Transcript (By MS Word)

Our passage this morning as Romans 7 will start at verse 4.

And move on from there.

We've been on on Easter.

We preached through John and looked at John 20, the Resurrection account from the Gospel of John.

And then what we've been doing here is going through a series on what?

What does it look like presently?

That we are Rep that we were raised with Christ when when Paul uses that language, what does that look like?

We know it doesn't mean that we are currently immortal.

We know that's not true.

That's our longing.

That's our hope, but we also know that we're no longer as we were.

Nor is it simply a psychological kind of a game we play.

There's something real that has happened.

In Christ's resurrection and our being united to him in his death and his resurrection, we started with first Corinthians 15 and the line that we really honed in on there was the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, and we begin to process how the two options for for humans.

Following humanity are some form of rule or law keeping for their righteousness.

Even if it's under righteousness in their minds with God, it's some way, if I'm correct, because of these things or the gospel, Jesus and in Romans 6, seven and eight, we see that fleshed out so last week we looked at Romans 6, where Paul says, you know, did Grace, comma and grace abound that we would just get to go sin?

And he says by no means he'll say that same phrase by no means in our passage.

Twice he's saying, listen, sin is trying to crush you.

Sin isn't fun, it's trying to kill you.

Saying ultimately at its core is your attempt.

My attempt to live apart from God and he says the only other option is to be a slave of righteousness and what he's saying with that is that is married, you know it to God.

We are the Bride of Christ and we are.

We are being prepared for him, and so there's a there's freedom there.

And there's.

Dominion here now, as we by way of introduction I want to just say law, which comes up in Romans 7 where we are today.

Please, this is critical.

It's we don't mean the content.

We mean the attempt to keep.

There's a difference.

Here's an example.

Everyone in this room believes in justice we we believe in that.

That's a law of God that comes from God.

Attributes.

God is just.

Well, you see a video on the Internet of police brutality that's locked.

That's that's an example of bad law keeping.

That's like, Oh no, that's not what we mean.

So what we're talking now about is our horrible attempts at trying to keep the law.

We're like that, officer, we, we say God.

Thanks for the law of love or anything, and I'm going to go do it on my own, and we come up with really bad imprisoning efforts.

And that's what we're going to see in Romans 7.

Is that Paul is saying you are now set?

Free from that prison.

But it's going to be a fight the 1st 4 verses the 1st 3 verses of Chapter 7.

He's transitioning and he gives this example of because he's speaking in the language of the Jewish law that in the Jewish law, if you are married to a person and you.

Ever divorce you?

You don't?

You can't remarry unless that person dies.

And otherwise you're committing adultery.

According to Jewish Law, and Paul is making the point that in what Christ has done by dying after football is, it's like the law are law keeping die like that.

Marriage is now we're now free to remarry.

And who do we remarry?

But Jesus, we we move into relationship into the new way.

To the spirit and there's freedom in that.

And so I was going to just jump into Romans 8, which famously says there is therefore now no condemnation.

We love that line.

But then it occurred to me, are we feeling condemned?

It's sort of important that you at least feel that way.

It.

 

But I mean, it's not.

I'm not trying to promote that feeling, but Paul acknowledges that there is a battle waged in the Christian life.

That one, when fully apprehended at least creates a sense of I need help.

And then we cry out to.

Jesus and my fear is oftentimes in our modern era, the gospel is preached in such a way that we we don't really think about growing in the likeness of God. We don't really think about improvement or that God's law is still glorious and beautiful. And yet in Romans 7 we see it is and we wrestle, and there's a. There's a strife in it.

I inserted some quotes from JC Ryle who in his book Holiness has an entire chapter called the Battle and Talking about the True Christianity is has a fight in it.

And I'll just read the third one down, uh, holy violence, a conflict of warfare of fight, a soldiers life or wrestling.

These are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian, and so be paying attention as we read our passage.

That Paul.

I mean, this is a cheer up moment.

Cheer up.

