Overcoming Sin

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word, providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. My name is Seth, and I'm part of the Salt Church family. I love being part of this family. And today, Leon has asked me to be able to share a message.

And today, we're gonna be talking about kind of a word you don't hear too often today in society. It's three letters, sin. And it's to be calling overcoming sin. And but really, this message is more than just about overcoming sin. It's really about God's love.

And without the love of Jesus, there's no way that we can overcome sin. And His ultimate sacrifice, Jesus' ultimate sacrifice is how we overcome sin. And when I was thinking about this message, I was actually thinking about how God, in His love, how He pursues us. Almost like when I was really smitten with my wife, Lisa Marie. I, the first time I ever saw her, I thought she was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

And when I was kind of going after her, I called it full pursuit mode. And I was doing, you know, all these things to try to get her attention, to try to, you know, to win her over. And I was thinking about how that is the way God is with us. You know, He's in full pursuit mode. You know, He, you know, He cares about, He looks at you and He cares about your interests.

He cares about your feelings. You know, He cares about your heart. He's pursuing the things that are most important to you. And so, that is the context of which I'm sharing this message, overcoming sin. And it's in the context of God's love and His pursuit for you.

So, to begin, I just want to say a little prayer. Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, Lord, I just thank You so much. I just thank You so much, Lord, for what You're going to do this morning. I just ask God, right now, that through the power of Your Holy Spirit, You would touch everyone in here right now. Lord, that they would feel Your love.

That they would feel Your presence, God. That they would know that You're here right now, Lord. It was only through You, God, Lord, that we can truly be delivered, truly be set free, Lord. And truly moved onto the path of righteousness, which we all desire. So, Lord, help us today.

Help us to learn. Help us to listen, Lord. Help me, God, that I only speak things of You. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

So, the word sin, you know, isn't exactly used as much today in modern day language. I mean, how often do you go into work, and some guy come up to you at the water cooler and say, Hey, man, I'm really struggling with some sin. You know, you don't, that's not something you normally hear. You're at school, and somebody, it doesn't, you know, listen to the teacher, and, you know, your friend comes up to your lunch, like, yeah, man, I was kind of sinning. I wasn't really listening to the teacher when they were talking about that.

And you just don't hear that very often. That word sin is not something that's really used as much. It's almost considered a little bit impolite, you know, to bring it up in society, you know, sin. And, you know, you might hear that word, and you could feel a little off-put. You know, that's, oh, man, that's kind of old school.

You know, that's old-fashioned. And that's only something, a word that religious extremists use. Or, you know, that's something that, you know, we don't, you know, you haven't really assimilated into a modern-day culture if you're going to use that word sin. But that word sin is used over 750 times in the Bible. A lot.

And so there's something about sin that God wants us to know about as he's sharing it in his word. And the word sin, let me give you the definition. Not everyone might know what the actual definition of sin is. We kind of, you know, you might say I know it when I see it. But when you look at the word sin in the New Testament in the Greek, what the word actually means is to miss the mark.

And that phrase, miss the mark, was actually used for when someone was doing archery. And this, you know, in the Greek times, archery was a big deal. I mean, one of the ways they would fight is, you know, through bow and arrows. And so they had a context to think about this. And when you do archery, you think about a target set up.

It's got all the rings. And when you miss the target completely, you're said to have missed the mark. And so they had something to really see that, hey, when they're saying this word sin, they're saying, hey, we missed the mark of something. There is a standard to go by, and we've missed it. And so that's actually how they would understand it when they're hearing this word sin.

And so the question is, and the question that has plagued mankind since we've been alive is, who defines that standard? Who defines the standard of right and wrong when I say, because this is ultimately what the target is. If you're inside this target, you're good. But when you come outside of this target, you've missed the mark and you're in the wrong. So how do we define that?

How do we know what that is? You know, when you go around today, they might see, well, the world will define that. The media will define that. The majority of people together will define that. The culture.

Or I define that. I define that. Or does God define that? So when you think about it that way, there's 7.7 billion people on the planet right now, approximately.

So right now, if I define sin or the standard, then there's 7.7 billion standards walking around right now of what's right and wrong. You know, how do you start to really grasp that? How do you really move forward when that's going on? And so, but as Christians, we have something different.

We have what is called the truth. If you are a follower of Jesus, you know the standard. It's called the truth. And one of the most profound questions found in the Bible was from Pontius Pilate. And this was the Roman governor of Jerusalem who was questioning Jesus.

And he's asking Jesus, and this is in John 18, verses 37 and 38. Jesus says to Pilate, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. And then Pontius Pilate then responds to Jesus, what is truth? See, Pilate was searching.

