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Romans 9-16

Applying Righteousness: Towards Others/Eternity

Josh Combs · Sunday, 16 November 2025 · Romans 13:11-14 · 38:39 · 5,397 words

Romans S30 · 13:11-14 Goodrich

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Sermon explores how love fulfills God’s law, showing that believers owe each other love and must love their neighbor as themselves, illustrated by the Good Samaritan. It calls listeners to put on Christ, make no provision for the flesh, and walk in the light of the gospel. The speaker invites those outside faith to confess Jesus as Lord and believe in his resurrection, and encourages believers to repent of fleshly indulgence and live as transformed people.

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.

neighbor 28 provision 15 samaritan 7 love 61 cast 9 clock 6 commandment 11 fulfill 10 lawyer 5 jericho 4 oh 17 owe 7

Topics

The Law 6 The Flesh 4 Love 3 Sin 2 Sanctification 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Salvation 1 The Gospel 1

Scripture referenced 37

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

Romans 13 3:20 Romans 12:1 3:51 Romans 12:13 4:34 Romans 12:9 6:56 Romans 12:9 7:45 Matthew 22 8:01 Matthew 22 8:16 Matthew 22:34 8:17 Romans 13 10:13 Romans 13 10:30 Romans 13:10 10:48 John 13 13:18 Romans 13 14:02 Romans 13 22:12 Romans 13:11 22:36 Romans 13 23:10 Romans 12 23:15 Romans 12:11 23:26 Romans 12:11 23:47 Romans 12:12 24:39 Ephesians 5:16 25:05 Ephesians 5 25:14 Ephesians 5:13 25:21 Romans 13 25:47 Romans 13:12 27:45 Romans 13:13 27:52 Romans 13:12 28:26 Romans 13:14 28:31 Galatians 5 28:39 Galatians 5 28:41 Galatians 5 28:51 Galatians 5 28:57 Galatians 5:19 29:01 Romans 13 30:09 Romans 13:14 31:46 Romans 13:14 32:53 Romans 13:11 35:12

Transcript

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

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:34. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

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Good morning, everybody. Nice to see you.

Before we jump into the scripture, I want to share with you a need that you can help to meet.

We've had an incredible year as a church, just honestly extraordinary.

Last week, across all locations, we had well over 5,000 people part of the church last week.

Last week here in Goodrich was over 1,000 people just here in person.

Just incredible.

One that I'm very excited about, it looks like we will have almost 300 baptisms just in 2025.

So, just really, really incredible things that are happening.

So, just excited about what's happening in the church, but there are some needs.

So, we want to share those with you.

So, this year, we're about 6% under our finance goals for the year.

So, that's about $175,000.

So, we're asking you to...

We're asking you to help step up to meet that need, to bridge that gap.

So, what we're doing is we're asking 1,000 people who are part of our church,

above and beyond your regular giving, to give $100.

So, the hope is to raise about $100,000 to help meet that need,

to help close out the year well and launch into 2026.

So, I want to ask you to do that.

You can go online and do that.

You'll see the 1,000 times 100 kind of visual.

So, you can give to that.

If you want to stop by guest services on the way out the door,

you can just take one of the giving envelopes.

You can mark it as the 1,000 times 100.

And we'll give you updates over the next few weeks as to where we are as a church.

And for you, maybe you have the gift of giving or some financial resources that you're like,

hey, I want to give above and beyond that.

We'd certainly welcome that and encourage you to do that, okay?

So, I just want to...

I want to share that quick update with you.

Let's go to God's Word together.

Let's open up to our Bibles, to the book of Romans.

Romans chapter number 13.

If you don't have a Bible, I want to encourage you to share with someone sitting next to you.

Or you can take out your phone.

You can download a Bible app or the River Church app.

There's a Bible feature on there.

But I want to encourage you to be following along with the Bible.

If you're a guest, I certainly want to welcome you.

I'm glad you're here.

I was able to meet a few people.

A few of you today already.

So, thank you for being here.

Honored to meet you.

If you're watching online, I want to welcome you as well.

Romans chapter 13, beginning in verse number 8.

Paul says,

Now, this section of the letter in Romans is about the transformed mind.