You're invited into an amazingly cosmic.

Wrestling match until we go to heaven.

That's what you're in.

So Christian.

Is that what you want?

Well, of course not.

But yes, right, there's a part of me that doesn't want that, but in my right mind my true mind that the redeemed mine I recognize I want.

My son.

Out.

And I want righteousness in and so that's what Paul is getting out.

Let's read together starting in verse four, and he's saying the word.

Likewise, he's now saying like this illustration of the woman and the law dying and all he says likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another.

To him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God for a while we were living in their flesh.

Our sinful passions, aroused by the law, where it work in our members to bear fruit for death.

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of this spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

But then shall we say that the law is sin, by no means.

Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.

For I would not have known what it was to covet.

If the law had not said, you shall not covet.

But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, producing me, all kinds of covetousness.

For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

I was once alive, apart from the law.

But when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died.

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me.

And through it killed me.

So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Did that which is 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 sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

For me, now that the law is spiritual and I am 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 that very thing I hate.

Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.

So now it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me.

Before I know that nothing good dwells in me, 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 that dwells within me.

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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Jesus, we need mercy.

But teach us also to recognize we run.

From the admittance of needing mercy, we run from the ways that our flesh rules and Reigns in our hearts and we become.

In those moments, those times.

People who are living out of unbelief help us to see what Paul is teaching here that the normal.

Life this side of heaven, the side of being with you and glory in paradise.

The normal life is both filled with peace and glory, but wrestling and seeing brokenness in our hearts.

And my prayer spirit is that we would not see this.

As a curse, but as a blessing because through that process we know we grow.

Teach us to be Christians who are faithful and running toward you, and all of your glory, Amen.

Uhm?

Years ago when I was in Ruf myself in Colorado with our family, or at least my wife, and I drove to meet with other church planters and there are enough guys and Adam at a place with a I guess they were having a meal at one of our friends houses, but he's kind of a quirky guy and he just sat down to dinner and kind of got settled.

And he looked at us, and he and his wife are at the table and my wife were there.

And so 'cause there were several tables, and he said.

How do you and your wife fight?

Remember that.

I was like.

What I don't want to talk about that.

What do you want me to tell you?

It was a very awkward moment that, however stuck with me.

I did ask him.

You tell me how you guys fight and he didn't.

I don't think he did.

I just assumed that it hadn't fight and we showed up.

You know, like usually you fight right before the guests arrive and so this was his awkward way of dealing with that.

But but actually I think there was something deeper that's helpful.

Right is this.

What we all sort of kind of nervously laugh out, especially if we're married, is yeah, like to be in a relationship.

Means conflict.

Everyone of us knows this and I think most of us have the maturity to say you actually grow through conflict, right?

Doesn't?

That's something I think most Christians can say.

Man, I don't like conflict, but when it comes, I grow through it.

Yet I think most of us avoid it like the plague, literally.

Except for those of you that don't avoid the plague.

At least that that line doesn't work anymore Unfortu.

Only.

Like it used to be a great line, I thought all of us wanted to avoid this thing.

OK, back to the back to the point.

We hate conflict and yet the normal Christian life is one of daily battle Daily War.

And so that's what we're going to look at this morning.

There's been a a quote that's kind of been in my mind for the last three months. I maybe have said it here, I don't remember, but it's a Leonardo Davinci quote who says the Supreme misfortune? That's pretty astounding statement V1. I'm not sure I'm going that far, but this is a big one, he says is when theory.

Outstrips performance.

I love theory.

I love theory and I think all of us as Christians.

Love theory we oh I love Paul.

I love I love what he's writing about this stuff.

And yet the truth is, we despise.

When our sin is exposed, we the performance of what we've just read is utterly poor compared to my love for the theory.

I'll talk a great game, but it's exposing.

And yet, well, I think we all can agree with and we we preach through.

James recently is James says, listen, consider joyful when struggles come right and a little bit later in Chapter One, he says, don't just be the reader of the Bible.

