00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:28,840 strong enough to turn the tide for good. 193 00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:32,160 And I would make the claim that it's present everywhere we see 194 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:33,920 truth, goodness, and beauty in the world. 195 00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:41,080 But we can't afford to collapse this into the shallow idea that 196 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:43,920 we're all fine as we are and we're all just one big happy 197 00:13:43,920 --> 00:13:45,640 family. Because the world itself 198 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:50,400 testifies that that isn't true. The tension and the ache that we 199 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:54,160 feel inside of ourselves testifies that that is not the 200 00:13:54,160 --> 00:13:59,240 case. Our violence, our divisions, our 201 00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:01,720 addictions, our inability to love well. 202 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:06,000 And so that's why the New Testament is so insistent that 203 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,480 there's a decisive moment of receiving Christ, of opening 204 00:14:09,480 --> 00:14:13,280 ourselves up to God's love in a way that is new and 205 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:17,000 transformational. And even when many turned away 206 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:20,480 from Jesus because his teaching was too difficult, Peter gave 207 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:24,760 the response that grounds our whole confession of this 208 00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:28,840 capacious love of God. He said, Lord, where else would 209 00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:31,040 we go? You have the words of eternal 210 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:33,720 life. We have come to believe and to 211 00:14:33,720 --> 00:14:37,120 know that you are the Holy One of God. 212 00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:40,760 And so that claim is at the heart of all of Christian faith, 213 00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:44,360 that God's love is wider than we could ever imagine, wider than 214 00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:48,000 our categories, wider than our boundaries, wider than our 215 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:51,000 ability to even comprehend the love of God. 216 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:54,720 It's a love that won't let go. It's a love that reaches into 217 00:14:54,720 --> 00:15:00,040 every life, and it's a love that's open and generous and 218 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:04,520 inexhaustible. And many, I would say many who 219 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:09,120 who even call the church home, would look at the true 220 00:15:09,520 --> 00:15:12,200 boundlessness of the love of God and say that's too good to be 221 00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:18,320 true. And yet it's this very love that 222 00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:23,520 comes to us not as an idea, not as a vague feeling in the 223 00:15:23,520 --> 00:15:27,320 universe, not as something that we just sort of find our way 224 00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:31,160 toward, but with a particular face and a particular voice and 225 00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:34,160 a particular expression in human history. 226 00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:39,320 It comes to us in Jesus Christ. And so why this text? 227 00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:43,200 Why, why this, you know, I don't know, I don't know about you, 228 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:46,600 but I, I kind of laugh when I read this text at this point 229 00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:50,240 because it sounds a little bit manic, like it's like got 3 230 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:52,960 Stooges vibes. There's this sort of like I, I 231 00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:55,920 picture the meme of the guy with all the string in the, in the 232 00:15:55,920 --> 00:15:58,400 cork board and the pins and the pictures and he's trying to pin 233 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:00,960 down like, you know, I can't do the things that I want to do, 234 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:03,280 but I, I do the things that I don't want to do. 235 00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:05,560 And, you know, he's just sort of the circular talk. 236 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:08,840 And it's like, isn't that kind of, at least that's what's going 237 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:11,240 on inside of me. In case you wonder. 238 00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:17,160 I don't know that maybe it's just me, but I do not understand 239 00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:21,920 my own actions. Paul says that at the at the 240 00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:29,600 outset he names this divided will, knowing the good but 241 00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:32,720 failing to do it. Have you been there? 242 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:38,280 I know I should put my phone down at night, but I don't. 243 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:45,000 I know I should eat healthy, but I find myself again at Rita's on 244 00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:49,680 Henderson Rd. If you ever see me there, just 245 00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:53,680 like bid me home, just just let you just know that like, it's 246 00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:56,400 not, it's not like good it's not. 247 00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:58,560 I had to have no good reasons for being there. 248 00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:02,680 Fortunately, I've never seen any of you there, so I continue to 249 00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:05,560 get away with it. The ice cream wins. 250 00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:09,920 I, I, I want to be gentle with my kids, but I snap. 251 00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:15,800 I plan to forgive, but then I find myself rehearsing a fence 252 00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:20,680 over and over in my head. Paul starts here with something 253 00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:24,040 that is humorous, and it's honesty he's saying. 254 00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:27,920 I don't get myself. It's this everyday bewilderment 255 00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:30,840 of wanting one thing and doing another. 