The Christian mind, the Christian heart.

The Bible says,

It says there, back in Romans chapter 12, verse 1,

That we are to present our bodies, our lives, everything that we are, as a living sacrifice to God.

That's holy and acceptable to Him.

And we're not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, the ways of this world, the thought process, the thinking of this world.

But we're to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's the will of God.

That's God's plan for each of our lives.

Well, what does it mean to be transformed?

What does it mean to be changed?

What does it mean to live differently?

What does that living sacrifice look like on a day-to-day basis?

So, in Romans chapter 12, 13, and into 14, Paul is going to give the specifics of what that means, of what that looks like.

So, in verse number 8, the section we're going to look at today, he starts by saying,

The Bible isn't saying it's wrong, at least in my opinion.

The Bible is not saying it's wrong.

It's not saying it's wrong to have a mortgage or to have a car payment.

That's not what the Bible is saying.

What it is saying is, in our relationships, if we've borrowed something or some money from someone, we need to return that.

We need to pay them back.

We don't need to hold that back from them, especially if we have the ability to meet that need, holding it back as some sort of leverage or some sort of power over them.

So, we owe no one anything except to love each other for the one who loves another.

That is fulfilled the law.

This is the idea in the church.

This is the living sacrifice.

The transformed heart and mind is someone who loves each other.

That's what we owe to each other.

We see ourselves as debtors to one another.

Now, this is interesting when we think about this in the original context.

So, the first people who would have received this letter, the Christians in the city of Rome, you had a church that was made up of Jewish Christians.

And Gentile Christians.

Meaning, Christians who grew up in a Jewish background, understanding a lot of the Old Testament stories and the law and the traditions there of Judaism.

And then you had the Gentiles who did not grow up knowing any of those things.

Who grew up very differently.

Who grew up really exposed to a lot of the pagan idolatry and idol worship in the Gentile Roman world.

Now, they have come together in Christ.

And there's some conflict.

There's some disagreements.

There's some distrust.

They don't always get along.

The Bible says here, to that church, owe no one anything except what you owe to each other.

It's really what's implied.

Is to love each other.

For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

The Old Testament law that God gave to Moses.

Look at verse 9.

For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery.

You shall not murder.

You shall not steal.

You shall not covet.

And any other commandment are summed up in this word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

So those things would be wrong to do to a neighbor.

To steal from a neighbor.

To covet from a neighbor.

To murder a neighbor.

To commit adultery.

Those would wrong a neighbor.

That's why God gave them in the law.

Well, how do we fulfill the law?

How is the law fulfilled in Christ?

How is the law fulfilled?

How is the law fulfilled in us?

Well, it's fulfilled in us by love.

That's why I love that phrase that's there in the scripture.

Any other commandment.

All the commandments summed up in this word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Well, that's a quote from Jesus.

I want you to hold your spot in Romans.

Go to the left to the gospel of Matthew.

Matthew chapter 22.

Again, if you don't have a Bible, take out your phone.

Follow along in a Bible app.

See the Bible for yourself.

Matthew chapter 22.

We'll start in verse 34.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees.

The Pharisees and Sadducees are two groups of religious leaders.

And they often competed against each other.

They did not like each other at all.

So the Pharisees heard that Jesus had shut down the Sadducees.

So they thought they would take their shot at Jesus.

They thought they would take their chance at making Jesus look bad.

They gathered together.

And one of them, a lawyer.

Asked him a question to test him.

So an expert in the Mosaic law.

The law of God given to Moses.

Wants to ask Jesus a question.

So he says,

Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

And he, Jesus said to him,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.

And with all your soul.

And with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

That's a quote from the Old Testament.

Now Jesus goes beyond that and says,

And the second is like it.

So the first commandment, the great commandment.

Now here the second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

That's also a quote from the Old Testament.

Jesus says,

On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

Everything in the Old Testament.

All that the prophets said.

All that the law teaches.

Hang on these two things.

Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

And loving your neighbor as yourself.

Meaning if you love God.

With all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

You won't have idols.

We see those in the Ten Commandments.

If you love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul is saying in Romans 13.

You're not going to murder.

You're not going to steal.

