You are called to step out of the struggle bus and into the freedom Christ purchased for you. By choosing obedience over your old nature, you can experience the peace and joy of His resurrection life today. Come forward if you need to confess, heal, or simply make Jesus Lord of your life.
Amen. Well, good morning. You guys look great this morning. Thank you for choosing to be here today. My name is David John Phillips.
I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here. There's no place I'd rather be. There's nothing that I'd rather be doing. I know you hear that every single Sunday, and good. Because I want you to know that, and I want you to also to mirror that attitude everywhere you go, because, man, you get to be a husband, you get to be a wife, you get to work at the job that you have.
It's a it's a gift that God has given you, the things that you're walking through in this life. The Lord has given and entrusted them to you to steward, and to start with, I get to be here. Thank you, Lord Jesus, just changes the whole atmosphere. Amen? Man, praise the Lord.
So, I touched on a topic last Sunday that I I feel like the Lord told me to dive in on today, and I'm I'm excited about it. I really am. My prayer is 1 that the Lord would speak through me because I know that just my words alone, if I say some high and lofty cool things or I say some things that are really dumb. Neither 1 has the power to change your life without the anointing of the of the Holy Spirit on it. Right?
And even with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, if your heart's hardened to it, then it's not gonna change your life either. So I wanna actually do something. I've done it a couple times in here, but I do it every week in in the jail when we do jail ministry. The Bible says, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. Right?
And so, any area in our life where we haven't allowed the revelation of truth when God spoke, we haven't allowed that to penetrate our heart. We're still blinded in that area by unbelief, and we're not experiencing the fruit of the gospel, the resurrection life, the "abundant life" of Jesus in that area of our life. And so what I wanna do, I wanna invite you all to stand and I want us to to just take this moment to really do what the promise of God is in scripture where it says, draw near to the Lord and he will draw near to you. That's a promise. So as we sing this song, old school song together, open the eyes of my heart Lord.
I want you, every 1 of you, I want you to close your eyes. I want you to out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if this is a prayer, don't just sing it in your heart because you're embarrassed. I know and that may be the case, but I want you to care more about saying this prayer out of the heart and and and say it, singing it to him as a as a act of worship and as a prayer, than you do about your comfort for this next moment. When I draw near to the Lord, right, as the word says, draw near the Lord and he will draw near to you, I just have a picture of me taking my heart and just putting it up to him and say, here Lord, this is yours.
That's just kind of what I imagined in my head. I'm not saying you have to do that, but in in whatever way it looks like, I want you to draw near to the Lord with all your heart, with the promise that he will draw near to you. So it goes like this. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart.
I want to see you. I want to see you. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you.
I want to see you. Sing that again. Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord. Together, our. Open the eyes of our hearts, we we want to see you.
We want to see you. Stop for just a second. There's something special like you have your personal relationship with the Lord and America is all big about that. That's a big deal. It's important.
But there's also a corporate relationship with the Lord. Like, where 2 or more are gathered, there I am in their midst. There's a special manifestation of the power and the presence of God when we're together in unity. Right? I want you to see that family in Christ is a big deal.
So let's let's do our and we again. Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord. Open the eyes of our hearts. We want to see you. We want to see you.
Now to see you high and lifted up over everything, To see you high and lifted up, shining in the light of your glory. Pour out your power and love as we sing holy, holy, holy, stop for a second. Now that's important. I wanna see you and I choose to see you by faith high and lifted up over everything that I'm struggling with right now. I'm magnifying you.
I'm rejoicing in you and not mulling and like drowning in my circumstance. I'm it's a takes a step of faith to do that. It takes a "step of faith" and he loves that faith. He inhabits, that's why he inhabits the praises of his people. We're lifting him up, that's praise.
His presence inhabits that because it's a step of faith in the midst of this crazy world. So whatever you're struggling with, just as you say that, see God as over, as Lord over that thing. To see you, I lifted up, shining in the light of your glory. Pour out your power and love as we sing holy holy holy, holy. Again, come on with faith to see you high and lifted up with all your heart, shining in the light of your glory.
