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SIN / SELF

Dead to Sin, Slaves to Righteousness

Josh Yates · Sunday, 27 July 2025 · Romans 7:13-25 · 45:28 · 7,401 words

Romans S14 · 7:13-25 Lake Orion

Listen to this message

Romans 7 and Genesis 3 are examined to illustrate the internal battle between wanting to do good and repeatedly doing what we know is wrong. The speaker urges listeners to stop treating faith as a convenient activity or a source of new experiences and to recognize how sin has separated them from God. God’s question, “Where are you?” is presented as a personal invitation to return to Him, confess, and accept His forgiveness. The message calls for an honest assessment of one’s walk and a commitment to follow Jesus daily.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

sidney 9 grief 13 strive 9 moralistic 5 outer 5 better 19 inner 6 moralist 4 flesh 21 toward 12 counsel 6 time 33

Topics

Sin 14 The Law 7 The Gospel 4 The Flesh 3 Prayer 2 Faith 2 Sanctification 1 Obedience 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Grace 1

Scripture referenced 10

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 7 13:34 Romans 7:13 13:37 Romans 7:20 13:40 Romans 7:13-20 13:44 Romans 7:21-25 20:46 Romans 5:17-18 22:05 Galatians 2:19-21 24:30 Romans 5 36:06 Genesis 3 36:28 Genesis 3:9 37:39

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 9 lines, 0:40. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

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Thanks again for joining us. We hope you're blessed by today's message.

On this Sunday, we continue our study in the book of Romans.

We've learned a lot. Paul's talked about how bad our sin is.

It separates us from God. It's right that God's judgment will fall on us.

But he has to judge sin. We've all sinned. We've all fallen short of God's glory.

But God has already judged sin through Christ.

And Paul's been talking about what Jesus did on the cross.

He talked about the law, how the law doesn't save us, but the law tells us what sin is.

And it's been fulfilled through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection from the grave.

He talked about how Adam brought sin as the first Adam.

And Jesus was the kind of second Adam and brought salvation and grace from the Lord.

And we have a hope of eternity that death itself has been defeated.

And sin no longer has dominion over you if you are a child of Jesus Christ.

If you are a child of the King, you don't have to choose to sin any longer.

Its power of death has been defeated, and we have a choice to live for God.

And where sin increased, grace increased all the more.

And now we're to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ.

Now last week, we talked more specifically about how whether we are slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness.

We're slaves to one or the other.

We're dead to the law, and we're alive to Jesus, and we're dead to sin.

We talked about four different kinds of grief.

And I want to just...

Briefly give you a synopsis of those so we can remember what those are.

Because it's going to play a role.

Every week we go through Romans, it's building upon the previous.

Because Paul's building a case to the Jewish Christians about why Jesus is so important.

And that you're dead to the law, and that for a Jew, that would be like,

Oh my goodness, you just tore up my whole background, my whole life.

Paul's trying to say the law is fulfilled in Christ.

And we're now dead to the law and alive to Christ.

But when we realize that we're a sinner...

We can have different kinds of grief.

When we realize we do things wrong, we can have different kinds of grief.

We talked about that last week.

But again, as a reminder, one type of grief is horizontal grief.

This is the kind of grief where we're sorry we got caught.

We're not really sorry for what we did.

We just wish we hadn't gotten caught.

And since we've gotten caught, we have to at least show some kind of sorrow.

Because if we don't, then, well, we're just a really bad person, right?

So that's horizontal grief.

We don't recognize the poison that sin is.

And quite honestly, we don't care.

Because we like our sin.

We just didn't want to get caught.

There's emotional grief.

And this is where the tears flow.

The apologies come freely.

But emotion...

I want you to hear this.

Emotion doesn't equal repentance.

Emotion doesn't equal repentance.

Once the emotions fade, you're back into normal life.

You go back to what you always knew.

You go back to the same old stuff you were stuck in.

And the goal here is just to be better.

Not to actually be whole in Christ.

And we rationalize our sin when it's emotional.

When we're sorry we're doing it, but we don't...

But we like it too much to really give it up.

We know we shouldn't be doing it.