Be someone who does what this Bible teaches be a Don't do performance.

Don't just do theory.

Now, if you were here during the some of those sermons we discussed that that verb for being a doer of the word is being someone who creates who makes so God is giving us glorious truth.

And oftentimes we don't go make new art with it as we're called to do. And as as creation this morning, I was reading Psalm 25 and it's one of those places where the Psalmist says should teach me your paths. Teach me your ways and why I want to, just as we move into our.

Our main body of this discussion.

What the somnus is not saying is teach me your theology.

Yes, theology is critical.

He studied it all his life.

He's now saying but make it have groups and ground make it have feet in my life that that the things I believe and say I believe are actually being things I do in my particular.

Life so the question for you is are you an artist?

Like is God is God's reality being expressed through your particular life? That's what we want to talk about. How does the gospel free you to become the artist, so to speak? I'm using a. It's a metaphor. If you think artists are weird, it's a metaphor to go out into your life and so.

Years ago there was a book written by Steve Pressfield here at Let the Legend of Bagger Vance and The Legend of Bagger Vance and 300 and others. He wrote a great book on writing.

Called the Art of war.

You might hear the play on words.

Of course, the ancient book, the War of Art.

He's playing on that.

So he's saying there isn't.

There is a war going on to produce art.

So point number one is the War of Art.

The goal of the Christian life is that.

Our lives are filled with the glory that we.

We are wherever we go.

A radiance of the beauty of God.

That's the goal of the Gospel.

That's the art. That's what we are. But there is a war involved, and that's what we're looking at for .1. And so we're going to look at in this point is the fact that to make art to go forward, there has to be this impulse. I'm going to use a lot of art language. I've been reading a lot about art lately.

Impulse that is there is something beyond you.

If you read anybody who produces art, they'll say it starts with some impulse, some sense of something beyond something greater, and they're going to risk.

Through creative endeavours to get to that place.

And David, excuse me, Paul, remind me Paul in Roman 7 says something that's very profound.

See where we are.

We

What he says is there is something transcendent beyond us that is beautiful.

And that's the law of God.

And I think he gets a bad rap and the reason the law of God gets a bad rap is most of us think of it in terms of what we have to do to keep it.

And I want us to be sort of for the moment, freed from that to just look at what is the law of God.

I was talking with Justin Hazzard this week.

We happened to be dropping our daughters off.

I would say at the same time has got him there 30 or 40 minutes too soon but they had been waiting in their van and the girls jumped out for a volleyball and track.

And so we kept talking, and Justin is an entrepreneur.

If you have anything you wanna talk about with entrepreneur, go to Justin Hazard.

But we we I don't know how I even got on the topic.

I said I want to work on the sermon blah blah, but he mentioned a book.

Book.

About a man who in Oklahoma City started a company that really was a pioneer in some of the digital works that later led to like things like Pixar and digital Animation but but a big part of that man in Endeavor was creativity and he would start their meetings.

You know, when when you do creative work, you often have to critique things.

You have to look at it.

Uh, he would remind the people before he kind of critiqued what they had done.

You are not.

The Pixel is that right?

Let's say there and just that freedom that comes from the fact that I'm not the thing being critiqued.

We are people who are so afraid of the law because we're still living as if we're married to it.

If if it turns out that marriages should look like this or parenting should be like this, then I am in trouble.

That's how most of us enter into the discussion.

And yet Paul is saying that the law is glorious.

The law is beautiful and he says that several times in our passage.

Right, he says the law is spiritual.

It is good.

It is righteous.

It is holy, and the law he's actually specifically referring to is coveting.

And so Interestingly, the word that that's kind.

Of a mature law.

Like most religious people can go to the 10 Commandments and go OK, I'm not going to murder anybody.

OK, I guess I won't commit adultery.

And I won't steal but coveting.

That's a hard one.

What is David?

What is coveting?

Coveting is wanting something.

In a way that's improper.

It's an over.