Pour out your power and love as we sing holy holy holy. He's holy. Holy holy holy. You are holy, holy, holy, holy, Lord, we want to see you. Holy holy holy, you are holy holy holy holy holy holy, we want to see you.
Lord, thank you for your presence. We thank you for your goodness. Just begin to thank him from your heart. Just take a moment out loud. Like like sacrifice your comfort.
Begin to thank him. Thank you, Jesus. You're so good. You're so worthy. Well, thank you for you for who you are.
This is not about us. It's about you, Jesus. We honor you, Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Bible says, he said, I will no longer hide my face for you from you.
Are you to see you high and lifted up? Like, we we seek after you. It says, I will no longer hide my face from you, for I will pour out my presence on you. It means that the the outward presence of God reveals the face of God. It shows that his face is towards us, which is pretty amazing.
You don't have to sense tingles, which I love them. The tingles of God's presence for me, you know, others feel peace or some feel really small or they feel all these different things, and He loves you feeling His presence. But you don't have to feel a thing to know that He's with you, to know that his face is towards you, that you're his son. Amen? And he's here and you can walk in this every single day because you're a son or a daughter.
Amen? You may be seated. Now we can get started. I my prayer is that every single time you come, especially this time that you walk away having encountered the power and the presence of God, that you walk away encountering the love of Jesus in a very real way, because I know that you'll never be the same when that happens. I know it.
You'll be forced, we like to say, into the valley of decision. Right? And really, honestly, you'll have the choice whether or to stay the same or to continue in deeper levels of surrender following him all the more. Amen? So so really, I want to love you in truth, because it's the truth of the gospel that sets you free.
I wanna love you so much and so well, God loves you so well, he speaks the truth of the gospel to you, and sometime that truth is pointed. I pray it's so strong today that it offends your flesh, but strengthens you in spirit. I pray it's so strong today that you're offended in the flesh and strengthened in the spirit such that you choose to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh anymore. Now, walking in the flesh or walking by the flesh, I use that term outside of the 4 walls of the church. It's not something you'd normally say.
Mean, people probably don't understand really what it means to walk in the flesh or to live by the flesh outside of the walls of the church. So I want to make sure that we understand what I mean. What does it mean to walk in the flesh? It would be the way that you were licensed to live when you were still on the throne of your own heart. The way that you were licensed to live before you made Jesus the Lord of your life.
You were born with a proclivity towards sin, a leaning, a bent towards different sins, and it's different for each person, but maybe that leaning was pride. Now, that's probably for all of us, pride. Insecurity, pride, wavering between the 2 throughout our lives. But maybe that leaning is more lust. Maybe you grew up with a strong proclivity towards lust, and that looks like pornography in your life, or struggling with pornography, or sex outside of marriage, which is unholy, and walking in the flesh.
Sex with your boyfriend, or with your girlfriend, or you're engaged, so you're gonna get married anyway, you might as well just do it. Right? That's what the world says. Try it before you buy it, except that's walking in the flesh and not by the spirit. It's not okay.
It's unholy. Oh, we can do anything other than intercourse. Right? Nope. That's unholy too.
Purity is what God calls for outside of marriage. Maybe so maybe or homosexuality, same thing. It's a type of lust that's perverted, that's unholy. Many people were born with a proclivity towards something, maybe because sins passed down from generation to generation. Maybe that was the thing.
Maybe it's a greed, always desire and hunger for more, and you'll never be satisfied until you get that next thing, and you cross that next finish line of what you got, and you realize it's not enough until you go for more. You'll never be satisfied. It's walking in the flesh. Maybe it's envy. Maybe it's lying.
Maybe it's unclean lips. Maybe it's constantly joking and putting other people down. Course joking is what the Bible talks about. Maybe maybe walking in the flesh, the struggle is gossip. All walking in the flesh.
The thing is Jesus Christ paid the price as we talked about with communion. He paid the price. He was the lamb that was slain. His blood was spilled out to *purify* you, to wash you clean, to make you holy before him. And I fear, as I talked about last Sunday, I fear that maybe we haven't as a church or as the church done a good job of explaining the fullness of what you get with salvation, and I think there may be a lot of Christians that understand what the blood did, that they were purified and they were clean, they were washed clean, but they didn't they didn't really understand what it means for Jesus not to just die for them, but to die as them.