256 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:36,400 In a minute, we'll look at the extraordinarily powerful forces 257 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:39,080 that are at play that, like, create this dynamic inside of 258 00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:41,280 us. But what he's naming here is, is 259 00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:45,040 super ordinary. It's the fascinating puzzle of 260 00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:49,040 human inconsistency. Why do I contradict myself so 261 00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:52,280 often? You know, like a lot of us have 262 00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:55,880 what I'll just call fake values in our lives where if someone 263 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:57,680 were to ask us like, what are you about? 264 00:17:57,800 --> 00:17:59,840 You know, what sorts of things are important to you? 265 00:17:59,840 --> 00:18:02,400 What do you value and hold up? And we would sort of give a 266 00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:05,240 list. And then if you, like, looked at 267 00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:06,920 your life and like, what do you actually do? 268 00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:08,840 And where do you spend your money and who do you spend your 269 00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:10,160 time with? And so on. 270 00:18:11,160 --> 00:18:14,000 We would find that a lot of the values that we think we hold 271 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:17,840 really close are actually fake. That might sound kind of strong, 272 00:18:17,840 --> 00:18:22,720 but I just think it's the case. We've all felt this stuff. 273 00:18:22,720 --> 00:18:26,040 You know, we make promises to ourselves and we break them. 274 00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:30,160 We set goals, but we don't tell anybody that we've set the 275 00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:32,360 goals. And so then we just sort of like 276 00:18:32,360 --> 00:18:37,120 move the bar a little bit lower because I'm really only 277 00:18:37,120 --> 00:18:42,720 accountable to me. And so, you know, maybe I'll go 278 00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:47,000 to Rita's three days a week, I don't know, instead of 2 or 279 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:48,600 whatever it is for you, I don't know. 280 00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:54,760 But this, this impatience sneaks out, you know, and like little 281 00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:58,800 moments of not wanting to listen well or finding myself only 282 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:01,120 being half present in conversations when I would say 283 00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:04,400 that I really value intentionality and presence with 284 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:06,680 other people. It's not that I don't know 285 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:09,120 what's good. I know it well enough. 286 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:13,920 The problem is that my actions don't line up with what I know. 287 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:17,880 And that's what Paul means when he says I don't understand my 288 00:19:17,880 --> 00:19:20,480 own actions. It's the daily gap between our 289 00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:24,360 intention and our follow through, this experience of 290 00:19:24,360 --> 00:19:27,600 being unreliable even to ourselves. 291 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:31,800 And it's where our inability to trust other people or trust God 292 00:19:32,120 --> 00:19:35,080 often comes from. It's like, if I can't even trust 293 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:38,440 myself to follow through on the things that I say I want, how 294 00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:43,760 could I possibly trust community or trust God, who so often seems 295 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:47,160 far from me? And that gap leaves us 296 00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:50,680 scratching our heads. Who am I if I can't live up to 297 00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:56,240 my own values? And then he says it's sin that 298 00:19:56,240 --> 00:20:00,200 dwells within me. And look, you know, we don't 299 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:04,040 like talking like that. I mean, polite people don't talk 300 00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:07,840 like that. People often personalize 301 00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:09,800 failure. You know, I'm just weak. 302 00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:13,520 I'm just bad. I just don't have enough 303 00:20:13,520 --> 00:20:16,720 willpower. But Paul works this powerful 304 00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:18,920 explanation in the text if you really read it. 305 00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:23,560 He he externalizes this before he personalizes it. 306 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:28,560 He says that sin this, this like incongruence that we experience 307 00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:35,480 is a power at work in US that when, when scriptures talk about 308 00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:39,320 sin, it's talking about more than just individual missteps. 309 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:43,880 It's talking about a power that enslaves people and, and a thing 310 00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:46,280 that we sort of become unwittingly involved with. 311 00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:50,360 And the patterns and the habits of our lives are sort of 312 00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:53,360 unconsciously conformed to this thing. 313 00:20:53,360 --> 00:20:57,320 And, and it's not just about good or bad willpower. 314 00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:00,520 I'm so grateful for this text for this reason, because we're 315 00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:05,360 not permitted to reduce morality or behavior to good or bad 316 00:21:05,360 --> 00:21:07,640 willpower. You know, I don't know about 317 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:10,880 you, but I have spent way too much time in that vicious cycle 318 00:21:11,320 --> 00:21:15,040 of sort of thinking, like if I just, you know, get the right 319 00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:19,560 structures in place, if I just sort of mobilize my will, like 320 00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:22,560 with enough force and with enough consistency, I will be 321 00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:24,880 able to do the things that I want to do. 322 00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:28,240 And he names a power that's at work. 323 00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:31,600 He calls it sin. And it lives in habits, but it 324 00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:36,160 also lives in systems. So there's consumerism, there's 325 00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:40,280 lust as entertainment, There's contempt as politics. 