It's it's wanting something out of the bounds of what it actually is and what makes coveting so problematic is that you're actually saying I don't trust God, so if you covet your neighbors wife, let's assume you have one.

You know, I like this wife, but man.

That life would be amazing.

I'm not trusting God, I'm not.

I'm not saying God, I believe in your provisions that my wife is the wife.

He wanted me to have or I'm not believing that that woman in that man are in the right relationship.

And typically what's happening in those moments with coveting is not.

I really want to be married to her.

It's usually a desire for possession.

It's a desire to step outside of the way things are supposed to be and say I want to own.

I want to possess I need.

Need.

And yet that we know that that can name, it really is sort of the sum of all that we are to live in such a relationship with God, that we trust all of his goodness in all of his glory, and all of his provisions.

And so I think most of us would say, OK, I.

I think I'm tracking with you.

The law is good.

Show me other places.

Well, this week I think, uh, when?

When the the verdict came out in the optimal, you know, I'm not.

I'm trying to get too political, but let's just say the verdict.

You know I'm talking about you're fine.

Uhm, there was a crying out of of.

Of rejoicing in a way over justice, being served.

You doesn't where I'm talking about without me getting two particular.

And the point is, we all long for justice like there's this collective sense right now.

I think it's fair to say this last week that this country, that this life demands something of justice, and that when there is a wrongdoing that we can trust that there will be some format of justice.

We love the law.

If I went to you individually through just sitting down together and said, tell me who's spoken to your life, what, who a person and you begin to name people.

Well, it was my teacher in the third or whatever you would begin to describe.

They loved me unconditionally.

They they showed me love.

So we long for love, right?

We love the law, yes, for so many.

To us it feels threatening, but what what the law is.

Is the radiance?

Of of God, it's it's it's the emanation of who is.

It's his character, so theologians use the term attributes.

These are the the attributes of God are the things that God that define God that describe God I should say.

And there are some of those attributes that are not communicated to his to his creation to mankind.

We're never going to be.

Omnipotent, we're never going to be omnipresent, right?

Or all knowing we're not going to have those those things, but we will have his justice, His Holiness, other, his attributes that are going to.

That are the ways we have also been communicated to image him.

Those are things he longs to give us.

I want you to hear what I'm saying is though, the impulse.

Of art in using the metaphor is we are too long.

For God's glory to be broke, breaking into our very lives. Where are you today? What? What do you need of God's glory?

Do you believe your your relationships, your marriage, your your finances, the hard, broken places that God longs to with your partnership?

Revive and renew you and deliver you down the paths of his righteousness.

Do you believe that he has a particular path for you?

That is the promise.

Of the law, it's a beautiful promise.

Where we go wrong is when we try to go after it on our own.

Where we tried to go after it in our own effort and that's the why we have to come now to the reality.

What's the reality for Paul?

The reality is yes there is this impulse I don't want to ever covet again I don't want to ever not love my neighbor as I should again.

But immediately he begins to be aware of his own frailty.

His own sin.

This is the war we're talking about.

For Paul, as he describes this inner struggle, he says, when the law came to life, I then knew what sin was.

He says in verse eight, since seizing an opportunity through the commandment producing me all kinds of covetousness.

So there's really these two properties.

One property is I actually realize I'm sinning, when the, when the when the spirit comes, the law begins to come to life.

It is the natural process of a Christian to go, oh.

Oh, there's this right.

There's this.

But if your tendency is to go, I'm going to fix that.

You're going to just send more.

Uhm, I'd bring coffee cups with me from home that I like.

I have this kind of weird attachment to my coffee cups.

My the only one I I so I get in here.

I drink them and then I want to get them home and I'll go to the back of my car, my seat put my bag I'll put the coffee cups.

I'll wrap some T shirts or whatever but just like keep them safe.

I want them to survive the drive home.

I wanna get home and transferred them back into the kitchen for another day.

And how many have I broken where I get home?

I've forgotten all about.