Jesus purchased not just your cleanliness being washed, but he also purchased your freedom from sin. And I wanna dive in there because I want you to understand that completely. Because if it was just the blood, and I'm not minimizing the blood, the blood is powerful and precious and the big a big deal. And if it was just the blood washing you clean of your sin, then you may end up living because you don't understand the fullness of what you got at the cross. You may end up living like a pig.
A pig rolls in the mud, and then maybe, you know, the farmer takes it out of the mud, brings it inside for his girls, his girls give it a bath, wash the mud off, wash it clean, put perfume on it, take a bow, put it in its little piggy tail. Now, it's a cute looking, good smelling pig. And then that pig goes out of the farmer's house and does what? It goes right back to the mud, because it's a pig. And I fear that there's a lot of Christians that when they gave their life to Jesus, they're they they still see themselves as nothing but a pig that's washed clean for a bit, but goes right back to the mud.
I'm just a filthy, rotten sinner, is what most people say that are Christians, and they understand they're being washed clean from the blood, but they don't understand that what Jesus did on the cross, and what that means for them, and their freedom from sin. Romans-6:7 says, anyone who has died has been set free from sin, and that's not talking about your physical death, so that you're free 1 day in the "sweet by and by", but you're just on the "struggle bus" right now while you're alive. So next week, we celebrate Easter. Right? It's resurrection.
*Resurrection* Sunday. It's a big deal. That resurrection life of Christ is for you today. That resurrection life of Christ is supposed to empower you to live the abundant life of Christ. Supposed to give strength to your mortal body, to empower you to live over and above the struggle, and to live so much in the resurrection life, and from the resurrection life, that that resurrection life of Jesus overflows out of you and begins to change the atmosphere and the situations around you.
How does that happen? This is more than just some theological, like, concept that is not practical. We're gonna understand the theological concept today, but we're gonna work it out so that it's practical, so that you can live it out in your daily life. What does it look like? Well, first, we gotta understand what is required.
What does it really mean to be set free? Let's talk about it. Galatians. Did I have your attention? Good.
That was the goal. *Galatians-5* verse 16, but I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. God wouldn't write it in His book and give it to us as training in righteousness if it wasn't possible. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Just a simple point.
The desires of the flesh are against the desires of the capital s, Holy Spirit, to keep you from doing what you want to do. Meaning, you are not your flesh. And you are not the Holy Spirit, but you have a choice. Alright. But if you are led by the Holy Spirit, capital s, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are evident. What are they? We talked about them. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife. Sometimes, I'm feeling some frustration at the house every now and then, and I go to speak, and Courtney says, uh-uh, I ain't talking to flesh right now.
Thank you, Lord, for giving me a strong wife. Jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, 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". What will you inherit? The kingdom of hell.
It's real. Christianity is not about going to church, checking something off the box, and then going live like you want, making excuses for it. You've really been transformed from the inside out to produce the results of a resurrection life on the inside around you. He's a good father. He's patient with you, and he disciplines you so that you can look more like your Father.
What is that process? What does it look like? We won't talk about it. But the fruit, the results of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus, everybody say, have *crucified* The flesh with its passions and desires. So I wanna dig in here today, because I want you to experience the abundant life of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Christ is a big deal. Because Christ has raised from the dead, you have access to his resurrection life. You can live from the resurrection life of Jesus as your source.
If Jesus is your resurrection, I mean, Lord, then his resurrection life abides in you, and you are supposed to abide by him. So there's some verses about it. Let's look at it so you believe me. It's all throughout Scripture. If you don't see it in Scripture, don't believe me.
But if there's a verse for that, change your beliefs. *Romans-6:4-5*, listen to this. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the **newness of life**. Everybody say, newness of life. Of life.
Now, gonna read some scriptures here. We're gonna go through multiple scriptures. I want you to look for something. Look for resurrection life, newness of life, abundant life in these scriptures. Okay?