This was a Roman governor. He had all the power, the prestige, all the money. But yet he was in front of Jesus, and something about Jesus sparked something in him. And he was like, what is truth? And that's what Jesus can do.

An encounter with Jesus will make you actually start to think about things that you haven't before. It starts to open up your perspective a little bit. And today, in the culture, we'll hear this phrase, speak your truth. Or, you know, I'm so glad you found something that works for you. That's your truth.

I'm glad that works for you. That doesn't really work for me. So everybody kind of has their own truth. And the problem that happens when, you know, when everyone's going around, you know, with And 들고 to forge up between tomorrow and Israel and Israel. I just want to make you make.

You're going around and he's going around 25 years to take three years. Problem. And, you know, I'm so glad that something works for you. But when we look at what, as Christians, we have this other standard, and that comes out of John 14, 6, and it says, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.

And so, Jesus says, I am the truth. The truth is found in the person, the Son of God. And so, as Christians, we have something to look to. It's not just, our truth, that works for you. It is the truth.

This is the ultimate truth. And so, the world has an ultimate standard of truth, and it also has the Holy Bible, which is the very words of God. And this is what I like to call, it is the truth telling us about the truth. Or, this is the truth speaking to us about the truth. That's what the Bible is.

It's explaining to us about Jesus. And every word of it is perfect. And the problem is, when we're using the words of God, outside of a relationship with God, not in the love of God, not every word is perfect. Let me say that again. The problem is, that when we're using the words of God, outside of a relationship with God, outside of the love of God, those words can become a little bit corrupted.

And here's how this happens. You know, you could be, you know, when you see someone who is using the words of God to control somebody, or to manipulate somebody, to get them to do what you want them to do, or just to try to prove a point, you're using the words of God. It's pride. It's pride. And this is, and you see this happening, even in the scriptures, with Satan himself using the words of God to try to trap Jesus.

When Satan was coming after Jesus in the desert and tempting him, he used the very words of God. He uses Psalm 91. And Jesus is up there, and he brings Jesus up to the top of a building. He's actually on the top of the temple. And Satan says to Jesus, you know, if you truly are the son of God, throw yourselves off this building, and your angels will pick you up.

And he quotes Psalm 97, or Psalm 91, where it says, He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up, so that you will not strike your foot on a stone. So he used the scripture to Jesus, but then Jesus countered him back, and says, you know, you shall not put thy Lord, thy God, to the test. So, you see, he was using the words of God, but he was using the wrong application. And so that's what can happen when we use these words of God with an agenda. This is what happens when we can use these words of God being legalistic about things.

It is no longer the words of God, and now it's your words. And so, this is something that we have to be paying attention to. And here's another thing that happens with the word of God. The truth found in God's word needs to be kept in tension. Let me explain this, what it means to keep God's word in tension.

You know, one scripture in Ephesians talks about speaking the truth in love. And then we have another scripture in James where it says, be quick to listen and slow to speak. So we have one saying, quick to listen, slow to speak. Another saying, speak the truth in love. Well, these scriptures hold each other in tension.

They both are true, but they hold each other together. So these are things when we're reading scriptures, they're not contradictory. They work together. And this is the synergy that we find in God's word. And I love this word synergy.

I was so happy I got to use it. And it just sounds cool, right? Let me actually give you the definition of synergy. And this is, it is the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances or agents, to produce a combined effect greater than all the sum of their separate effects. See, all these verses come together in perfect synergy to produce a result greater than all of them separately.

Each book, each chapter, each verse comes together and creates like this explosion of God's love that is so much more impactful. And one of the most amazing things of God's word to me is that it was written by about 40 different authors throughout many different years and generations and many different places throughout the world to many different audiences, yet all the words were inspired by God. Yet all the words work together, all the words without contradictions and completely applicable today. Today, it's so relevant. Sometimes you're reading the word of God and you're like, man, that could have been written five minutes ago.

You know, just for me, that's how relevant it is. And that's one of the amazing thing about the synergy of the word of God. It works so well. Now, here's one thing that can happen that can sort of break that synergy. You know, sometimes you can read a verse or a section of Scripture and you can read it out of context.

And that means that you don't have an understanding of what the rest of that chapter or the rest of that book is actually talking about in the Bible because these are actually supposed to weren't written actually in verse form. They're actually kind of written all together, like a letter would be written all together or there would be a prophecy written all together. And it would be throughout numerous chapters. And so these things are actually, you're kind of getting in, when you kind of grab a verse that is just one verse, you're kind of getting in the middle of a huge conversation. You know, sort of like the example I think about is when you're having a conversation with somebody and someone comes up.