I open the door I grab my bag and they come flying out crashing on the ground and it's just like the very thing I did to be super careful backfired.

I think that happens all the time with the law, like I'm going to be, so this today I'm going to do it on my own.

I'm going to do my own way.

I'm not.

And then it just produces all sorts.

Of deeper sins along those lines, because we're trying it on our own.

The reality is, you and I are broken.

Right, we have sin and just going back to this creative concept.

The way you get to producing the glory we are longing for is never by pretending that maybe what we're doing is OK.

Right, that's what legalism is.

So what is what is the problem?

What Paul saying were rescued from in the spirit in verse 6?

Is this old way, which is I'm going to live by the law, the the, the, the law and this concept and the Bible is called Pharisees.

For some of you, I'll use a more modern reference.

Here's the modern reference for what does it mean to take the law and try to do it yourself and just I set it up.

It means I'm going to.

I'm going to choose the things I'm good at.

The Pharisees were famous for like ignoring the weightier matters and choosing the things they could perform.

So the modern term for that I would love to go around and say what are y'all?

What would you insert?

Here's what I'm going to insert instead of Pharisee.

Karen

The modern term for Pharisee is Karen.

Now if your name is Karen, I'm super sorry unless you act like a Karen.

But that's the joke right now.

Maybe it's going on for some time where these are the in this case women.

I'm sure there's a male name we could insert as well who always know the way you're supposed to do things.

Yeah, you didn't do it right.

You didn't do this right.

You didn't do.

That right and it's like, yeah.

I'm never the one that knows the way you know what I mean.

There's the legalist right?

Uhm, the opposite of that is I'm so bothered by the laws.

I'm still bothered by the rules.

I'm so bothered by the karans I'm out.

I'm going to be counter culture.

I'm going to be different.

I'm going to live not with the law, but guess what?

It's a new law.

It's a new way to do it.

Paul says if you, if your husband didn't die, the law still lives, you're just adulterer.

You're just going to go out and do the same thing somewhere else.

Well, that would be like the counterculture.

I was watching a guy on a Netflix show, an artist, and he's like, you know, we're a group of artists who don't make much money at our art, so we have to have real jobs, but.

We get together and we perform art and it's just.

It's the and I I grew up in when I went through I, you know, you get to like make jokes, 'cause you did it.

I was an art major so I can talk like this.

But the craziest you know counterculture people and you're like you're so lovely and that you have no rules.

I love everything about you and and they interviewed.

This guy is like yeah, so we get together.

But here's the number.

One rule of our art movement.

If you say you're going to bring something new on a Thursday, 'cause that's like their big reveal every week.

Like Thursday, we get together and and you've said you're going to bring a painting and some form of song or post whatever you're going to bring, and you don't, you're out.

Well, what I had the earrings in the percentile.

I'm out, yeah, you're still out.

So, so the point is, the world is ready to kick you out if you don't break the rules.

Follow the rules.

And the gospel is saying, listen, you can't follow the rules, you need a new way in that way is this spirit.

So the War of Art is this wrestling.

With the fact that you and I cannot do what the spirit is showing us is now lovely and beautiful.

And it forces us to something, and that's what we're going to spend our last part on is now. We're going to go back to point #2, although I don't have enough time to do as much time. So don't worry, it won't be as long as the art of war. .1 is the war, the inner battle to produce gods Law art now, the art of war. How do we do the warfare? What's what's it look like?

To engage this warfare and Paul talks about this toward the end of seven.

When he says, famously.

Verse 15 I do not understand my own actions.

I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate but listen to what he says in verse 16.

But now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.

There's something about the ability in the freedom while knowing you're not complete, you're not you're in your members.

Your there's a part of me that is sinning, that that's not your true identity.

This is the key for Paul, and this is the key for unleashing our Christian faith is please hear me, you are not.

You are members. The true you is not all the thoughts that come across your brain, all the urges, all the emotions. Paul is very careful to do this kind of balancing act of the true self or the inner self or the new man. Later in verse 25 says in my mind.