Stay focused. Verse 5, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a *resurrection* like His. *Ephesians-2:4-6*. Don't worry, we will make it practical, but we gotta understand theologically what's going on. I want you to get it.
What you believe, what you really believe is worked out in your life. *Ephesians-2, 4 through 6, but God being rich in mercy* because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive. Everybody say alive. Together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised up with Him.
There it is again, raised up, resurrection life, with Him, seated us with Him in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. Well, isn't that like 1 day in the sweet by and by? No, that's past tense. Seated us. You have been raised up with Him.
*Philippians-3* 10 through 11. Stick with me here. Trust me, please. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection. Everybody say resurrection.
*Resurrection*. And may share in His sufferings. Uh-oh. Becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. *Colossians-2:12-13*.
You guys see a pattern here? Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. Man, over and over and over, there is death, and then there's resurrection. You cannot have the resurrection life of Jesus Christ without death first.
It's impossible to get *resurrection* without death. Crucifixion comes before resurrection in the life of Christ, but also in your life as well. Let's just dive in a little bit more. *2 Corinthians-4:10-12*. Just to drive the point home.
Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. What precedes the life of Christ? The death of Christ. What precedes the resurrection life of Christ in you? The death of you.
*Galatians-2:21* of my favorite verses. I have been crucified. Everybody say, I have been crucified. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
The life I now live, I live in the body. How? By faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. All these that I listed show that we get to participate in the resurrection life of Christ, and this is for now. This is part of *salvation* and this is part of the freedom that many people are missing in salvation.
They experience the washing clean and then they go out from their brothers and sisters in Christ to their quiet time with the Lord, and they run right back to the mud. And then they come back, confess, repent, get washed clean, and then run right back to the mud. And I think it's because, I know it's because for many, there's a lack of understanding of the fullness that was provided for you in the cross. There's a lack of understanding of the cross in connection with the blood of Jesus. And maybe we shy away from death because because it's death.
Don't be scared of death in Christ. There's resurrection life on the other side. So let's not live like a "clean pig" anymore. Jesus shed his blood on the cross for you and he died as you. And when he did that, he didn't just do away with the sins, but he also did away with the factory of sin too.
Let me explain. So, in the 19 twenties, there was this law, these laws of prohibition where they did away with alcohol throughout America for like a decade. Let's just pretend that that happened again. Let's pretend the administration said, you know what? We're going to make an executive order.
No more alcohol in America. And the police enforced it. They went through, and they went to every gas station, every liquor store, every restaurant, every place that you could get booze, and they took it out, they broke the glass bottles, they crushed the cans, poured out all of the alcohol, the streets were flowing with alcohol, and eventually, it settled down. There is no more alcohol on any shelves of any grocery store anywhere after about a month. Is the alcohol problem dealt with?
What's going to happen? Well, Courtney said moonshine. That's not the point. That's what happens when you grow up in Backwoods, Louisiana. Got stories of aunts and uncles making moonshine in the forest.
Anyway, in the woods is what we said. No. After a month, all the shelves will be clean, but if you don't do away with the factories that produce alcohol, the factories will still be working, and they'll still be producing bottles of alcohol, and eventually another month will go by after all of that work of getting rid of all of that alcohol and the shelves will be stocked once again and people will be drinking alcohol once again. You can't just do away with the sins, you've got to do away with the factory of sin. I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live. What does that mean? It's the old man. It's the proclivity towards sin. Jesus didn't just wash away your sins and make you a clean pig, instead, He did away with the factory of sin in Him.
That's the theological point I'm gonna drive home, but then we're gonna make it really practical. But, believe me, not because I tell you that's the case, believe me because I read it to you in the word. Let's go to Romans-6. You guys with me? Let's just we're just gonna read pretty much all of Romans-6.
I'll stop from time to time and explain. But, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we, who died to sin, still live in it?
In Christ, you have died to sin. Fact. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him in baptism into death, in order that just as Christ, just as Christ, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. For if, if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
We know that our old self, that's that proclivity to sin, that's that heart bent towards all of the junk that you grew up struggling with, or you learned to struggle with. We know that our old self was crucified with him, in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Verse 7, for 1 who has died has been set free from sin. Everybody say, I have died I have. In Christ In Christ.