And we're sorry when we're confronted, but nothing ever changes.

Then there's passive grief.

We're sad at how it hurts us.

We're sorry that we did it.

But it's not that bad.

You know, next time, I'll manage my sin a little bit better.

I'll do better next time.

But what did Paul tell Timothy about sexual sin?

We talked about this last week, too.

He didn't say hang out because you can figure it out.

He said, get out of there!

Get away from it!

Then there's misplaced grief.

We agree that what we did was wrong.

But if so-and-so...

If so-and-so hadn't done what they did, I wouldn't do what I did.

Or the classic line, the devil made me do it.

Right?

We hear people say that.

The devil made me do it.

This isn't just misplaced grief.

It's misplaced blame.

No one can make you do anything but you.

Also, no one can make you feel anything except by your choice.

Nobody makes you feel it.

And finally, there's good grief.

Sorrow over what we've done.

We confess to God and others.

We hate what we've done.

We want to elevate God's glory in our lives.

He's forgiven us and we want to repent.

We were going one direction and we're going to turn and go the other way

because we know that's what God wants for us.

And Paul's told us a lot.

And now he's going to talk about the tension in our lives

when it comes to the gospel and actually living it out.

Before we dig into the word this morning, there's a quote from Eugene Peterson.

He wrote a book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

And I want to read it to you.

Pastor Eugene says,

It's not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel.

It's terrifically difficult.

It's not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel.

It's terrifically difficult to get a person interested in the message of the gospel.

Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ,

but there is a dreadful attrition rate.

Many claim to be born again,

but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim.

In our kind of culture, anything, even news about God,

can be sold if it's packaged freshly.

But when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap.

There's a great market for religious experience in our world.

There is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue.

Little inclination to sign up for a long,

long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.

Religion in our time has been captured by a tourist mindset.

Religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure.

For some, it's a weekly jaunt to church, for others, occasional visits to special services.

Some, with a bent for religious entertainment and sacred diversion,

plan their lives around special events like retreats, rallies, and conferences.

The religious life is defined as the latest and the newest.

Zen, faith healing, human potential, parapsychology, successful living.

The phrase nowadays, what is it?

Live your best life now.

Sorry, our best lives are in heaven one day.

It's not here.

Choreography in the chancel, choreography in the church, something new in the church.

Or maybe we just love the individual.

Maybe in time so much and we just want to focus on Armageddon because someday he's coming

and I'm just going to focus on that.

We'll try anything until something else comes along.

So true of our culture.

And if we're honest with ourselves, that can be true of us too.

We're searching for the new thing, the new voice, the new whatever.

It's got to be new and fresh.

When in reality, living for Jesus is in the mundane.

It's in the normal.

And we're going to see that today.

Man, the gospel, but I'm sure I don't, I feel like that.

Man, the gospel is amazing news, but it's lifelong news.

It changes us daily.

So I want to ask.

As we begin this morning, when do you struggle with keeping your eyes on God?

When do you struggle with keeping your eyes on the Lord?

On how much he loves you, what he's done in you and what he's done for you?

What about holiness?

What about actually living for the Lord?

What about thinking about how God might want to change you and taking stock of your heart

and your life?

Has your relationship with God become more like a tourist attraction or has he become

like a genie in the bottle where you only go to him when you need a wish granted?

Or a prayer answered?

Is it only there when you really want it, when it sounds good, when it's convenient,

when you really need him?

See, I think, I was going to say, I don't want to step on too many toes this morning,

but who am I kidding?

The reality is during the summer, is your relationship with God more about convenience

and vacation and letting it all go?

Or are you still focused on the Lord even in the middle of your leisure?

Because my concern as a pastor of, gosh, it's going on 28, almost 30 years.

Every time we go on vacation, my concern is we take a vacation.

We take a vacation from God and we just let him go.

And then we come back and it takes us three or four months to get even close to back on track.

Do you need conferences, new books, special events?

Do you need to hear new truth to get excited about God again?

Or even actually hear him?

I'd love us, I mean, take a minute, be honest with yourself.

Does God get too humdrum?