They may not be interrupting. They just come up because you're a friend and they start listening in. And then they start saying something about your conversation, but it's not at all what you're talking about. And you're kind of annoyed by it, like this person has no idea what we're talking about. It's because they just came in in the middle of a conversation and they have no idea.

Or like they just came in in the middle of this thread and they didn't read everything else because that makes no sense. You know, and that's what happens sometimes when you get a verse pop up on your YouVersion verse of the day and you're just reading that or you're reading a devotional with one verse and you're not seeing what the context is. You're getting in the middle of conversation and you're not, so it's hard for you to know really what's going on. And you can sometimes take things the wrong way. So here's what can happen, you know, too, is, you know, we have that thing where we get one verse, but then here's something that can happen, too, where you, people will actually want to prove something through the Bible.

So they'll start cherry picking verses to try to prove their point. See, when you come to God's word with an agenda, like you're trying to justify yourself, you're trying to excuse yourself, and you're reading it on that term, you're going to try to read those scriptures to benefit you rather than coming to the scriptures to actually inform you, coming with a humble heart, being like, I want this to inform me rather than me using this to skew it to work with what I want. See, what happens is you can read the word and not get anything out of it because you're reading it with that sort of mentality. Or on the worst case scenario, you can start reading it and actually lead other people astray because you can take your interpretation and start sharing it with others and leading other people astray, and now you're getting into the danger zone because God is not like that too much. You know, he actually puts, you know, sort of a higher, you know, sort of, he just wants people that are leading others in Christ to be above reproach, so you sort of have this higher calling.

And it's important to just really know that you're actually getting things right. And so Jesus actually rebuked the Jewish religious leaders of the time about this. I mean, right to their face. In John 5, 39 through 40, it says that Jesus says to the Pharisees, he says, you study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that.

Testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me and have life. So these Pharisees, like, they memorized the Scriptures. They knew the whole Old Testament. They were looking right at it. But yet, all these Scriptures were speaking about a Messiah, a Savior, who was standing right in front of them, and they couldn't even see it because of their pride.

They couldn't even see it. They couldn't see the forest through the trees. And so, this is what happens when we come to reading the Bible with an agenda. You start to miss things. You start to realize that these Scriptures are supposed to lead you to the truth.

The truth is a person. It's Jesus. You have an actual encounter with Him. Of course, sometimes you might think there are Scriptures in the Bible that are just too hard to follow. I mean, sometimes they can really be like, man, that one's tough.

And that doesn't really fit in with my lifestyle. That doesn't really fit in, you know, with the way my life is going, the way my friends are, you know, the music I listen to, the movies I watch. That doesn't really fit in with that, with the people at school, with what everyone else is doing. This Scripture doesn't really fit in with that. So, you know, I'll keep following Jesus, but I just, I can't really follow that one.

And then what happens is, you open up your Bible, and you just start ripping pages out. And this one was already torn out, so. I didn't rip a page out of my Bible. And you start ripping pages of your Bible out, and soon, you don't have, you know, the Holy Bible. You have Seth's Bible.

It's not the Holy Bible anymore. It just becomes the Bible according to you, which is just another standard of truth. And here's something that can maybe get to be even more deceivingly worse than that, is that you can believe that this is a standard of truth that we're supposed to go by, yet you haven't even read it. So, you're like, hey, you know, I'm a Christian. This is my standard of morality.

This is what I go by, but I don't even know what it says. I haven't even read the whole thing, so I don't even know what I'm doing. So, basically, you just become a product of your environment, you know, because you haven't even read it yet. And so, it actually talks about this in the Scriptures in Acts 1711. It says, Can you imagine if we had this eagerness to examine the Scriptures to see if what it said was true?

You know, that when, you know, someone comes up to preach here at Salt Church, or you hear a message, you're like, man, let me go and check that. Let me go and dig in deeper into that and examine. That's said to be a good character trait, that you would actually start to do that. And, you know, and you start to get excited about the Word of God and knowing what the truth is so I can actually start to live and follow it. And one thing I was thinking about as I was doing this, and I work as a criminal defense attorney.

And one of the things I hear quite frequently with my clients is when they get in trouble and they come to me and they're either in jail or they're sitting in my office, and they say, but I didn't know that was the law. You know, I didn't know that was the law when I do it. Like, that law is really hard to follow. And I have to explain to them this legal concept. It's actually Latin, but I won't use the Latin.

But ignorance of the law excuses no one. I have to explain to them that concept because that is the way it works with the law. And God's law actually works sort of the same way. He has a standard that He has revealed to us, the mark. And He's completely revealed it to us.

Yet, if we don't read it and we don't walk it out, it's on us. And I can hear just the pain in God's heart in Hosea 4, 6 in this verse. It says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Can you hear the pain in His heart? He loves His people, and they're destroyed for lack of knowledge.