326 00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:44,400 And so all of these things sort of work their way into our 327 00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:47,880 inside life like weeds. And the connection to the 328 00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:50,160 spiritual journey is, is precisely the way that we 329 00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:55,880 interact with this dynamic before Christ. 330 00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:02,160 This power just has its way with us, like we are defeated by it. 331 00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:06,720 And what what Paul's saying in this text is that in Christ, 332 00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:10,080 when we're moving toward learning to give our lives away, 333 00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:14,840 learning to imitate the generosity of God, the kindness 334 00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:20,720 of God, the compassion of God, we start to see these things for 335 00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:27,360 what they are and we move away from sort of our our futile 336 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:31,920 resistance against them. And we learn what it is to 337 00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:36,680 resist in the spirit strength. We learn what it is to develop a 338 00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:40,960 life of prayer and a life of nearness to God that enables us 339 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,760 not to think that we have to mobilize our will into these 340 00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,960 situations or change things by just sheer force. 341 00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,240 We learn little by little that Jesus is inviting us into a 342 00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:55,600 lifetime of increasingly understanding what's taking 343 00:22:55,600 --> 00:23:00,360 place in the world around us and what's taking place in the world 344 00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:06,320 inside of us by undertaking this journey inward. 345 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:10,320 That can is really the only thing that can meaningfully 346 00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:16,440 address what's going on. But more on that later. 347 00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:22,520 He moves to talking about a law at war within himself. 348 00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:26,240 And there's all this language about the law and the law this 349 00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,280 and the law that. And look, I'm not going to, you 350 00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:30,920 know, bludgeon you with that this morning. 351 00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:32,800 There's a lot of, like, different ways that we can 352 00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:34,680 understand precisely what he's talking about. 353 00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:39,400 But after recognizing the confusing nature of this 354 00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:43,400 division that we're experiencing inside of us, the ways that 355 00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:49,200 we're noticing the power of our disordered desires, we come to 356 00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:55,480 this warfare language. There's a war going on inside of 357 00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,240 me. There's a law at war within me, 358 00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:02,360 another law at war with the law of my mind. 359 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:07,240 How do we understand that? I don't think this is just inner 360 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:10,360 angst. I really think that this is a 361 00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:15,040 cosmic battle that's playing out on the scale of the human heart. 362 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:20,200 And So what he's saying is like, what we see out there is what's 363 00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:24,240 taking place on the stage of my own inside life as well. 364 00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,400 It's an echo. Like everything that you can see 365 00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:31,280 in the world is taking place inside of you and I. 366 00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:33,400 That's a heavy thought, isn't it? 367 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:39,000 That, you know, we all feel 2 laws when we're stirred by 368 00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:44,440 beauty in the form of art or music, but we also seem to be 369 00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:50,600 irresistibly attracted to like, pornography or just vapid empty 370 00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:54,480 entertainment. The same person who can hear a 371 00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:59,160 song and weep or we can look at a beautiful painting and feel 372 00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:04,920 like super compelled can be sucked into doom scrolling. 373 00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:09,560 That's what he's talking about. Another law at war with the law 374 00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,840 of my mind. We all feel 2 laws when we 375 00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:18,920 forgive, but then we like very quickly find ourselves still 376 00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:23,240 wanting revenge. Or we give, but then we find 377 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:27,280 ourselves secretly resenting letting go of what we've let go 378 00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:29,840 of. This inner war has been noted 379 00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,680 across centuries and cultures. This isn't just Paul in the 380 00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,320 scriptures. Plato pictured the soul as a 381 00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:42,840 charioteer pulled by two horses. One that was well behaved, one 382 00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,600 that was incredibly unruly. Marcus Aurelius wrote about the 383 00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,480 soul as a battlefield. Similarly, Buddha said the 384 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,360 greatest victory is to conquer oneself. 