I don't know about you, but there are times that there are dry seasons in life

and our walks with God.

That's just reality.

That's life.

That's true of any relationship we have.

But do we lean?

Do we lean into truth?

Or are we just about what we feel?

Because your feelings, while valid, will lie to you.

We have to base our lives on truth.

It has to be based on truth.

So as we begin this morning, how is your relationship with God really?

Be thinking about that today.

I really, really love spending time with people in the context of growth communities

and counseling opportunities that I have as a pastor.

Gosh, we've been doing this new group called Rooted,

which, by the way, if you would like to, as I talk about this,

we're doing another group of Rooted here this fall.

And if you'd like to talk to me about it,

you can be a part of it.

We've done two groups and taken probably about 25 people

through the Rooted program.

The majority of our growth communities this,

the next season of growth community in September,

will also be doing Rooted.

And what it is, it's a program that sets seven basics

of what discipleship is all about,

what a disciple of Christ looks like.

Like, when's the last time you really thought about

what it takes to spend time in God's Word?

Do you even know how to really spend time in God's Word

on a devotional level?

We talk about that.

We talk about that.

When's the last time you prayed with fellow believers

and actually sought the face of God together?

When's the last time you were taught

or you learned how to actually repent of your sin

and did it with friends that love you?

When you actually talked about what you struggle with?

When's the last time you talked about actually being generous?

When's the last time you talked about who God is?

There's so much in Rooted.

But it's just, it sets a baseline

for what it means to really follow the Lord.

And, in fact, anybody who's done Rooted,

I'm going to put you on the spot.

Anybody who's done Rooted, just raise your hand real quick.

That way people know who you are.

If you wonder what it is,

talk to one of those people raising a hand.

Everybody good with that?

God's done some awesome stuff in these studies.

And I've got to tell you,

if you go into it wanting to see Him, you'll meet Him.

And I've got to see people that, I mean,

I wasn't sure how it would work out.

And I've seen people from early 20s to 60

just learn more and go deeper in their walk with the Lord.

And it is amazing to watch.

It's amazing to watch.

I love being able to sit down with,

you know, couples that Jeannie and I help

in both premarital counseling and marriage counseling.

Which, by the way, if you come to marriage counseling,

we like to call it coaching.

If you come and talk to us,

it doesn't mean that you have problems.

I always say, it's not bad to have somebody

take a look at your marriage

and change the oil of your marriage.

It's important.

And we love doing that.

But here's the thing.

I look at some couples, I've had talks with them recently,

and they're just like,

I had no idea that the church could be like this.

My friends, if all you're doing

is showing up on a Sunday morning,

you're going to live exactly,

what Paul is talking about today.

Because you're trying to do it on your own.

I don't want to preach the message before I get there.

But the reality is, it takes time.

And there are some beautiful things happening

when we take time in the body of Christ.

It's an awesome thing.

But here's the bottom line of time.

Time equals importance for us.

So the question becomes, what's most important?

And as we hear what Paul has to say here,

we're going to understand

that we all have a struggle that we face.

And there's a reason we have this struggle.

So let's turn to Romans chapter,

if you have your Bibles, if you have your phones,

if you have your iPads, tablets, whatever it is,

hit your buttons, get to Romans chapter 7.

We're going to start in verse 13.

I'm going to read through verse 20.

It'll be on the screen behind me as well.

Romans chapter 7, verses 13 to 20.

And follow along,

because there's a lot of back and forth here, okay?

Did that which was good then bring death to me?

By no means.

It was sin producing death in me through what is good.

In order that sin might be shown to be good,

not to be sin, he's talking about the law,

and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

For we know that the law is spiritual,

but I'm of the flesh, sold under sin.

For I do not understand my own actions,

for I do not do what I want,

but I do the very thing I hate.

Now if I do what I do not want,

I agree with the law, that the law is good.

So now it is no longer I who do it,

but sin that dwells within me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me,

that is, sin.

That is, in my flesh.

For I have the desire to do what is right,

but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want,

but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want,

it is no longer I who do it,

but sin dwells within me.

I do, I do not.