You're not going to bear false witness.

You're not going to commit adultery.

Because you love your neighbor.

That's what Jesus says.

All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.

Now let's go back to Romans 13.

So we owe each other love.

And when we are loving one another.

We're fulfilling the law.

We're not doing the things.

The things that the law condemns.

Love verse 10 does no wrong to a neighbor.

Therefore love is fulfilling the law of God.

Here's the question.

What is love?

We can define it in all kinds of different ways.

Sometimes it is this overwhelming feeling.

We might define it as that.

Or this fleeting feeling.

I love that person.

Or I don't love that person.

People fall in and out of love.

My wife and I over the last couple weeks.

We've been cleaning out things at our house.

And we've been finding some different keepsakes.

Some things that I wonder why did we keep that.

And some other things that I find that I'm like man I'm happy that I've kept those.

My wife stumbled upon this little journal that I had from like middle school into like early high school.

And there were a bunch of like you know Bible study notes.

And some different note you know journal entries from a retreat that I had gone on.

And she said oh Joshua you're going to want to see this.

And she looked in there.

And there was the day that I had found out that my grandpa came to know the Lord.

And I had written the date in there.

So it was just kind of this cool memory.

She's like you're going to want to see this.

So I found it.

So I'm flipping through it.

And I'm like oh it just touched my soul that you know idiot me 35 years ago had written that down.

You know you're like way to go.

Way to have half a brain cell at that moment you know.

And so I wrote it down.

And then I kept flipping.

And I found this poem that I wrote to this girl.

And my oh my my blood pressure went through the roof.

I realized I had no history or I had no future in poetry whatsoever.

It was so cheesy so corny.

I read it to my wife.

Embraced that embarrassment.

Got it out of the house.

So that my children will never see it.

Love can be this thing that we throw out very easily.

Oh I just fell in love.

Well the Bible here is talking about a different kind of love.

It's the Greek word agape.

One writer said the love of which Paul speaks is a choice to behave in a certain way.

It is this of God.

Of the will.

Not purely an act of emotion.

Jesus speaks of this kind of love and the command to love.

In John 13 he says a new command I give to you.

That you love one another.

Then Jesus says I want you to love one another just as I have loved you.

You also are to love one another.

And it is by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

So Jesus love for us was a act of the will or to take that one author.

It was a choice to behave in a certain way.

Jesus loves us.

Romans tells us while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

And that was God demonstrating his love for you and for me.

So looking at Romans chapter 13 the call is that we owe love to each other.

And it is a type of love that is not this fleeting feelings based emotion.

It is a act of the will.

It is a choice to behave.

To behave in love to each other.

Now the question is who are we supposed to love?

The Bible here quoting the Old Testament and quoting Jesus says you shall love your neighbor.

And not just love your neighbor but love your neighbor in the same way that you love yourself.

Hold your spot in Romans and go to the left to the gospel of Luke.

Luke chapter number 10.

Luke chapter number 10.

Just a little bit to the left.

Verse number 25.

Another lawyer comes to Jesus with the intention of.

Protesting Jesus.

And he says to Jesus how do I inherit eternal life?

How do I get to heaven?

And Jesus points him to the Bible.

Points him to the Old Testament.

What does the law say?

And this lawyer who was an expert on the law says you shall love.

The Lord your God with all your heart.

With all your soul.

With all your strength.

With all your mind.

Your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him.

Jesus said you have answered correctly.

Do this and you will live.

That wasn't good enough.

He desiring to justify himself.

So that answer wasn't good enough for the lawyer.

He says to Jesus.

And who is my neighbor?

Who qualifies under this term of neighbor?

Now growing up I had neighbors on either side of me.

And then people that might have lived in my neighborhood.

When I moved to Hadley.

It's a little more space.

You have neighbors but they aren't like really next door.

And then you meet people and they're like oh you live in Hadley.

I live in Hadley.

We're neighbors.

I'm like oh where do you live?

And they live.

Ten miles away from me.

And I'm like okay.

So the way we're defining neighbor is different for everyone.

Jesus is going to define for us.

For you and I as his students.

Who is our neighbor?

Jesus replied a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

And he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed.