I have been from sin. Set free from sin. Let's explain. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Now, what does this look like?
Let me give you another analogy. Your great great grandfather. Most people have no idea who that was. Right? But your great great grandfather operated according to seed time and harvest.
A seed reproduces after its own kind. So your great great grandfather sowed a seed, and out came your great grandfather. And he sowed a seed, and out came your grandfather. And he sowed a seed, and out came your father. And he sowed a seed, and then you are there.
Now, what happens if your great great grandfather died before he had your great grandfather? Where would you be? You would not be. Why? Because you would have died in your great great grandfather.
When your great great grandfather died, you would have died in him. Because your great great grandfather lived, you lived in him, and now you live today. In the same way, when you gave your life to Jesus, you received the "seed of the gospel". That seed of the gospel was produced by Christ. It was in Him.
So when you were in Him, so when Christ died on the cross, you died in Him, with Him. The death He died to sin, you died to sin too, and you have to see it by faith. Then he was raised to new life, and you were raised to new life in him, because of the seed that's in you. So, the life he now lives free from sin, you are free from sin, because of his resurrection life. That's true.
Amen. *Romans-6:5*, if you have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly, certainly be united with him in a life like his. But pastor, I see that. That's like some outer space reality. Something that's out there, but I don't feel like I'm dead to sin.
The desires for sin still feel very real. Like I'm I'm struggling, pastor. How can that be? Like, is that just some positional reality? Some positional theological mumbo jumbo that doesn't matter from my daily life?
No. When I say position, it's like I'm saying, when I was a soccer player, I was a center midfielder. That was my position. I was empowered by my coach to play the role of center midfielder, and do everything because that was my position. In the same way, your position is a son who has died in Christ Jesus, and has been resurrected with Him, His righteousness credited to your account.
You're empowered, because that's your position, to live that role in Him. But pastor, it just it just sounds like the I mean, it's not my reality right now. I'll tell you why. Because every time that someone in Christ lives a new experience in Christ, it first comes by revelation. Jesus, that revelation comes from His voice.
He speaks through His word, or by His word, or through people that's in line with His word, and at some point, your heart, that used to be in unbelief, opens up and grasps it, and it's revealed to you. He spoke it, you receive it, you have to believe it enough then to keep your eyes on Him and begin to remain in it, to walk in it. And as you remain in it, then the "truth will set you free". The word, the truth will set you free is half true. The other part of that before is those who remain in my word.
Then they will know the truth, and the truth will set them free. There's a lot of Christians that just come on a Sunday, they get washed clean, they go to their Bible study, and they go to their prayer closet, they get washed clean, remember that they were forgiven, and then they go back out not realizing, not understanding that they've died to sin, and they go right back to the same mud over and over and over, and are doomed to live as infants in Christianity apart from the resurrection life of Jesus because of a lack of understanding. Maybe they're ignorant to the revelation of what God has done, or maybe they just refuse to really believe it and stand in it. No more. No more.
I want you to experience the fullness of his freedom. So how does that what does that look like? Let me let me just give you another example, another paint another picture. When the angel appeared to Mary and brought the word of God, the Holy Spirit's gonna come upon you, and you will carry you will bear a son. That was a revelation of God to her.
She believed it, and you know how I know she received it? In that moment, she said, be unto me as you have said. Then what happened? The seed of the word was implanted into her, and things on the inside began to change. Nobody else believed it, but she knew there was real change.
Her husband even or her husband to be even tried to put her away because he couldn't see the change that was happening. She carried that change, and she began to grow. And then after 9 months, she bore the fruit of the word that happened. There's a revelation of the reality of what the Bible says about you. You have to believe it.
You have to receive it. And then it begins to change you on the inside, and you need to remain in it until it begins to produce fruit in your life. And then continue to live that way such that you continue to bear fruit. And other people, even after she had the fruit of the Word, still didn't believe and crucified it. It's the same for you.