He almost sounds like Yoda a little bit in these verses.

All right?

But there's a lot of do or do not.

All those things.

I should do this, but I do that.

I want to do this, but not that.

But that's what I end up.

This is what I'm doing.

All right?

It's back and forth.

The first thing I want to make sure we say here,

and you may not,

if you study this passage at all,

I want you to hear where I'm coming from.

If you do dig into this,

you're going to find that there's some different

interpretive ideas about this passage.

There's three different things that biblical scholars

think Paul could be talking about here.

One view is that there's a belief that Paul

is describing a non-Christian Pharisee

that's living under the law,

striving to live for God.

That's one view.

The second view is that it's a normal Christian life,

and it's what we believe.

It's what we struggle through

when we strive to live for the Lord.

And the third view is that he's describing

a carnal Christian,

a person that may claim Jesus,

but has no desire to live for the Lord

and is actively living for themselves.

So for me, I agree with Augustine, Luther, and Calvin

that the second view is what Paul's talking about here.

He's writing in the first person,

and he's talking about what he is living out in his life.

Otherwise, if he was a carnal Christian,

he wouldn't say that I want to do the right thing.

A carnal Christian doesn't care about doing the right thing.

And a Pharisee wants to, thinks he already is doing

the right thing.

So Paul, I really believe Paul's talking about

what we experience as followers of Christ when we struggle,

and we strive to do it on our own.

But can you hear his frustration in this passage?

Paul, an apostle, wrote,

a majority of the New Testament is saying,

man, I stink, I struggle, I'm frustrated.

We're on the struggle bus together.

It resonates with us.

Someone said after reading this

that Paul must have been a golfer

because you know what you want to do on the golf course,

but every time you hit the ball,

it goes the exact same opposite direction.

That's just the way it goes.

Let me tell you, I golf, not well, I golf.

And every time there's water on a hole,

if water's over there, I'm aiming here.

That's where the ball goes.

It's like it has a homing beacon every single time.

It's so frustrating.

But Paul's describing this for all of us.

It's life.

It's the plight of the believer in Jesus

that's trying to live their life,

but here's the caveat, in their own strength.

See, the reality of what Paul's already set out

is he's saying that we no longer have to choose sin,

but in our striving, we will all find

that the sin that we desire,

the sin that our flesh desires,

is stronger than our will to not do it.

I want to repeat that this morning.

The sin that you struggle with,

the flesh that is inside you that is the enemy of Jesus

is stronger than your will.

It is.

It's stronger than you.

In fact, Paul says twice,

it's no longer myself who do,

who,

who does it.

He's not saying that it's the devil made me do it.

That's not what Paul's saying here.

He's not saying he doesn't bear any responsibility

in his choice,

but,

but he's saying that it's his flesh that made that choice.

It's the part of him that he's trying to put to death.

He wants in his heart to do the right thing before God,

but he finds himself doing the exact opposite thing before God.

Have you ever found yourself there?

Don't raise your hand.

You ever found yourself there?

Man, I did it again.

What in the world?

You ever had a thought that popped into your head?

You're like, whoa, where'd that come from?

Serious things.

Like, why would I,

I didn't even think that.

That's evidence of that flesh inside of us

that is still being put to death.

And there's times we so badly want to do

what God wants us to do.

And so we ask for forgiveness.

You're like, God, I'll do better next time.

I'll do better next time.

I'm so sorry for messing up again.

I'm so sorry for taking your sacrifice for granted.

Then next week, you're in the same hole.

It's a merry-go-round.

The flesh inside you is stronger than your will

to do what is right.

You have to hear that this morning.

The flesh inside you,

is stronger than your will to do what is right.

In fact, Thomas Akimpas wrote,

he's an early church father.

He says,

I desire to enjoy thee, God, inwardly,

but I cannot take thee.

I desire to cleave to heavenly things,

but fleshly things and unmortified passions depress me.

I will in my mind to be above all things,

but in spite of myself,

I am constrained to be beneath.

So I, unhappy man, fight with myself

and have made grievous to myself.

While the spirit seeketh what is beneath.