Leaving him half dead.

Jesus such a great storyteller.

Just so.

Was going down that road.

This was a familiar road.

This is a fictional story.

But it's a story that people would understand.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was well traveled.

And it was very much traveled by priests and Levites.

Because a lot of those priests and Levites lived in the city of Jericho.

And would travel to Jerusalem when it was their time to serve in the temple.

Then when their time of serving was over.

They would travel back home to Jericho.

So Jesus said a man was traveling that road.

And he was robbed.

He was beaten.

He was stripped.

And left half dead.

The thieves just took everything from him.

A priest was going down that road.

And when he saw him.

He passed by on the other side.

So likewise a Levite.

When he came to the place and saw him.

Passed by on the other side.

The two most religious people in all of the community.

A priest who worked in the temple.

And a Levite.

Who worked in the temple.

Was responsible for helping people worship God.

They saw a man who was beaten.

And they moved to the other side of the road.

And kept walking.

But a Samaritan.

Keep in mind Jews hated Samaritans.

Samaritans had in their minds.

Betrayed the religion.

Betrayed the nation.

There was massive racial tension between Jews and Samaritans.

So Jesus picks the one.

Group of people that his listeners would have almost automatically hated the most.

But a Samaritan.

You can just see the.

Look on his listeners faces.

But a Samaritan as he journeyed.

Came to where he was.

And when he saw him.

He had compassion.

He went to him and bound up his wounds.

Pouring on oil and wine.

Then he set him on his own animal.

And brought him to an inn.

And took care of him.

The next day he took out two.

Denarii and gave them to the innkeeper.

Saying take care of him.

And whatever more you spend.

I will repay when I come back.

Extraordinary story.

Jesus now says to his listeners.

Which of these three.

Do you think proved to be a neighbor.

To the man who fell among the robbers.

Which one of these three was neighborly.

The lawyer responded.

The one who showed him mercy.

He couldn't even bring himself to say the word Samaritan.

It's almost as if he's like.

Yeah number three.

Okay.

Yeah.

He said the one who showed him mercy.

And Jesus said to him.

You go and do likewise.

This is what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.

It is a love that seethes a problem.

And moves towards the problem.

Sometimes we see hurting people.

And we conveniently move the other direction.

Oh that's a lot of drama over there.

What could I possibly do.

And we move to the other side of the road.

We might see a student at school.

Or a co-worker at the shop.

We might see someone at the store.

Or someone on our street.

And there clearly is a problem.

We discern man they seem to really be struggling.

The loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Is to move in the direction of distress.

That love is a choice.

I love the way that author writes it.

It's a choice to behave in a certain or different way.

It's a choice that causes upheaval for our schedule.

I mean there's so many details here.

I wish I could just pause.

And preach this passage.

But he cared for him.

And then he set him on his own animal.

He was riding.

Now he's walking.

The stranger is riding.

It cost him a whole day.

The next day he took out his own money.

So this is a love that costs.

This is a love that prompts us to generosity.

This is a love that prompts us to care.

And to sacrifice.

And Jesus says.

That's what I mean by saying.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Go back to Romans 13.

Paul would say that's the love that we owe to each other.

That's what a transformed mind and heart looks like.

Paul says besides this.

You know the time.

That the hour has come.

For you to wake from sleep.

For salvation is nearer to us now.

Than when we first believe.

I love the way the NLT says this.

It says this is all the more urgent.

The urgency to leave.

To live a life that is transformed.

The urgency to submit to government.

As we saw earlier in Romans 13.

The urgency to walk out.

What we see in Romans chapter 12.

The urgency to live a life.

That is a living sacrifice to God.

The urgency is all the more urgent.

For you know how late it is.

Time is running out.

There's this sense that Jesus is returning.

And if we aren't alive when Jesus returns.

Our arrival to Jesus in death.

Is closer today than it was yesterday.

Besides this you know the time.

That the hour has come.

For you to wake up from sleep.

For salvation is nearer to us now.

Than when we first believed.

There are some folks in here today.

Maybe watching online.

That are in spiritual slumber.

You might know the Lord.

But you've just decided spiritually.

I'm going to take a long nap.