385 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:57,800 So everyone sees the war within. That's not unique to the text 386 00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:00,960 that we're looking at. The scriptures use the language 387 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,760 that Paul is using here. Sin at work in us. 388 00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,840 But what it comes down to is that we're full of passions that 389 00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,400 drive us. We are not neutral. 390 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:15,040 You know, the, the, all of the energies in our, in our life 391 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,640 pull us toward God or away from God. 392 00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:22,000 The writer and theologian Ronald Rohlhizer in his book The Holy 393 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:26,120 Longing, says desire can show itself as aching pain or 394 00:26:26,120 --> 00:26:30,040 delicious hope. Spirituality is ultimately about 395 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,760 what we do with what we desire, what we do with our longings, 396 00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,480 both in terms of handling the pain and the hope that they 397 00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,120 bring us. That is our spirituality. 398 00:26:41,120 --> 00:26:44,640 So what I want you to hear in this is that this isn't just 399 00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,400 about sin and bad and, and, you know, try to control the stuff 400 00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,000 that's like out of control and whatever. 401 00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,920 But this is this is a way of thinking about beauty in our 402 00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:57,240 lives too, that you know, the, the, the beautiful longings that 403 00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:02,240 we experience for community, for peace, for justice, for nearness 404 00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:04,120 to God. Like all of those things are 405 00:27:04,120 --> 00:27:07,760 sort of handled in the same way. Paul, Paul is saying that they 406 00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:11,200 all sort of come under Christ in this unique way. 407 00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,360 In Romans 7, he's saying that spirituality is what we do with 408 00:27:15,360 --> 00:27:23,720 desire and without Jesus. Desire masters us and in Christ. 409 00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,040 And this is important to hear because it's not just, it's not 410 00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:33,720 just on or off in Christ. Desire is healed and reordered. 411 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,520 It doesn't go away. We don't master it. 412 00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,560 So it's important that we say, you know, apart from Christ, 413 00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,240 desire masters us. But it's not, it's not the case 414 00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:49,400 that in Christ we master desire. In Christ, we learn what it is 415 00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,480 that like these, these passions, these things that we experience 416 00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,120 in the internal life are given a place to go. 417 00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,640 We're given sort of some scaffolding to like, hang some 418 00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,560 things on and think about what do I do with the just 419 00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:03,400 restlessness that's inside of me? 420 00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:08,560 Humans are caught up in this war of loves pulling us toward the 421 00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:12,760 love of God that's energized by creativity and beauty and truth 422 00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:17,960 and goodness and the other that seeks to tamp down and decrease 423 00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:21,000 faith and hope and love in our lives. 424 00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:25,240 And so then it seems we sort of hit the bottom. 425 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,400 Bri and I were having a conversation about this text. 426 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,560 And we get to wretched person that I am who will rescue me 427 00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:36,480 from this body of death. And she was like, you know, I 428 00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,440 don't think my therapist would find that to be very helpful 429 00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,400 self talk. And I was like, yeah, I think, I 430 00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:44,640 think you're probably right. I think that's a little bit 431 00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:50,600 harsh. But listen, he's talking about 432 00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:56,560 like this cry that's at the heart of every conversion. 433 00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:02,960 And what I'll say is like, it's the moment that we sort of turn 434 00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:04,840 our lives over to God, but it's ongoing. 435 00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:10,560 Like, again, maybe it's just me. I'm going to assume it's just 436 00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:14,760 me, but I'll just share my like, I hit this point with some 437 00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:18,920 regularity, you know? And then it's like, what do I 438 00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,600 do? Like, who can save me? 439 00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:27,400 It's the cry of every stage of discipleship. 440 00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:32,920 It's the cry of every step along the path that is the spiritual 441 00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:34,760 journey. And so I know we're talking 442 00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:37,480 about the human life before Jesus, but I just want you to 443 00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:43,200 hear that like this is happening like in all of us at every 444 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:47,800 moment as we learn to give our lives away, as we are getting 445 00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,280 our lives together, whatever it, whatever it looks like, you 446 00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,000 know, it's like we, we are regularly coming to the place 447 00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,600 inside of us. And, and all this is, is like 448 00:29:55,600 --> 00:30:00,120 learning to do it more regularly and in a manner that's like a 449 00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:05,560 little bit less harmful to self, a little bit less condemning to 450 00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:06,960 self. We'll get to that point in the 451 00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,840 text as well. But man, we never outgrow the 452 00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:15,280 need for rescue. We, we just learned to come to 453 00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:18,960 terms with it over and over and over and over again. 