What he's trying to say is the new creation.

In the new me the Me with the Holy Spirit in Union are not than me by myself operating out of the flesh, and it uses the word members and we talked a long time last week about those members.

But what I want us to remember is we have a lifetime of habits and deeply grooved processes.

All seeking to heal us that are broken.

And so when we come to the Gospel, what the promise is is we can go wait a minute.

I don't have to go first, fix all of that before I can agree with this.

Have you ever been in an argument where you were like saying something true?

Or maybe not even an argument, a conversation and the other person said, yeah, but you don't live like that.

I do this every Sunday, but that's my job.

I get up here and I say look at all this amazing Ryan.

You don't live like that, I know.

And what do I do?

I need to cry out wretched man.

That I am because the beautiful picture of the Gospel, the art of war, is I, I don't.

I don't downplay the law.

Rather, I realize that the law is true.

The law is beautiful, Jesus.

It's a.

It's his character emanated on the word and the spirit is illuminating.

It to me and it's a potentiality like I have this promise that I can actually live like this.

Praise the Lord.

In the moment that happens, your flesh is gone.

No, no, no remember what you just said yesterday.

No way, you just thought 4 minutes ago.

And so our flesh is always raging and waging a war with us, and we need to understand that is normal.

That's what Paul says. I love that verse 25 thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So then I myself I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

He's not saying please keep sinning, that's not what he's teaching.

He's saying that I'm gonna always have parts of me.

That are trying to remind me of all of my own sin of all of my brokenness and they're going to come not in full, easy to debunk statements.

They're going to come in emotions, memories, there's just feelings of shame temptations cravings are flesh.

Is trying to drag us down and what Paul is saying is listen there's an art to this war and the art is going.

Wait a minute, the law is beautiful, the law is lovely Jesus as glorious that is.

The Art of war and it's I would just define it as repentance.

Are we repenting?

Now remember, I talk about repentance a lot and I just want to think repentance is not confession alone.

It is confession, but when I confess a sin.

Lord, will you forgive me?

Here's my sin.

I'm doing two things.

I'm saying this sin, but I'm asking for the Lord to forgive me.

And what that means is I'm suggesting Jesus when you died on the cross.

This one particular sin.

I'm asking to make a withdrawal for this particular.

I need.

Need.

I need propitiation.

I need this sin to be paid for.

He doesn't just do magic Pixie dust.

I will no longer care about your soon, he says.

I died for that son.

I spilled a particular drop of blood for that.

And we're taking that drop of blood.

A starving beggars thing. Thank you Jesus and I want you to hear the relational connection in verse 24. Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death. He doesn't say who will forgive me for all that I've done that's important, but he's asking for deliverance. He's wanting to be reconnected.

He's asking to be made whole again, so repentance is the the the art here of war is.

We're battling by looking at the law.

Repenting of this particular ways, we struggled to keep it and ask Jesus to forgive us, but we're asking that we would be renewed by faith knowing that we actually want to walk in these ways.

That's super hard to do, yet super powerful.

How do you?

Knowingly.

I think one of the areas we struggle.

How do I knowingly repent and say Lord Jesus I want to?

Live this way with part of your brain glow, but I know I'm going strong.

And there's this.

The Gospel provides you this hope that you can actually enter that, and for the moment, by faith say that I'm not under law.

This is the real me right now.

I don't need to do the economic like well, how long can I last?

Is this really you know, like Peter gets out of the boat, stands in the water?

All he needs is just to look at Jesus.

And this is his reality.

The second he starts doing the calculations, wait a minute.

This is like 30 fathoms deep and I'm a human and he sinks.

That's the law.

Don't look at the look at the Lord.

Look at look at redemption.

Look at the law.

You see this in you.

Take that send to the cross.

But then you look at Jesus and you said this is who I am.

Holy Spirit, you dwell in me.

Will you teach me to walk in your ways?