Believe the Word. Receive it. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. And as your life begins to produce the revelation of Jesus Christ, some will persecute you and others will follow you as you follow Christ. *Faith*, that's what it takes.
*Faith*, hearing, believing, and walking the thing out. So, let's keep talking. We gotta get real practical. Let's keep reading. Romans-6:8.
No. Yeah. 8. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die death again.
Will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. So this is talking about Jesus now. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God.
So what it just said about Jesus, because you were found in him, you're supposed to consider yourself as yourself, because you're in Christ, and Christ is in you. So the death you died to sin, in Christ, you died to sin, and you will no longer it's sin will no longer have dominion over you. Because anybody who has died has been set free from sin. Now, once again, we're gonna get practical. But sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me oh, wait.
That's Romans-7. Sorry. For the death he died, he died to sin. Okay. Romans-6:12.
Let not, so do not let, which means even though you died to sin, and it no longer has dominion over you, even though you're free from it, you still have the choice to let it produce fruit in you. Just because you're free from it, doesn't mean you're not free to it. You still have the choice. Do not let sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. So if you let it reign in your body, it will make you obey its passions.
How do you not let it? Guard your gates. Guard your eyes, what you look at. Don't make excuses. Guard your ears, what you listen to.
Don't make excuses. Guard your hands. Guard your mouth. Guard what you see, hear, feel and touch. Guard those things.
Don't let sin enter. Instead, take those thoughts captive and put your eyes back on Jesus. Live your life by faith in the Son of God, not by your feeling and by your comforts. Trust that it's more comfortable in the long term to to follow Jesus instead of be cut up by sin. Verse 13, do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. So grace empowers you to be who you couldn't be on your own, and to do what you couldn't do on your own. Your members, it's talking about, biblical language, is simply your hands, your eyes, your ears, your feet, your legs. Your your hands used to be employed, let's say, into fits of rage, into anger. They used to be employed in a brawling.
Somebody say the wrong thing, and you just might swing at them. But then you gave your life to Jesus. Now you no longer present your members to what they used to be presented to, your hands. Instead, they're employed by the Holy Spirit. God, I present to you my hands.
Use them for works of righteousness instead of works in fits of rage. Lord God, use them to bless, and to build up, and to serve. I entrust them to Your Holy Spirit. I can't change it, but my eyes are on You. I know I've died to that old thing.
I see it by faith, so I'm entrusting this to You. Teach discipline me, guide me, Lord God, to live for you. My eyes used to be drawn to look at unholy things. But Lord, now that I'm in you, I'm dead to that. I don't have to choose it anymore.
I'm free from it, so I'm free to follow you with my whole heart. I present my members, my eyes to you. Lord God, today, as I wake up, keep my eyes holy, Lord God. And if any unthink clean unclean thing is presented before me, I'm gonna choose to look at you instead of that. Lord, I trust You, Jesus.
Father, I present my ears to You. I'm a son of God, Lord. I wanna hear Your voice more than I wanna hear the junk of the world. Lord God, I wanna hear what You say, not gossip and lean into those things. Lord, Holy Spirit, convict me, show me in those areas where I used to lean into the junk, Lord God, so that I walk away from that and lean into listening to you.
Because I wanna fill my body with what you say, your righteousness, your holiness. I'm in this for the long haul. You died, so I died with you, so I can live with you and experience your life in and through me. This isn't just pastor mumbo jumbo. This is the life of Christ for every Christian.
Being that all in is calling Jesus your Lord. Let's keep reading. Let's make it even more practical. What then, verse 15, are we to sin because we're not under the law but under grace? By no means Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the 1 whom you obey?
Either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness. So you used to be a "slave to sin", which leads to death. Now, what does it mean? You're a slave to obedience. It means you have the Holy Spirit inside of you who's speaking to you, and the way you live is by saying, yes, Lord, to his leading.
Let's let's we're gonna dive in in that slave thing. Thanks be to God that you were once slaves to sin, but have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching which you were committed, and have been set free from sin, have become slaves to righteousness. Okay. Obedient from the heart. Remember, you used to be in the flesh.