It means your time with the Lord.

Has become significantly less important.

Serving has become not a part of your life.

And you're kind of on spiritual cruise control.

And there is meant to be this stirring in our hearts.

The Bible says here.

The night is far gone.

Meaning time for sleeping is over.

The day is at hand.

The sun is about to rise.

So then because of that.

Let us cast off the works of dark.

And put on the armor of light.

This is a spiritual alarm clock going off.

It's an awareness of the time.

Ephesians 5.16 says.

Making the best use of time.

Because the days are evil.

And right before that.

In Ephesians chapter 5.

Paul has used this same imagery.

Of night and day of sleeping.

Here's what he does.

Verse 13 he says.

When anything is exposed to the light.

It becomes visible.

For anything that becomes visible.

Therefore it says.

And he quotes the old testament.

Awake oh sleeper.

And arise from the dead.

And Christ will shine on you.

Look carefully then how you walk.

Not as unwise.

But as wise.

Making the best use of time.

So Paul is saying in Romans chapter 13.

That a believer sees the clock.

And he knows that the time.

Is rapidly ticking by.

My 14 year old daughter Ruby.

Is.

Playing basketball this season.

And as you can imagine.

I am very quiet in the stands.

Very calm.

Very Christ like at all moments.

A lot of sarcasm there.

Because I am mostly an idiot.

And I've had to repent to my daughter.

And my wife.

And random strangers.

For being an idiot.

But I am very passionate about it.

And I remember the other day.

Getting her attention in the game.

And I'm like look at the clock.

See the clock.

What's the score.

How much time is.

There.

When you're young.

You think there's tons of time.

Like there's all kinds of time on the clock.

When you reach a certain age.

Oh there's a lot less time on the clock.

Than I thought.

You're young.

You're not guaranteed tomorrow.

You're not guaranteed the rest of today.

That's why the Bible says there.

Make the best use of time.

The days are evil.

They are ticking by.

Over and over the Bible again will say.

Your life is just a vapor.

It's here.

And it's gone the next.

So that ought to create.

An urgency in the heart.

Of the believer to do this.

Cast off the works of darkness.

And put on the armor of light.

Well what does that mean.

Walk meaning not the way we move our legs.

But the way we live our life.

Let us walk properly.

As in the daytime.

Not in orgies and drunkenness.

Not in sexual immorality and sensuality.

Not in quarreling.

And in jealousy.

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And make no provision for the flesh.

To gratify its desires.

This is what it means to cast off.

So what do you see here.

In verse 12.

You see cast off.

So there's taking off some things.

And then in verse 14.

There's putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hold your spot in Romans.

And go to the right.

To the book of Galatians.

Galatians 5 real quick.

Galatians chapter 5.

Verse number 18.

19.

Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians chapter 5.

Bible says now the works of the flesh are evident.

This is our fallen nature.

Every single person in here has a fallen nature.

A sinful nature.

That we either surrender to.

Or we fight to the death.

There's really no distinction there.

Now the works of the flesh are evident.

Sexual morality.

And things like these.

I warn you.

As I warned you before.

That those who do such things.

Will not inherit the kingdom of God.

This is not saying Christians never sin.

What this is saying.

Is if that's who you are.

You're not a Christian.

You're not on your way to heaven.

If that's how your life is characterized.

You don't belong to the Lord Jesus.

You've not been awakened from spiritual sleep or death.

Now let's go back to Romans chapter 13.

So we take.

Off those works.

We repent of those works.

We cast them off.

We get rid of them.

They're gone.

They're over.

And we put on the armor of light.

That means we live properly.

One author said.

If Christians were to live as citizens of the eternal age.

Their walk would have to be proper or consistent.

And that would mean.

No more involvement in much of the contemporary Roman life.

So the first people hearing this letter.

For the first time would go.

You mean I can't be involved in that.

That's just what my people do.

The author continues.

The excesses of drunkenness.

Sexual immorality.

That's what you have to cast off.

So if you're a man.

And you're like.

They go get drunk.

You don't.

Sexual immorality.

All those are just normal things.

I'm just human.

That's not how a Christian acts.

We cast those things aside.

And we put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

So what does it mean.