You see, God is a good Father. He loves you so much. Like, when you start to see Him as a good Father, you'll start to understand things a lot more. And if you are a good dad, and you are trying to help your kids growing up, and they come into the kitchen, and they don't know that those burners are hot. You know, they're just starting to walk around.

They don't know. I mean, they don't even, some of these burners don't even have the red on them. You can't even see they're hot at all. Like, they're just a flat surface. And if you don't teach them that this is hot, and then they could go and burn themselves.

And that's what happens with God's Word. Inside of this contained are all the burners that God wants us to miss out on, because He loves us so much that in His Word He would reveal to us where the pitfalls are. And He does that for us good. He doesn't do that because He wants to be restrictive and have all these rules to follow so that your life cannot be good and you can't have as much fun. No, He sees the future.

He knows your whole life. He can see all the angles. He can see all your blind spots. So He knows the things that will be destructive of your life, that will bring pain and brokenheartedness. And He doesn't want that to happen to you.

So He sets out all the burners as a good dad and said, Don't touch this. And it's only because I love you that I say that. And when you do touch it, I'm going to keep loving you. But I'm going to keep letting you know, please don't touch it again. And, you know, we see this here in Galatians 5.

You like, it talks about sort of like, and this is sometimes hard to hear, but He talks about sort of like, these are examples of the burners. Of the sins. And I'm going to read out of the message version. This isn't in your notes right now. I'm just going to read it to you.

This is from Galatians 5. And this is God talking about some of the things in the sin nature, some of the things we can go to. And it says here, It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time. Repetitive, loveless, cheap sex, a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trinket gods, magic show religion, paranoid loneliness, cutthroat competition, all-consuming yet never satisfied wants, a brutal temper, an impotence to love or be loved, divided homes and divided lives, small-minded and lopsided pursuits, the victorious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival. Uncontrollable, uncontrollable and uncontrollable addictions, ugly parodies of community, I could go on.

And he could. And it's just these things, you know, this message version really brings it down, like it uses the modern-day language. You know, think about depersonalizing everyone into a rival. That one really hit me because I'm so competitive, man. And it, like, really touched my heart.

And so God is so good that he would reveal these things to you because he doesn't want you to continue to build up this emotional garbage, is what it says here in the verse. And, you know, as I was thinking about my clients, too, just because I think about them a lot, despite my best efforts, a large percentage of my clients get found guilty. You know, don't tell them that. I don't want them to know that in the jails, but they... And so when my clients are found guilty, they go to what's called a sentencing event.

And this is where they get their punishment. And, you know, the choice is either, you know, they're going to go to jail or to prison or get probation. And it's my job at their sentencing to argue for them what's called... So... Mitigation.

And I'm trying to mitigate what they did to make it not look so bad, you know, and this is where I say, man, they grew up in this horrible environment, you know, they didn't have a father, you know, their mom or dad were in jail, and I try to just make all these things that show, you know, this is how they got to be in this place, it's my job to do this mitigation, and I was thinking about how often we do that ourselves, like, we're trying to mitigate things we did, like, well, I did this because of this, you know, the ends sort of justify the means, and it's like sometimes we can skate around, you know, what is actually going on because we're trying so hard just to cover up what we did, and it's really, you know, not allowing us to actually be able to get over it, and, you know, what can actually happen is I can find, you know, is that we can get triggered by truth. When we hear a hard truth, something that really, like, grates at us, because it may be, usually when you get really emotionally triggered, it's something that hit kind of close to home, and so your immediate defense is to say, put that off, because it hit sort of close to home. You know, you see this happen in the Bible, in John 18, verses 23 through 24, Jesus, when he said, when Jesus said something to one of the officials, the official came up to him and just slapped him in the face, like, straight up, just bam, because Jesus spoke some truth to him, and then Jesus says this, If I said something wrong, testify as to what is wrong, but if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me? How often do you feel like sometimes when you speak the truth, you're just getting bam! Somebody just is triggered.

You know, you see that so often now, and it's like it happens, too, with Jesus. I mean, he literally got slapped, and he said, I was just testifying to the truth. Why did you hit me? And they didn't even respond, because they didn't even have a response to that, because they know he's just being emotionally triggered. We have to be able to cut through that in order to be able to get to the root of things, in order to be able to get to change.

And even with all the evil in my job, you know, and I'm involved in prison ministry, too, so I'm, like, in the jails all the time. And I truly do believe that there are no bad people. There's only bad decisions. And God does not make people to behave and act the way they do. You know, we don't have a creative design flaw.

