Kill Sin Before It Kills You - Beth Vonderporten | LW2023

Kill Sin Before It Kills You - Beth Vonderporten | LW2023

The sermon by Beth Vonderporten delves into the biblical principles surrounding the ongoing war between the flesh and spirit, emphasizing the significance of combating sin in our lives. The pastor illustrates the gradual infliction of sin on our lives by drawing parallels to her personal experience of a medical condition diagnosis. 

She further underscores that our awareness and acceptance of the depth of our sinfulness accentuate our need for a Savior, thereby igniting our desire to be with Jesus. Referencing Romans 7 and 8, she reiterates the continuous battle between flesh and spirit and the necessity of consciously following the path of the spirit while resisting fleshly desires.

A significant portion of the sermon also explores the concept of discipline - underscoring spiritual wellness over physical well-being and urging listeners to invest time in God. As per Beth, understanding our sin's gravity may steer our desire towards the Lord, as discipline without desire would lead to drudgery. 

She further illustrates the essential role of the Holy Spirit in helping us battle sin, shedding light on the prospects of walking in the Spirit, leading to the emergence of love, joy, peace, and self-control, also known as the fruits of the Spirit. 

The talk rounds off by reinforcing the transient nature of our fight with sin and inspiring hope for a future in Heaven, where there's an absence of sin, and salvation through Jesus Christ is realized.

Transcript

Okay. Forgot about that. Yeah, actually do forget about it. Hey Mark. Hey, Mark.

Hey Mark, can you get another chair? Like, can I have a table chair?

Yeah.

Be it is to just rest in God and just know you more. I just thank you for the gift of community and what you're doing in northern Kentucky through our schools and all of our leaders, Lord. And thank you for Beth and Mark, for their hearts, for you, Lord, for their faithfulness to Dally for your heart, for middle school kids and your community. And just thank you, Lord, for how faithful they've been over the years, Lord, and how they just continue to live themselves down before you and just want to bring you glory. Lord, I thank you for just all the hard things that they've been through, Lord, and I'm sure there's so much that you've taught her and so much that she's just been able to grow in and be rooted in, Lord.

And we just can't wait to be encouraged. And so I just pray for her, Lord, that you would just give her courage and confidence and that it would be Your spirit speaking through her, Lord. And we just love you and that you turn hard things into really good things that we just get to grow and know you more and cling to you through storms where there will be no more brokenness and no more sorrow.

We love you and it's your name.

Well, thanks for coming. So when Rick first asked me to talk for this weekend and just like praying through that, I felt really confident in what God wanted me to talk about this weekend. It was really easy to come up with the scriptures for the scriptures to be on my heart, what God wanted me to talk about this weekend. So that's obviously if you're planning something and that happens, that's encouraging that the spirit confidently puts it on my heart, which is cool, but not but on Thursday night I went to the Er and then I ended up getting admitted to the hospital until kind of late last night. So I'm a little scatterbrained.

I was hoping to have some time Thursday night and last night to kind of go over what I was going to share today and all of that. I'm fine. I went to the hospital with I did not have a stroke, but like stroke like symptoms, but with that I'm having some communication problems. Not problems, but I'm a little scatterbrained. The thoughts I want to say aren't coming out super clearly sometimes, so I'm praying that the spirit takes over and that it's not an issue and I speak super clearly and it's not chaotic in scattered brains like it is in my brain.

So just kind of prefacing if I'm a little scattered brained or I need to take a second, that is why. But we're going to jump in. So if you guys want to turn to Romans seven.

I do want to be really clear in prefacing before I share anything today that I have not in any capacity perfected anything that I'm going to talk about today. And I don't want to come off like I have. Obviously we're going to be talking about sin and things with that. And I want to be very transparent that I'm not perfect. You guys know I'm not perfect.

But I don't want to come off like I'm speaking like I am, but just speaking from what the Lord's on my heart. So Romans seven, starting in verse 14. This probably is familiar scripture to you, but I'll read it. I have NIV, sorry, break. But I'll start in verse 14.

We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good as it is. It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in 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 sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

For in my inner being, I delight in God's law. But I see another law at work in me waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law at sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death. Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in simple nature enslaved to the law of sin.

So we're going to be talking about this morning, that verse 22, I'm sorry, 23. But I see another law at work in me waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. So we're going to be talking about just the war that's being waged, that's actively being waged for our soul versus the flesh and the spirit. So backstory in the last six ish months, I feel like God has really been teaching me a ton about sin. A ton about sin.