Oh, what I suffer within,

while as I think on heavenly things in my mind,

the company of fleshly things cometh against me when I pray.

He writes that for all of us, doesn't he?

How many times do we pray and we can't even focus?

Everything else just comes into our minds and we can't.

It just gets so frustrating at times.

I don't know, maybe I'm alone in that.

My goodness, we try to focus on the Lord.

And then he goes on in verses 21 to 25.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right,

evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God in my inner being,

but I see in my members another law

waging war against the law of my mind

and making me captive to the law of sin

that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am,

who will deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind,

but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin.

There's three images that I'd like us to kind of take a look at.

They'll be on the screen behind me.

This first one is an illustration of the inner person

and the outer flesh.

It's an illustration of a person before Christ.

Both body and spirit are dying or dead.

We've read that throughout scripture.

And Ephesians talks about that before Christ,

we are dead to life.

We are completely dead.

We're dead spiritually.

We're dying physically.

That's just a reality.

The body's wasting away.

It's sinful.

The inner person is dead to God.

There's no choice to live for what is right in this community.

The destination here is death.

The next image is the inner person and the outer flesh

that now in Romans 5, 17 to 18, it says,

for if one, because of one man's trespass,

death reigned through that one man,

much more will those who receive the abundance of grace

and the free gift of righteousness reign in life

through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men,

so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.

God made a way for us to be redeemed.

And this makes our spirit alive in Christ,

but there's still an outline of the flesh.

There's still an outline of the flesh.

Our bodies, every single one of us,

I'm seeing it more and more with gray hair

and more aches and pains

and all the things that are happening as I near 50.

Our bodies are dying.

Bodies are dying because of sin.

Sin has its way in our flesh.

And while the inward parts of us are turning toward the Lord,

the outer parts of us are still longing

for the ways of the world.

I want to tell you something this morning.

Our flesh, that side of us that wants the things of the world,

that wants the things of the world,

that wants the things of sin that we struggle with,

that is the enemies,

that is Satan's biggest tool in your life

as a Jesus follower,

to keep you from following him.

The flesh is his ally, not ours.

We have to follow Jesus' example of living in the flesh

but not giving in to its desires.

And finally, the last one is the inner person

versus the outer flesh.

And you see that sin is drawing us back toward death

and God is drawing our spirit more toward him.

We have an inner person that wants to live for God

when we know that sin is drawing us back toward death.

We know Jesus is continually fighting

against this outer person that desires to sin.

And this is a struggle that we'll continually face

in our lives.

We still bear the responsibility

because now we have a choice.

We're no longer condemned,

but we must choose Christ, not the flesh.

We have to understand that there are always going to be

two natures within the Jesus follower.

And they're at war every single day,

possibly every single minute.

There is a reality that you're a new creation.

Paul talked about that when you come to Christ,

you're a new creation.

The old is gone, the new has come.

We're called to be a new creation.

We're called to be crucified with Christ.

But what does Paul say next?

He speaks, there's a verse in Galatians

where he talks about what he had been talking

to the Romans about.

The death of the law and being made alive to Christ.

And so Galatians 2, 19 to 21 says this.

For through the law, I died to the law

so that I might live to God.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh,

I live by faith in the son of God

who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not nullify the grace of God,

for if righteousness were through the law,

then Christ died for no purpose.

So how do we overcome this flesh?

We have to stop striving.

We believe correctly about who we are,

what God has called us to, and how God has saved us.

It's no longer us who lives, but Christ lives in us.

The life we live is now in him.

It's not about us being better.

I want you to hear that this morning.

It's not about becoming better.

It's about becoming like him.

Very different.

So I want you to think about this

as we continue to talk this morning.

I want you to have an answer to this question for yourself.

Where are you in your relationship to God?

Where are you this morning?

See, there's something, as we look at a passage like this,

we can think, well, I have to do better.

I have to be better.

There's a reality, there's a lie running around the church,

running around all over the place,

running around Christendom, really.

Because how many people in America claim to be Christians?

That number's less than it used to be, that's for sure.

But how many people in America claim to be Christians?

How many people would say, well, I believe in God?

There's a lot of people that would still say that.