We have a decision design flaw. We're making decisions that are not of what God would have for us. And when you are living for yourself, according to your own standard, you are living in a way that you were not created for. It will never quite feel right, because you're not living in the way. And let me explain this to you, what it means, like, what you were actually created for.

In 1 Colossians 15 through 16, it says, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. We see here that you were created for a relationship with God, a God of love. That's what your purpose is for.

You were created for this love, this relationships. But in order to have love, we have to have free will. You have to have the right to choose. The opposite of love is control. Because we had to have that right to choose him.

God couldn't create some robots just to do what he said, because that wouldn't be real relationship. We had to be able to choose him. And so, God didn't create this sin. We created it. God just created love.

He created an environment where sin could happen in order for there to be love. And when you start to understand that, that will help you to start to piece together what is going on in this world right now. And at times, you may feel like, and I know I've felt this, at times you may have this vague impression, like, my life is not completely right. You know, there's got to be something more than this. Or at some times, you might just felt like, you know, man, like, there's got to be something more.

But really, like, you'll drown it out. You'll drown it out with some type of medication of the world. You'll drown it out with some type of substance. You'll drown out those thoughts with a relationship. And, you know, you'll say, oh, man, I'll just, you know, I'll go to this girl or I'll go to this boy.

And, you know, you'll just sort of, like, drown out these feelings. And you're just, you know, I need this girl to be okay. I need this guy to be okay. And then you start living in a way that is contrary to the purpose you were actually created. Because you're living for these other relationships that isn't the one relationship that you were created for.

You're living for everything else. And it doesn't feel right. You were made for a relationship with God who's the only one that can truly satisfy you. You know how good it is when you're eating fatty, rich food, sugary food? That's how God says that he satisfies your soul in the relationship with him.

I mean, he brings it down to that level. He really wants to reach you. We all know how that feels. And God's saying, I can reach you on that level, that intimate of a level. I can reach you on that level.

I can satisfy those desires that you have. So how, why did we get in this whole discussion on sin? And the reason why is because sin is the backdrop for the greatest love ever recorded. To truly understand how much God loves us, we have to understand what caused him to make the greatest sacrifice anyone could ever make. And there is a vivid description of this sacrifice in Romans 5, 6 through 8.

And here it says, You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated his own love for us in this. Why we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So while we were in our worst place is when God made the greatest sacrifice.

And if the price paid for something determines its value, when you're thinking about, hey, you know, this car, really expensive car, this house, really expensive, this watch, really expensive. Like, you know, you think of the price of something really determining its value. And you look at Jesus. We read in Colossians, it says, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn over all creation.

He created all things in heaven and on earth. All things were created by him and for him. And so when we were in our worst moments, like I'm talking your worst thoughts, your worst actions, all those things. Think about that. Your, you know, bad list.

That's when Christ died for you. That's when Christ was dying for you right then. That's when it happened. And if the price of something determines its value, at that moment when Jesus died for you, heaven went bankrupt to get you back. That's what literally happened.

The prize of heaven, the one who created heaven, all things were created by him and through him. And he sacrificed himself to buy you back in the moment of your worst weakness. That's when it was Einstein. That's when it happened. That's when it happened.

� That's when he did it. That's the greatest display of love. That is why the backdrop of sin is so important, to see the love of an amazing Savior. And so, the cross is not a revelation of your sin. It is a revelation of your value.

When you look at that cross, it's not trying to say, you did that, you did this. It's not supposed to shame you. It's supposed to say, this is a revelation of how much I value you, of how much love I have for you, that I sacrifice myself for you. And with God, there is no favoritism. And as we read on in Romans, and I'm going to be talking to you a little about the cross and the resurrection, and what is the cross and the resurrection done in relation to our struggle, specifically with sin.

And I'm about to dig in a little deeper into these scriptures. I hope you don't mind. But in Romans 6, we see this verse here, in verse 11. And it says, For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. And I'm going to be digging in a little bit here to Romans 6, 7, or 5, 6, and 7.

And what's important as we read this is, in about three or four different ways throughout as you read Romans 6, it says, You are set free from sin. It says, You are no longer a slave to sin. It says, Your old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with. He's saying, The sin is dead. When you're in Christ, it's dead, dead, dead.

The sin's gone. It's broken. You're no longer a slave. So, it says that over and over and over again. And in the very end of Romans 6, verse 22, it says one more time, You've been set free from sin.

You're no longer a slave to sin. And it says, The benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. He talks about a benefit. The benefit you reap leads to holiness.

So, basically, God has freed you from sin. You're no longer struggling with it. When you come into a relationship with God, you reap this benefit. It says, You've been set free from it. That is the reality of what happens when you come into a relationship with Jesus.