454 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:25,600 And so, you know, the way that Central Vineyard has been a 455 00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:30,320 community historically that's attuned to that, that's attuned 456 00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,560 to that like, you know, come and receive, like the rescue of God 457 00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:40,160 in the arms of Jesus, in the arms of brothers and sisters who 458 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:44,760 are sort of together on this mission of living the Jesus 459 00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,960 lifestyle. Like this is it. 460 00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,400 We learn to come to terms with it more quickly. 461 00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,920 Where where conversion and rescue from the forces that are 462 00:30:55,920 --> 00:31:00,680 at work inside of us and in the world are at once a major shift. 463 00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,160 They are a transference into another Kingdom. 464 00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:05,160 It's a it's a completely different way of thinking about 465 00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,720 our lives. And it becomes a way of seeing 466 00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:10,640 the world. It becomes a way of processing 467 00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:12,440 what we go through day in and day out. 468 00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:16,240 And so we come to realize that no matter how many times we 469 00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:20,040 rearrange our calendars or change therapists or read this 470 00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:25,240 book or that, or, you know, get more time for mindfulness or try 471 00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:30,840 a new accountability strategy or whatever it might be, we come to 472 00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,200 the end of ourselves and we know we need rescue. 473 00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,080 We know we need rescue because the world around us needs 474 00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,600 rescue. And it's mirrored on our inside 475 00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:46,160 lives, Henry Nellen writes in The Return of the Prodigal son. 476 00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:49,160 Confronted with the impossibility of self 477 00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:53,000 redemption, I now understand Jesus words to Nicodemus. 478 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,320 Do not be surprised when I say you must be born from above. 479 00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:58,880 Indeed, something needs to happen. 480 00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:03,560 I cannot be reborn from below, that is, with my own strength, 481 00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:07,320 with my own mind, with my own psychological insights. 482 00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,520 There's no doubt in my mind about this because I have tried 483 00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,800 so hard in the past to heal myself from the from my 484 00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:19,960 complaints and failed and failed and failed until I come to the 485 00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,400 edge of complete emotional collapse and even physical 486 00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:27,720 exhaustion. I can only be healed from above. 487 00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:35,040 That conversion that being born from above, being saved, as we 488 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:39,040 said in our series earlier in the year, is never just one 489 00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,440 thing. There's a temptation to make 490 00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,640 this sort of our only tool. And I'll just say as an aside, I 491 00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:50,640 think that's why in a lot of evangelical churches who 492 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,320 emphasize an altar call and A, and a, an invitation to follow 493 00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:59,800 Jesus, which we'll do in a minute when that's the only tool 494 00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,400 in your tool belt. You hear stories about people 495 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,800 who say, you know, I, I felt like I needed to come forward 496 00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:07,560 every week. I felt like I needed to just 497 00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,520 kind of keep giving my life over to Jesus over and over and over 498 00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:11,880 again. And it's because there's no 499 00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:16,160 imagination for what an ongoing conversion might look like. 500 00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:18,880 And so the only note that we know how to hit is, you know, 501 00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,440 come to the altar, we'll pray the prayer and, you know, and 502 00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:22,800 then we'll do it again next week. 503 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:27,880 And what I, what I just want to share is like a hope for, you 504 00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,440 know, some vision in this community that, you know, what 505 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,080 it would look like for us to to sort of have a life together 506 00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,560 where we know what it looks like to continually sort of bring our 507 00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,600 lives before God and before other people. 508 00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:43,040 But we don't need to repeat the exercise of, of that like first 509 00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:44,240 moment. Does that make sense? 510 00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:49,040 And so Romans 7 and 8 describes the pivot. 511 00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:51,800 It's one of the most beautiful turns, one of the most beautiful 512 00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:57,080 lifts in all of Scripture from self rescue to Christ rescue. 