But there's a reality of moralism versus the gospel.

So often we strive to do better, be better, do more, be nice.

I'm going to tell you this morning, that fails you.

And if you believe that, a definition that's come up with it

is moralistic therapeutic deism.

Moralistic, we want to be better.

Therapeutic, we want to feel better.

Deism, God's out there, but he only cares about us.

He only cares a little bit, and he's good with me.

I'm going to tell you this morning,

if you're trying to just be better,

you've missed the point of the gospel.

Because here's a definition.

This is what a lot of people believe.

That there is a God who exists,

he created and ordered the world,

and he watches over human life on earth.

God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other,

as taught in the Bible and by most other religions.

The central goal of life is to be happy

and to feel good about oneself.

God doesn't,

particularly need to be involved in one's life,

except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

Finally, good people go to heaven when they die.

Now, hearing this definition, you might go,

oh, well, that's false.

I don't believe that.

I don't believe that.

Take a look at your life.

What is the central goal of your life?

Is it to be happy?

Get what you want?

Retire with a ton of money

so that you can play with the last 20 years of your life?

Is it the American dream

with some religion sprinkled in,

or is it Jesus?

They're not the same thing.

See, our striving to live for God,

listening to the right music,

I'm going to cut down on my cussing

because I don't want to cuss as much.

I want to save sex for marriage,

I'm going to go to church at least a couple times a month

so I feel better about myself

and I get my God fix.

Nothing you do is going to save you.

You can sit in one of these chairs your entire life

and not know Jesus.

You can be religious your entire life.

You can read the Bible.

You could go to a growth community.

You can look very spiritual

and not know Jesus.

It's not about being a moral person.

It's about dying to yourself,

being crucified with Christ,

and I no longer live,

but Jesus lives in me.

D.A. Carson, a theologian,

wrote in his book, Love of God, says,

people do not drift toward holiness.

Apart from grace-driven effort,

which is from God,

people do not gravitate

toward holiness, prayer, obedience to Scripture,

faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise

and call it tolerance.

We drift toward disobedience

and we call it freedom.

We drift toward superstition

and we call it faith.

We cherish the indiscipline

of lost self-control

and call it relaxation.

We slouch toward prayerlessness

and delude ourselves

into thinking we have escaped legalism.

We sled toward godlessness

and convince ourselves

we have been liberated.

Definitely true of the world,

but I'm telling you, church,

it's also true of God.

It's true of some of us in the church

because we want God to be our cosmic genie

and not the Jesus that died on the cross

that we need so desperately.

And I have to say this.

I can't not.

But if you have not seen any growth in your life

for a long period of time,

if you haven't seen growth toward Jesus,

if you've been playing the game of religion,

if you've been living in sin and you don't care,

if you know what you should do and you don't care,

I have to tell you this morning,

you need to take stock of your life.

You might not know Jesus.

It's why I plead so much

so often come to the cross.

The time is getting short, my friends.

There is so much happening in the world.

There's so much things that are coming

and Jesus died on the cross

to save you from your sin

and you call on his name.

You fall to the feet of the cross.

You give your life to him

and let him change you from the inside out.

You don't play games in the church.

I plead with you this morning, come to Jesus.

Give him your life.

Come back to him if you know better.

Come back to him

because being moral is not the gospel.

Being good is not the gospel.

Being nice to your fellow neighbor

is not the gospel.

It's putting others before yourself.

It's letting Jesus live his life in and through you

in ways that you would never choose to do on your own

and giving him your life and surrender.

But here's the beauty of this gospel.

It's not about trying harder.

It's about you pursuing God himself.

It's not about you doing more.

It's about learning who he is

because as you learn who he is

and you put your face on him,

he starts living his life through you.

I can't tell you.

I can't tell you how many times in the counseling office

I know it's going to be a tough counseling session

and I pray and Jeannie and I go in together for a couple

and there's been so many times

where we're talking to somebody

and we walk out and we go,

I have no idea where those words came from.

It's the Holy Spirit.

I got no wisdom in me, my friends.

I got nothing in me.

Don't listen to me at all because you think I'm wise.