And it also says you reap the benefit of holiness. So, Think about it this way. You ever heard someone say, Man, I'm really struggling. I'm trying to work my way up. You know, I'm just trying to be a little more holy today.

I'm really trying to get rid of this sin. But the reality is, what Jesus has done is he has made you holy. So, You're not struggling to become something. You already are something. And so, From that place of being who you are, You walk in it.

And so, What the devil wants to do is he wants to bring you into an identity crisis where you forget who you really are so he can lead you astray because your thinking is all wrong. And that's why I started this message talking about the truth. Because until you embrace the truth of the reality of where you're at and believe it, you will never walk in the freedom that you actually have. So, I mean, Look at this. I mean, You can't spell it out even more.

1 John 5, 3 through 4, It says, A loving God, Loving God, Loving God means keeping his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For every child of God defeats this evil world. And we achieve this victory through our faith. Every child of God defeats this evil world.

And we achieve it through our faith. So, Once we start to put our faith in Jesus, Once we start to believe that actually this stuff is true, We embrace his truth. We start to actually walk in it. And when you keep reading on, And here's why I was talking to you so much about, It's so important to know about context. Because when you go into Romans 7, And I'm going to just be reading through it.

You don't have to turn there right now. But I'm going to turn there right now. In Romans 7, Paul begins to talk about the struggle with sin. But if you're reading all through Romans 7, You can see that he's talking about the struggle with sin Before he came into the grace of Jesus Christ. In verse 9, It says, Once I was alive apart from the law, But when the commandment came, Sin sprang to the life, And I died.

He was talking about before. Once I was alive apart from the law, He's talking about past tense. This was what was going on with me. And then later on, In chapter 7, He says, We know that the law is spiritual, But I am unspiritual, Sold as a slave to sin. And we see here, Him talking about the old man That was sold as a slave to sin.

In chapter 6, We heard, You're no longer a slave to sin. Sin's dead. It's done. But now he's talking about being a slave to sin. In this chapter, He's talking about the old man.

And then later on, We get to this verse, Which I think is in your notes. And that's Romans 7, 18 through 20. And so now here, I want you to picture this. Put your mind into this sort of context. You're looking at your phone, And on YouVersion, You just get the verse of the day.

And you're looking at the verse of the day, And this pops up. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, That is my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, But I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, But the evil I do not want to do, This I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, It is no longer I who do it, But it is the sin living in me that does it.

So imagine you reading this verse, And you're struggling with a sin, Or a bad habit. And suddenly you're like, Man, I can really relate to this verse. Man, I'm really struggling with this. The good thing I want to do, I don't do it. And the good things that I want to do, I don't do.

You're like, Man, I can really relate to this guy. And suddenly, You're justifying your behavior. You're thinking it's okay. Man, All Christians must be like this. All Christians must have this struggle.

I guess it's okay. I should just embrace it. And, Oh yeah, Hey, It's just the sin living in me that's doing it. It's not even me doing it. I don't even have to think I'm the bad one anymore.

It's a sin living in me. You see, Because you just read that scripture completely out of context, You didn't see what was going on. He was talking about the old man. You came in in the middle of a conversation, And you have no idea what's going on. And now, The devil is bringing you down a serious rabbit trail.

So, This is why it's so important to start to look at these things. Because when we're thinking about overcoming with sin, We have to get our mind right. We have to start to believe right. We have to know what God has actually done for us. And, So, When we look back in Romans 6, And it says something completely different than that.

It says here in Romans 6, What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer?

You see, The grace of God is not a license to keep doing whatever you want. If you had been reading before. Thank you. You would have seen that, but you can be led astray, and I know. There's a term for that.

It's called cheap grace. When you believe that just because, you know, if I can go and do this, and I'll just ask Jesus, forgive me, I'm good. So I can just keep doing it. When you have that mentality, it's a downward spiral, man, and it's not even the truth. It says, by no means should you continue doing that.

And I know so much about this because I lived like 20 years of my life like this. At about six or seven years old, you know, I had this Bible that said, you know, where I wrote in there, you know, today I gave my life to Jesus. You know, I realized it was bad to not obey mommy and daddy, and I have something that was like written in there. And so I made like this confession that I had this Bible, but yet from age six and seven to the age 28, there was no fruit at all of the Christian walk in my life. None at all.

I was completely in the world. And I bought into this concept that just because I prayed some prayer when I was six or seven that I could do whatever I wanted. And I lived in this dark place. I mean, that is a scary place to live where you think you're good. You know, Jesus says, you know, hey, if you start to even become lukewarm in this faith, he says you can get spit out.

And it's all, I had never really surrendered my life to Christ. I had never really given it to him. In order to confess Christ, you actually need to know what you're doing. You need to know who is actually going to have control. You need to be willing to submit control.