Will you teach me to live out of your ways?

Will you live through me and that's what we're going to look next week, but this week I have to just say and we're closing right now that my concern is that so many of us jumped at this Chapter 8 and forget the fact that we really are to battle with our flesh and the most.

Crazymaking reality is this.

The closer you are to Jesus.

Like if we all took a poll and said it's used and you're the guy who's the closest to Jesus of anyone we've ever met, Stan is going to say what?

I don't feel that way.

I feel my flesh.

I feel my son actual growth, actual Holiness, true change, but but internally if he looks at that for his record, it doesn't feel right.

But if he looks at his savior as you and I do, we all feel with Stan.

There's nobody named standing here.

That's why I chose Stan.

If your name is Stan and you're visiting, we love you, you're really awesome.

Are you coming to the Gospel saying I want to do it on my own?

Like Peter looking down?

Or are you coming like Peter originally didn't say?

Call me out of the boat.

I want to walk on water with you.

I believe in you.

I believe the promises I trust that you can change me.

Are you ready for the fight?

Uhm?

I just want to conclude with this story.

If no one else cares, I just care about this.

'cause I love art and it's an art discussion.

Walt Disney is when I like the guys I study.

He was not a believer so I'm not telling his private life but his active creativity is so amazing.

But what was cool about Walt was he could paint.

He could draw and animate but he wasn't great.

So you know what he did.

He went and hired great animators.

And he invented his company, invented storyboarding, something we all probably know.

What that means.

Now that was a Walt Disney creation because they could take a script.

And through these sketches they could kind of see the way the story would work before they spent the countless hours.

You know making the movie only to go Oh no, it didn't work, and so, but he was.

Famous for walking into these storyboarding meetings and kind of ruthlessly like saying that's not working and throw that away and even shelving an entire movie for a decade because it wasn't quite right.

And.

Like we get to be Walt.

You hear me like we get to be like I'm not good at this.

But I know there's something out there so much more glorious and the spirit is the one who says yes.

Yes yes, all come in only we would never throw it in the way the spirit does, but we get.

To say Holy Spirit like.

Will you change this?

I'm super cranky here and I'm super mad over here and I'm fearful here and I'm angry there and and he's like, yes, but here's how.

Here's the.

Yes, I will take care of that, but here's the deal.

Why did you do?

Oh, I mean it goes a little bit deeper.

Well, I was afraid.

OK, let's and he takes us deeper and deeper and deeper.

But the point is, this war in this wrestling is an internal battle.

That we fight.

As a step toward our freedom, it's not the problem.

The problem is when you don't fight.

The problem is when you're not at war.

The problem is when you have zero conflicts, 'cause that just means you're not trying.

Or dare I say in chapter eight, he says.

So brothers, now he says as you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit promise, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.

So my conclusion is this Christian, if you have this spirit, embrace the struggle.

And if you're sitting here this morning and saying I have no idea.

What any of this means?

You need to ask, do I indeed?

Have the Holy Spirit.

And if you're in fear that maybe you don't know the Lord that maybe you aren't really in it for this process.

I would invite you today.

To receive the Lord to receive the Spirit.

And that will come primarily with Paul crying out wretched man, wretched woman that I am.

I've been trying to live apart from Jesus.

Will you rescue me?

And the answer is yes, you will.

Yes, he will.

Let's pray Jesus we cry out rescue us.

Because we are people who thanks me to your spirits presence see a reality.

Beyond our grasp.

But Lord, it's not beyond your grasp.

Teach us couched in your spirit to be able to cry out.

ABBA, father.

Would help us to move down the path that you have crafted for us step by step, repentance and faith by confessing the ways we break or broken the ways we struggle and yet by faith drinking in the truth that our identity is no longer law keeping.

But our identity is that we have this spirit who has given us your record, Jesus, that we are righteous because of you.

We need your.

Power we need your spirit we need you to open our eyes give us a longing to grow for your glory Amen.