It better be about his word.

It's about him.

There's nothing good in me.

I am worse than the Apostle Paul.

The things I know I should do, I don't.

The things I don't do, the things I do, I'm an idiot.

For those of you who didn't hear, that was my wife.

And I agree with her.

But it's not about our striving.

It's about going after Jesus.

If we strive for anything, it's knowing him,

not doing better or being better.

We have to understand that our salvation

is through the blood of Christ.

Our acceptance is grace, not our actions.

Bad things don't happen because you've been bad

You're accepted because of Jesus.

When you sin, you run to God, not away.

You're going to struggle.

Run back to God.

He's a good friend.

He's a good father who will welcome you home

and help you and give you the strength

that you need to overcome.

We look to God's word for truth nowhere else.

You're no longer condemned for yourself from sin.

Know the truth so it can set you free.

We're looking for freedom everywhere.

It's the truth of God's word that sets free.

It doesn't condemn those that belong to Christ.

Finally, we accept the promises of God,

specifically the new covenant God has made with us

through Christ, who's made us dead to sin

and alive to Christ.

But here's the reality, my friends.

Some of us have been struggling with certain sins

for way too long, and the time

has come for you to attack the root of sin

and let God attack it.

Because here's the deal.

We can't just be dealing with outside symptoms.

Something deeper is wrong than your pornography,

your anger, your lying, your stealing,

your laziness, or whatever.

You've got to go for the core and get good grief.

We want sin to die.

We run for help.

Matt Chandler wrote in his book, Explicit Gospel,

he says,

While true obedience is a result of love for God,

moralistic legalism assumes it works the other way around,

that love results from obedience,

because we're trying to earn God's love.

From the standpoint of moralism,

to moralistic legalism,

root issues aren't of utter importance.

Appearing obedient is.

And isn't that true?

We walk in here wanting to look like good people.

The moralist is far more interested in external actions

while it gives sin quarters in his heart.

Moralistic therapeutic deism is fine with sin

hiding in a foxhole.

Hear this.

The gospel wants to nuke the whole.

As long as bad behavior is not visible or tangible,

the moralist will tolerate some sort of what Jerry Bridges calls

respectable sins.

A moralist is not on the hunt.

He's not aggressively seeking to destroy that which is evil,

but is content to simply wash his hands.

Some of us in this room are perfectly fine putting sin in a foxhole

and managing it.

Where are you this morning?

Are you just trying to be a moralist?

Or are you allowing the gospel to transform you?

It's time to nuke the whole.

To let God blow it up.

Our lust, our anger, our selfishness, our pride,

our greed, whatever it is.

Paul started all of this back in chapter 5

when he was talking about the first Adam and the second Adam.

And how all sin came into the world through Adam.

I talked about this with the high schoolers at camp this past week

and I believe it applies to the struggle this morning.

But also to God's heart for you in the midst of this struggle.

Because back in Genesis chapter 3,

the account is of the fall

and when Eve talks to the serpent

and the serpent says,

you're not really going to die.

And so she's like, wow, this tastes really good.

She lies about what God said.

And she starts to question the heart of God.

Does God even really love me?

He doesn't want me to eat all the fruit.

In fact, he's given her all the fruit

except for one.

But she's like, I want the one.

You don't love me anymore.

That's pretty much what happens, right?

She eats the fruit. They're ashamed for the first time.

They get clothes.

And what do they do for the first time from God?

They hide. Then when God comes to them,

gosh, when you really think about it,

we know what he says if we know the account.

But what do we think

God's first words would be?

What have you done?

You'd be so stupid.

I've given you everything.

How could you? Why would you do this?

You'd think that would be God's first response.

His first words, right?

But it isn't what God says.

Because in Genesis 3, verse 9, it says,

but the Lord God called to the man

and said to him, where are you?

I want you to go back to the question

that I asked you this morning.

Where are you in your relationship to God?

And now hear what's happening.

Because we could just move past this and go,

oh, God just asked, where are you?

But I thought about it.

I did a little bit of study.

And why would God ask, where are you?

He's omniscient. He knows exactly where they are.