But I hadn't done that at all. And I'd bought into that cheap grace. And it's a scary place to be. And I'm so thankful that God kept me until now because it could have gotten way bad. The main spiritual battle is in the mind.

And this is the area where the devil wages the most war. And he wants to affect your thinking. He knows that Jesus has defeated him on the cross. And he knows that you can have the power of the Holy Spirit in you. And that like you can completely just stomp on him.

But he wants to make you believe that you can. He wants to believe. He wants to lead you down all these rabbit trails. So sin has been overcome already by Jesus. However, as Christians, we must walk in that freedom.

And so right now, I want to talk to you just about three ways that we can start to walk in that freedom of what Jesus already done for that. And the first thing is what I've already been talking about this whole time, is we have to have the right mindset, keeping the right mindset. Romans 8, 6 says, the mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace. We have to start to allow God's word to dictate how we live our life, rather being controlled by our feelings and our carnal desires. We have to start to let that word start to dictate.

And this is just the opposite of what the world will tell you. The world will say, hey, if it feels good, you should do it. If you desire it, you should do it. If you don't, you're just denying yourself. Like, how can you deny yourself?

But yet, exactly what it says in God's word is the first thing you should do is deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow Jesus. Anyone who's not willing to do that is not worthy of Him. And so it's kind of the upside down thing. The world's telling you one thing, but God is telling you completely the different thing.

And so you have to start to realize how you can start to walk in that. And one thing that can happen is, and this is a psychological term, something that can happen is called cognitive dissonance. And let me explain what this is, a cognitive dissonance. This is when a psychological state, when you have all these values or these beliefs, and yet, but yet you are, you come into contact with another value or another belief that does not mold at all with what you believe, and then suddenly you're in this place of real discomfort. Or you have all these values and you have all these beliefs, but yet you're not living them out.

So like, you're living two lives. And what happens is, when you start to do that, have this cognitive dissonance, it brings like mental, like actual anguish. In fact, there's been some research done, and I was just watching a study on this by Dr. Caroline Leaf. You can actually cause brain damage.

That she studied the brain for over 20 years, and when you actually say you believe something, but yet you're acting in such a completely different way from what you believe, it actually causes brain damage. And so it's weird, like in the book of James, it says, do not be double-minded. Because when you're double-minded, it says you can be swayed by all the things of the world. It's weird how what the Bible says actually can really happen in your mind. I was kind of freaked out by that.

But, so it's important that we actually start to live out these words that we're reading. Like, I would say it would be better for you to actually take a couple of these scriptures, memorize them, and actually apply them in your life than to try to like keep reading all these things. Start to actually digest it and think, let me apply this. Let me actually do this in my life. Because as you start to actually live out what you're reading, that's when you actually start to feel that mental anguish go away.

That's when you actually start to feel this peace because you're actually walking out what you believe. And you'll start to feel a harmony with God. So, the second thing of being able to overcome sin is living a lifestyle of repentance. And let me explain what this word repentance is. The Greek word for repentance is this word called metanoia.

And it means to change your mind. So, when you go and the Word of God says that you should ask, you know, repent of your sins or, you know, that if you ask Jesus to forgive you, He'll forgive all your sins and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. It's not saying that you should just ask Him to forgive you. It's saying that you should actually turn from it. Repentance actually means to change your mind, to switch your thinking and say, I'm turning from this.

So, not only am I asking God to forgive me, I'm saying I'm not done with this. This is in my rear view. You know, so that's actually what repentance means. And in 2 Corinthians 7.10, it describes this.

It says, godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets. But worldly sorrow brings death. So, let me explain this. Worldly sorrow is admitting that you are doing something wrong, but then not being willing to change. Worldly sorrow is basically feeling sorry for yourself.

Worldly sorrow is, you know, this brings death. Worldly sorrow breaks down your dreams. Worldly sorrow steals from your potential. Worldly sorrow will take away from you because you feel bad and you know you did something wrong, but yet you're stuck in it and you just give up and you don't actually do anything to change because you're just feeling sorry for yourself. That's what worldly sorrow does.

But it says, godly sorrow brings repentance, which brings salvation, leaves no regrets. So, true godly sorrow will look like this. Someone taking ownership of their mess. When someone sits in their mess and says, and takes ownership of it and says, this is my bad, and with humility comes and says, this is my problem. I need to deal with this.

That's what godly sorrow will look like. That true humility of coming to God and saying, this is my problem, this is my issue, and asking God to forgive you, that will suddenly, then you'll find the grace to move forward because that godly sorrow will leave no regrets. So, you'll actually start to believe, man, I've been forgiven. Yeah, I can move forward. I don't have to live in the past.