What does it mean to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

It means to spend time in the scripture.

Learning about Jesus.

Spending time with Jesus.

Talking to Jesus.

And asking for Jesus' strength and power.

To cast off those things.

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And make no provision.

Zero provision for the flesh.

To gratify its desires.

I'm going to read Galatians again to you.

No provision for sexual immorality.

No provision for impurity or sensuality.

No provision for idolatry.

No provision for fits of anger.

No provision for those things.

Meaning there's not a provision with our time.

Not a provision with our money.

But this is where it gets really serious.

No provision in our desires.

Proverbs talks about coveting what evil doers.

What the wicked get to do.

So it means a Christian is not looking at the world going,

Oh man, that looks like fun.

Oh man, when I wasn't a Christian, that was fun back in the day.

And we let our minds go.

And we let our minds do exactly what Romans chapter 13 verse 14 says.

We allow ourselves to make provision.

We open the door to it.

It's the husband or the wife looking and going,

Oh my co-worker.

Oh man, they had a rough marriage.

And you know, they're having an affair.

They seem to be happy again.

I wonder if that would be me.

And we just kind of look like,

Oh man, that, that it's, it's like shopping.

We can convince ourselves.

So I didn't go in the store, but we did a lot of window shopping.

The Bible say, don't even go to that mall.

Make zero provision for the flesh because the flesh is not going to be satisfied until you desire,

gratify its desires.

That's why Jesus says to us, if you're going to come after me,

let a person deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

That might feel Jesus.

Like you're losing your life, but you're actually finding it.

I don't know who to give credit to, but I've heard it many times over the years.

We only have several, a couple options with sin.

Sin is either going to be killing you or you're going to be killing it.

That's it.

It's either going to be destroying you or you're going to be going to war against it.

And that is true for every single person here.

And that battle does not end until we meet Jesus face to face.

It's not like you can be a Christian for 10 years.

And then we print a golden certificate for you.

And we say, congratulations, your war with sin is over.

If that were the case, I would love that certificate, but it's not.

So we go to war.

We go to war against the flesh and it starts when we're young

and it doesn't stop until we see Jesus face to face.

But it is a good fight.

Paul talks about fighting the good fight and that's the good fight.

And we're motivated to do so knowing verse 11,

that salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed it's near.

So we come into the light.

We abandon the darkness.

We put on the Lord Jesus Christ and we cast off the works of darkness, of wickedness.

This is what it means day in and day out to be a transformed person,

transformed by the gospel.

And here's the question that every person in here has to answer for themselves.

Have you been transformed?

I want to ask you across the room just to bow your heads, to close your eyes.

This is why Jesus came.

The Bible says Jesus came and he died on the cross to pay the price.

He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin.

Jesus was buried and Jesus rose from the dead.

And it is only through Jesus that you and I are offered the forgiveness of our sin.

It's only through Jesus that we can be pardoned from our sin.

It's only through Jesus that we can be made right before God.

You can't earn that.

You can't achieve that.

You cannot be good enough.

It's only through what Jesus has done.

That's why we call it the gospel, good news.

Well, the way to receive the good news,

is to confess with our mouth, Jesus is Lord.

And believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.

That's the way to be saved.

Saved from the eternal consequences of our sin.

Maybe you walked in the door today heavy with a burden of sin.

Your heart, your mind, your longing for peace.

Jesus says to you, come to me, all you who are heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

That's the words of Christ.

Right now you can receive the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of eternal life.

You can call.

You can call on the name of the Lord and be saved.

Maybe you're here and you're a Christian.

You just need to wake up.

Maybe you're phoning it in.

Maybe it's on cruise control.

And it's time that you wake up.

Maybe right now in your heart you need to ask the Lord to stir that in you.

Maybe the scripture is convicting you because you're making provision for the flesh.

You're giving a place to the flesh, a place to the devil in your life.

It'll be okay.

It's small.

I can contain it.

The Bible says make no provision for the flesh.

And maybe that's you.

You just need to repent to the Lord right now.

Of ways that you have been indulging in the flesh.

Letting the flesh lead you, guide you, direct you.

And you just need to be honest with God.

He already knows.