He knows exactly what happened.

Why would he say, where are you?

There's a Hebrew word here that's only used

this one time in the Bible.

And the word is, Achaia.

God asks it of Adam. Where are you?

See, this question is more for Adam and more for us.

God knew what had been done.

He saw what had happened.

This wasn't a question about physical location.

It was a question about location.

Sorry, a question about relationship.

It was actually a word about loss.

There was a time, probably over 10 years ago,

Sidney was like 4 or 5.

Kylie was like 9 or 10.

And every time we travel,

which we actually leave to go see Jeannie's parents tomorrow.

We're going on vacation.

The same trip we do every summer.

But we always, at that time,

we always flew through Denver International Airport.

I mean, there's no way to get to Boise.

There's no way to get to Montana directly.

So we always are flying through Salt Lake, Denver.

We're making a connection.

And Adam,

as we made this connection,

we sat down.

We had like two or two hours.

And we sat down and had some snacks.

And Sidney had had her snack and had some trash.

And so there was a trash can right out in front of us.

And she went to throw the trash away.

Went to, you know, take it over there.

And I looked away for a second.

And I looked back.

And the next thing I know is she's gone.

I just start going, Sidney!

Where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you, Sidney?

And I all of a sudden,

I start going, Sidney!

I start losing it.

I can't find her.

It seemed like 15 minutes.

I couldn't find her.

Sidney, where are you?

Oh, my goodness!

Sidney, do you see a little girl?

Where are you?

And the next thing I see after doing all that,

I see this little body pop out about halfway down the terminal.

She's bawling.

By this time, I'm bawling.

She starts running to me.

And I run to her.

And I scoop her up.

She had gotten mixed up.

She took the wrong turn.

I mean, in the middle of my fear, I'm like, she's gone.

Somebody's kidnapped her.

She's halfway to Russia.

Here's the question to you.

What question was it?

What was I really saying?

Where are you?

I wasn't mad that she had made a wrong turn.

I was afraid I'd lost her.

That's akin to the question that God asks in Genesis.

Eve, where are you?

We had this close relationship.

I've taken a wrong turn.

Where are you?

God asks every single one of us.

The things you know you should be doing are not the things you're doing.

The things you do are the things you know you shouldn't be doing.

What a wretched people we are.

But what does Paul say next?

Thanks be to God.

Unfortunately, I don't get to preach the next verse.

But the next verse is pretty awesome.

Because that's next Sunday.

You've got to come back to read it.

I'm not going to tell you.

But what is saying to you today?

Akia longs to have a relationship with you.

And he's calling your name today.

It doesn't matter where you've been.

It doesn't matter what you've done.

Your father loves you.

He died for you.

He sent the son to die on the cross for your sins.

And if you don't know him today, you can call on his name right where you sit.

And he will forgive you of your sins and save you from all unrighteousness.

If you've been walking away from the Lord, he's saying, come home.

Where are you?

Come home.

Come home.

Get back.

Stop doing what you know you shouldn't be doing.

You don't have to do that anymore.

I will set you free.

I'll do it.

I'll do it.

Through you, Father.

Thank you for your love for us.

Thank you so much.

I try to think about it from your perspective.

There's times as a father where I look at my kids and I just go,

I wish I could make the decision for them.

Not that they're doing terrible things, but I know that some choices that we all make,

that I've made, have led me to pain.

And I don't want that pain for my daughters.

I can't imagine your heart.

I can't imagine your heart for us, God.

You know what lies around the corner in our lives.

You know what some of those choices will cause us to love us.

How once did you regret dying for us?

So God, I pray that we would hear your call of Achaia.

Where are you?

In the midst of us doing things that we know we shouldn't

and the things we want to do, we don't find ourselves doing them.

And we feel like we can feel wretched.

I pray that we bring it to the cross.

And we begin to remember you did there.

Say thanks be.

For anybody struggling this morning, I pray they would hear your voice

God, they would desire to follow you.

We just thank you for all you are.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Let's stand together.

Ask the Holy Spirit to fall in this place so that we can hear him above all the noise

and ask him to fall like rain.

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