If you're still allowing that past to come back and bite you all the time, it's because it says, godly sorrow leaves. No regrets. You start moving forward, and so that's what the type of repentance that we want to see is this godly sorrow, and these acts of repentance becomes what I call a lifestyle, because you're humbly before God. You have this amazing relationship with God, and you want nothing to come in to violate it. You're like, whatever I can do, just make it right with God, because it's so good.

This, what we have is so good, this doesn't match up. This has no harmony with my relationship with God. Get rid of this, because this is so good, and it's in the context of that intimacy that we're continuously bringing these things to God. Like, something will come up, and you're like, no, I'm done with that, because God is too good, and that's the loving relationship where you truly start to walk in that freedom from sin. And the lastly is getting on mission.

In order to leave sin in the dust, you have to start to move into the area and the sphere of influence and sharing Jesus' love in the community where you're at. Because if your goal is just overcoming sin, and you're like, every day, like, man, I need to overcome this, I need to overcome that, what you focus on just gets bigger. And you're like, if your goal is to overcome sin, you'll be in your small group for years, and you'll still be struggling with pornography. You'll all come back to your small group three years later, and I'll hear you still talking about the same sin. Man, I'm still struggling with that.

Oh, man, pray for me for that. And I'll be like, I was praying for you for that three years ago, and I'm like, when are you going to get on mission? Because when you start to get on mission and start to go into that and start to share the love of Jesus where you need to be, it's like, man, it's like when you're so focused. It's like when you're exercising, and you're so focused on, you know, hey, I want to get really good. For me, it was like getting good at CrossFit.

I start doing my diet because I'm like, man, I can't keep eating these ho-hos if I want to get good at CrossFit. Because I'm really focusing on my diet because this does not line up with my mission. And so when you're going on mission with Jesus, all this stuff starts you saying, man, I don't need this. I don't need this because I got something so much better. God is using me so much.

I don't want anything to get in the way of how he's using me because of how much joy I found going out here and loving people with God. So these are some things just to think about as we're thinking about overcoming sin. And I want to be able to say a prayer for you right now. And just to come into, we can have a little bit of music. Like, my heart as I was preparing this message was just thinking about these things we've been struggling with.

And I know there, we all have things that we've been struggling with. But now we're, we've come to this truth where God, we realize, man, God has broken this chain of sin. And I can actually move forward from this. I don't have to continue to be held back in this. I can start to move forward.

And what I'd like to ask you all to do, if you could all stand up for me, you know, if we could all just place our hands on our hearts, just close our eyes. And just in this moment, know the Holy Spirit is here, the presence of God. He's a loving Father. The cross is a revelation of your value. He cares so much about it.

He loves you. This message is not condemnation. This is not condemnation to make you feel bad about things, make you feel bad about the things that you've done. Because this is God's love reaching out to you saying, I want to, I want to get you out of that mess. I want to just clean you up and just put you right back on track.

Like, like you, your past is done. I want to bring you into your future. This is done. I'm ready to bring you into a new season. I'm ready to bring you into something new.

And so right now in the spirit, if you feel led, I'd like you to start to tell God right now, the things that are plaguing you, the sins that have been holding you back. Just start to tell God what that is. Just in your own voice and just quietly, silently in this moment as the music's going, just tell God what that is. Because he's ready to forgive you for it. He's ready to deliver you from it.

And no one has to hear. But just let God know, don't, leave it here at the altar. We're here at the altar worshiping God right now, right where you're standing. Just tell him. Tell him what it is.

The word of God says that if you ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins, that he's faithful and just to forgive you of all your sins and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. There's nothing too big he can't forgive you for. Lord, so if you just say, Jesus, just forgive me. Help me to move forward. I'm done with that.

I'm turning from that. I'm moving forward. Just let him know right now. And it's done. His blood covers over it.

It's in this humility that God is drawn towards us. God is drawn towards the humble. He opposes the proud, but he's drawn to the humble. If you're feeling this hardness of your heart, just let it go. Let the hardness go right now.

Just humble your heart and allow God in. Allow him in all the way. He wants to help you. And if you don't have a relationship with Jesus, and this is new to you, or maybe you were like me and you lived in that concept of cheap grace where you never truly surrendered to Christ and you thought you were good, but really there was no fruit of God in your life. And you just want to surrender to him.

You just want to give your life to Christ. You want to know you have this relationship. What you were created for. You want to finally know that. If you just pray with me, you say, Father God, in Jesus' name, I come before you.

I humble myself before you. Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. I believe you died on the cross for my sins. Jesus, I ask that you would forgive me. Come into my life.

Come into my heart. Fill me up. Holy Spirit, I welcome you. Come into me and fill me. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.