513 00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:00,200 You have Paul doing all these mental gymnastics about, you 514 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,720 know, how could I possibly whatever overcome any of this? 515 00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,159 And and then and then we land thanks be to God through Jesus 516 00:34:08,159 --> 00:34:15,480 Christ our Lord. Romans 7 and 8 describes this, 517 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:18,840 this pivot and one of the ways that we've described this in our 518 00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,040 Vineyard family. I'd like to just do this really 519 00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,320 quick. And if this is new to you, let's 520 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:24,600 hang out this week and talk about it. 521 00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,639 But it's, it's something called set theory. 522 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:32,280 So bounded set is about who's in and who's out. 523 00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,560 And I think I have a little image that sort of represents 524 00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:37,679 this who's in and who's out based on behaviors. 525 00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,000 And so here's what it might look like. 526 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,560 We have sort of a, a list of rules, a list of boundaries, and 527 00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,320 we can encircle the people on the inside and on the outside, 528 00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:49,639 you know, do you sort of check all the right boxes? 529 00:34:49,639 --> 00:34:56,320 If so, you are inside the red circle, a centered set asks 530 00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:01,360 which way are you facing toward Christ or away? 531 00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:05,120 And I, I just think that's the precisely the journey that 532 00:35:05,240 --> 00:35:08,240 Paul's naming here that you know, who's in, who's out. 533 00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,760 We don't have, we don't have a hard line that's drawn around 534 00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,480 some people in the center. What we see is that there are 535 00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,800 sort of people facing all different directions. 536 00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:21,680 Their, their orientation, their disposition toward like the 537 00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,680 things of Jesus is a little bit different for each person. 538 00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,920 But what we're looking at is sort of the arrows, like where 539 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,920 are the arrows pointing? And this, this thing that Paul's 540 00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:35,680 unpacking here is precisely that it's, you know, the, the, the 541 00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:39,120 orientation of our heart before God. 542 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:42,720 That's realization that I cannot save myself. 543 00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:46,840 I cannot fix myself. And so, you know, behaviorally 544 00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:50,960 all the sort of cultural markers that would have distinguished 545 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,280 good Christians from bad Christians in the past. 546 00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,480 That's not really the conversation that that we're 547 00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:57,440 having here. What the conversation that we're 548 00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,000 having here is, you know, what does it look like for me to 549 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,120 recognize that on the spiritual journey, there comes a point 550 00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,240 where I need to turn around and go a different direction. 551 00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,440 And then the rest of my life is, is just sort of like how, how am 552 00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:14,440 I remaining oriented toward that, toward that invitation of 553 00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,160 God, toward the love of God coming into my life and 554 00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:20,440 transforming the way that I understand myself and the world 555 00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,680 around me. And so there's this turn in the 556 00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:27,400 text. Thanks be to God through Jesus 557 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,120 Christ our Lord. You know, we've, we've looked at 558 00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,960 the features of the human life before Christ and now we see 559 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:34,680 that the spiritual journey is not a one and done moment where 560 00:36:34,720 --> 00:36:40,280 Jesus fixes us overnight. The first time we hear there is 561 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:45,680 no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, it changes 562 00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:49,960 everything. But even after years of 563 00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:54,160 following Jesus, we need to continue to hear it again in new 564 00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,720 corners of our lives, in unexplored places, in our inside 565 00:36:57,720 --> 00:37:03,800 lives. It's it's new, new failures and 566 00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:08,040 new fears that cross our paths. It's new sort of moments of 567 00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:12,520 wrestling and of doubt. And every time the answer is 568 00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,680 still there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus before 569 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,360 Christ. The this this divided will is 570 00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:24,080 nothing but frustration. It's nothing but this sort of 571 00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,200 hamster wheel of like, what do I do with everything that's going 572 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:32,200 on inside of me? And in Christ, we, we still feel 573 00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,560 this division, but we know where to take it. 574 00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:39,640 We have some tools for sort of coping with it into the presence 575 00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:41,640 of God with other people in prayer. 576 00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,720 So before Christ, the power of sin leaves us defeated. 