Your heart was bent towards sin, towards a proclivity, a leaning to always be dragged into sin, but now, when you gave your life to Jesus, you committed, you made him the Lord of your life, the Bible says he gave you a new heart. He circumcised, He cut away the sin nature, the junk. So your heart now is not, it's now obedient from the heart. It's bent, it has a proclivity to following God. It's always gonna be pulling you back to righteousness.
And having been set free from sin, verse 18, you have become slaves of righteousness. 19, I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you were once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members, your hands, your feet, your eyes, your ears, your mouth, your nose, as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. I'm gonna read this last paragraph, give you another analogy, and we'll be done. For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
So, that's a very important part. But what fruit were you getting at this time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God. The fruit you get leads to sanctification, and it's in eternal life.
For the wages or the payment, the result of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Okay. Did you catch that? Verse 20. You were slaves of sin and free in regard to righteousness, but now you have been set free from sin.
So it's it's like being a slave of sin and free to righteousness. It's like you had a chain around your heart and around your life before you gave your life to Jesus, And that chain would always pull you to sin, slave to sin. You were free from righteousness, but you were also free to it. That's why there's a lot of good people in the world. People that have learned, got emotionally healthy, you know, emotionally mature, maybe they have a high intelligence, a high IQ, and EQ, and all of those things, so so they choose good things.
They're free to it. They're free to choose right things. And in many areas of their life, they're choosing right things. But there is a chain around their heart in different areas where they were bent towards sin, whether that's greed, sexual impurity, you know, all the things we listed in the beginning, that's always pulling them back to the things that they're ashamed of, in different areas of their life, and they'll never be free, because it's only Jesus that can truly set you free. They might find some freedom in some area.
Maybe they were addicted to food, and food was their idol, and then they went on this journey and lost a bunch of weight, and it's awesome. But they just chained traded out 1 slave for another. In another area of their life, the chain of their heart pulled them back into shame and guilt and condemnation. Slaves to sin, choosing good things, free to do that, but a slave to this. When you gave your life to Jesus, Jesus, in a cry of victory on the cross, he said, it is finished.
He "broke the chain". When when Roman and Greek soldiers would scream out, it's because they took a sword and thrust it into their enemy, and there's no chance the enemy's coming back. In the same way, Jesus screams out, it is finished. What He did is He broke the chain of sin on your life. So that chain now is broken, and it's as if, because it's an analogy used so we can understand, a new chain has been wrapped around you, and is pulling you towards righteousness, because it's now your nature.
You're no longer a pig going back to the mud. You're a son. And when a son goes and plays in the mud constantly like a pig, it's weird. Don't be weird. So now, there's a chain that's pulling you to righteousness, but you're free from sin and free to it.
There's a lot of Christians that have a habit of choosing sin, and they're fighting against their new nature, and they're being pulled in both directions, and there's frustration that they don't understand why nothing's going right. It's because you're living outside of who you are. You're choosing junk, and it's cutting up your life. You don't realize that you have died to it. You don't have to choose every desire you have.
You're free from it. You used to, but now you don't have to. You can renew your mind. You can walk in that freedom. As a matter of fact, if you look down, you'll see the chains are broken.
Just step out of it. How? By faith. This revelation, hopefully it's not new, but if it's new to you, that you have died to sin, see the revelation, believe it, and receive it, and remain in it until you begin to see the fruit of your life, and don't get frustrated and quit in 2 weeks. But stand in it.
If you fall, fall forward. Your father's good. He's gonna pick you up. Go to a brother. Let him wash the dirt off your feet.
Remind you of who you are. Get back up and walk in freedom. For freedom, Christ has set you free. This is the resurrection life. That grace, that resurrection life that he gives you, it's not just so you can feel good.
It's so you can experience the life of Jesus now. His righteousness, his peace, and his joy that comes with living like this. What's the first thing you lose? Joy. Why you lose joy?
Because you're probably getting stressed out about something, so then peace is gone. Why are you getting stressed out about something? Probably because you took your eyes off of Jesus and put it on you, so you start doing unrighteous things. Remember that you're forgiven, you're washed clean, which is good, and that you're new in a son. You've been transformed.