577 00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:52,600 But in Christ we still uncover its pull in our hearts and in 578 00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:55,600 the world. But now we see it for what it 579 00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:59,480 is, and we learn to resist in the spirit strength. 580 00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:04,040 So there's this lifelong navigation of the interior life 581 00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:08,560 in Christ, a process of being reformed and reordered and 582 00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:11,920 healed over time. And there is a moment where we 583 00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:14,440 take the first step on that journey. 584 00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:19,720 And with each successive step, we continue to return to this 585 00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:28,600 very promise. So that's why Romans 7 is so 586 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,560 relevant. Before Christ and after Christ, 587 00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:35,120 the questions don't change. What do I do with my desire? 588 00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,480 What do I do with sin? Who will rescue me? 589 00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:42,440 And the answer is always the person of Jesus. 590 00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,800 The difference is that the journey unfolds and the answer 591 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,680 deepens in detail and in nuance and in intimacy. 592 00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:55,760 And so as I sort of conclude, I'll invite the worship team 593 00:38:55,760 --> 00:39:02,000 back up and Tori, if you have anything for, for ministry, 594 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,200 you're welcome to pitch in. But if not, that's OK. 595 00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:11,840 So I know some of you are tired. You've you've tried to change 596 00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:19,120 yourself or you've hoped that life experience or time or doing 597 00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:23,480 more, pushing harder would sort of heal the inner struggle. 598 00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:28,040 And you just can see like as Roman 7 is naming it, clearly we 599 00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,080 can't rescue ourselves. And so I just want to say that 600 00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:39,240 today the invitation is to not try harder to not lean further 601 00:39:39,240 --> 00:39:47,120 into a lifestyle of hustle or, or a need to sort of find find 602 00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:52,640 this rescue for yourself, but to turn to Christ, the one who says 603 00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:57,080 there is no condemnation to receive forgiveness, to receive 604 00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,960 life and a new way of being human. 605 00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:04,160 And so we'll have prayer folks around the side of the room. 606 00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,360 And I just want to encourage you, if you have never made that 607 00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,800 decision, if you've never had sort of a, a point where you 608 00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,480 said, you know, I, I want to follow Jesus, I want to learn. 609 00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,160 The the Jesus way of living, I want to give my life over and 610 00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:23,440 and find what it is to know that there is no condemnation. 611 00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:28,640 We just invite you to come and you know, I think for many 612 00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:33,360 others, I just want to invite you to receive the work of Jesus 613 00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:37,800 into your life in a new way. And So what I'd like for us to 614 00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:41,000 do as we turn to worship is I'd invite you to stand. 615 00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:45,200 And I just want to read the end of this passage over us. 616 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,680 And, you know, I, I get a sense as I've prayed and thought about 617 00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:54,680 our time this week. Many of us sort of long for the 618 00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,320 nearness of God. And we ask the question, like, 619 00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:01,520 God, where are you? Why can't I perceive what you're 620 00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:04,800 doing? Or, or you know, and I think 621 00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:08,880 there's something about the church gathered being the body 622 00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:13,760 of Christ that when we hear encouragement from another 623 00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:18,320 person, or we like experience the touch of another person in 624 00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:22,920 prayer, we hear the words of God, we experience the touch of 625 00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,560 God from the, the body of Christ on the earth. 626 00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:29,280 And so I would just encourage you like if you, if you just 627 00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:33,720 need a little bit of that touch, if you need a word, if you need, 628 00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:37,200 you know, any of that, come, come and receive prayer. 629 00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:44,520 So there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are 630 00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:48,640 in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ 631 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:53,440 Jesus has set you free. And so I just pray for each and 632 00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:57,600 everyone of you that today and in an ongoing way, you would 633 00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:02,120 know the, the freedom that Christ brings, that any 634 00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:06,320 condemnation that sort of sits in your in yourself talk in your 635 00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:09,040 subconscious, whether it's from other people, whether it's from 636 00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,080 yourself, whether it's from from the devil. 637 00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,040 I pray that that would go right now in the name of Christ and 638 00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:19,720 that you would experience interior freedom to live the 639 00:42:19,720 --> 00:42:22,360 life that Jesus invites you to live. 640 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:25,120 Amen.