You've died to that junk, and he'll remind you that you're righteous. When you understand who you are, then you start putting that into practice again, and you can instantaneously, even before that, step back into his peace because you're his son, and live from a place of joy. But if you're living like you haven't died to the old man, and there's really no change, the factory of sin is still there, and you're just a pig that's getting clean every now and then, there will be no lasting joy and peace because you're always walking in unrighteousness. And your conscience is like, ah. That's no fun.
Anybody ever lived that way? All most Christians have because most Christians didn't understand the full freedom that they got at salvation. And it took 10 years, 15 years, then it could all happen in a day. You could start living in this victory from day 1. I'm not saying you never sinned, I mean, the power of sin is very much still out there.
And in your weakness, you might think you're so strong that that pride gets you and you end up picking some stupid thing. What do you do? You fall forward, you got a good father. He picks you back up, spanks you on the butt a little bit, dusts you off and says, alright, let's keep walking, look like me, son. Amen?
Amen. Let me pray for you. I want the altar team to come forward. Father, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you for who you are.
I thank you for your death. Lord, that there's no resurrection without death. Lord, I pray for resurrection life, that we experience your resurrection life in every area of our life, that we're willing to repent, to change our mindset in any area we've been holding on to of the old, been holding on to a broke chain. Lord God, that we would let go, change our mindset to to the reality, to the truth of who you say that we are. Then invite you guys to stand.
Lord God, I thank you for your goodness. Father, I pray freedom. I pray that that struggles that people have, that they've been living on the struggle bus, that that that struggle bus is closed, is parked, it's it's gone, because the struggles just fall off, because they understand that they fell off 2000 years ago because they're in Christ, and Christ is in them. Lord, let this revelation, understanding produce fruit in their life. In Jesus' name.
I got 1 more thing for you, and we'll be done. I know already said that, but I'm a preacher. I get like 2 or 3 of those. A practical way that this works out. What does it look like to live like a dead man who's full of the life of Jesus?
*Obedience*. When you obey, you're saying, yes, Lord, to the spirit and not resurrection resurrecting an old man. When you disobey, you're looking like you used to. Obedience, yes, Lord, is proof that you live for another that's not yours that's not you. *Romans-8:28*, all things work together for good, For those that love God and are called according to his purpose.
Loving God looks like obedience. Father, I thank you for this amazing church. Bless them. Lord, and teach them how to walk in your life. We have the altar team up here.
If you need prayer, you need ministry, if you've been living in death, living like a pig even though you're a son, I'd encourage you to come forward and confess to a brother or sister up here. Let them pray for you. The Bible says, confess your faults to 1 another and pray for each other so you may be healed. Secret sin only grows more dirty. But when you let it out in the open, man, the light hits it, penetrates it, and transforms it from darkness to light, becomes your testimony of what you've been free from.
If you need healing in your body, this is a house of healing. Jesus is the healer. They'll lay hands on you, and God will heal you. If you need restoration of relationships, and God does that too. This is a ministry time.
Let the Lord minister to you. And if there's anybody in here as I've been talking, you realize you've never made Jesus the Lord of your life. What do I mean by that? Let me ask you this question. Do you know what it means to be born again?
If you don't know what it means to be born again, maybe you haven't made Jesus the Lord of your life. If you think, oh, it's baptism. No, it's not baptism. Being born again means that you believe Jesus died for your sin and rose again, and you don't just believe that it happened, but you believe it so much that you're willing to follow what he says instead of what you feel. You're willing to make him the Lord of your life.
When you do that, in that moment, he forgives you of all of your sin, past, present, future, and puts the Holy Spirit inside of you to lead you like a fatherly to son. That's called being born of the spirit, born again. If you need that, don't walk out of here today. Come forward. Any 1 of these people up here will lead you in that, but it's gonna take a step.
It's gonna take comfort. Some people are saying, well, can just do all of this on my own by myself. Yes. That's true, except if the Lord's asking you to take a step of faith, and steps of faith always require physical steps of obedience. So please, if God's moving on your heart, take a step.