And yeah, just that war that's being waged. So backstory back in January, I think it was. I've been having ongoing pain for years. Very slowly, progressive pain. It wasn't like I woke up one day in a lot of pain.

Honestly, as back as I can remember, like, my freshman year of college, I started having pain, but it was just really slowly, progressive, really slowly, slowly, slowly getting a little worse, little worse, a little worse. And then finally, in January, I was like, okay, probably it's getting pretty bad. Like, I probably need to go to the doctor and get this checked out and stop ignoring it. And so I went to Orthopenty. I was like, oh, I probably have, like, bad posture, scoliosis or something.

That's all I thought it was. And the doctor was like, no, that's not normal. You should probably get an MRI. And I almost didn't go to the MRI. I was like, no, those are expensive.

I just have bad posture. I don't need to get an MRI. I don't want to pay for that, whatever. And I remember my mom was like, Beth, go get the MRI. Don't be stupid.

And I was like, okay. So I went and got the MRI, and the doctor called me back, and I felt like a scene from a movie. Like, he, like, sits down. He was like, I have some really hard news I have to share with you. And I'm like, do I have cancer or something?

What is going on? And he said all these words that didn't make sense to me, and all basically, I got from that conversation. Mark couldn't be with me that day was a mass is in my spinal cord, and I needed to meet with a neurosurgeon. And I was like, okay, so I meet with a neurosurgeon. He runs more tests, more scans, more this, more that.

And he finally sits me out again and is able to explain more clearly, like, hey, you were born with this malformation. Basically, the lower part of my brain, it was falling out of my skull. And I was like, okay, cool. He was like, it's common. It's not that abnormal.

People have this sometimes. It's not common. It's rare, but it's not, like, unheard of. And I was like, okay. He was like, the problem is yours.

Your brain falling out of your skull is blocking your spinal cord fluid, and you have 100% blockage of your spinal cord fluid. And he was like, that's how your brain communicates with the rest of your body is through your spinal cord, through it, through your spine. I'm like, okay, and there's this massive mass inside your spinal cord. So the brain part wasn't like the brain skull thing wasn't really, like, that big of a problem, but it was causing this mass to form inside my spinal cord, and it was huge, and it was, like, starting to compress my spinal cord and grow. And he explained it, and he's like, you've had this for years.

And you just didn't know it. And over time, it slowly gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and you're seeing the symptoms of it in your life. And I was like, Cool, that's awesome, but sounds a lot like sin, right? Like, I have this thing living inside of me that's slowly, over time, getting a little bigger. A little bigger and a little bigger and getting a little worse and getting a little worse and a little worse.

And I can't see it. I don't know what's there. It's not like I have a lump, I can't see it, but I'm seeing the symptoms of it in my life. And the symptoms used to just be a little bit of pain. And then over years, I've ignored this pain for years and years and years, never took care of it.

And now it's blown up into, I have nerve damage and I'm dropping stuff and all these crazy symptoms are happening to my body. All these crazy neurological things are happening to my body because I had this problem that I was ignoring that now it's a big problem. And so he was like, you have to have surgery. You have to have surgery pretty immediately. We got to take care of this.

He was very transparent, like, you will be paralyzed if you don't take care of this. This will paralyze you if you don't take care of it immediately or worse. And to be honest, I heard that from my doctor and I went home and I felt all of those feelings. I was scared, I was worried, but the biggest thing was that I just didn't want to deal with it. I remember going to Mark and being like, I wish I just never went to the doctor.

I wish I just never went. I just wish I was living ignorantly bliss to what was going on inside my body because I don't want to deal with it because it's an inconvenience. I don't want to give up my summer. I don't want to potentially not go to summer camp. I don't want to be in pain and walk through this hard thing.

I want to be ignorantly bliss to what's going on inside of me, which obviously that would be stupid of me. Obviously, even if I wanted that, my family was not going to let that happen. Obviously I had to move forward with surgery. I had to move forward with treatment. But that's what we do with sin because it's ugly and hard and an inconvenience.

We just want to act like we don't know about it. We just kind of want to act like we don't have that diagnosis. We kind of just want to ignore the symptoms of sin in our life because we know dealing with it is heavy and ugly and hard and we just want to live ignorantly bliss to this disease that is taking control of our body. And you know what the result of that is? If I lived ignorantly bliss to this disease that was taking control of my body.

I was going to be paralyzed or worse. But when we live ignorantly bliss to sin, it's death.

We want to act like there's not a war being waged inside of our soul. But there is. I'll make this reference several times. But if you're a soldier in battle and you don't know that you're in the middle of a battle, you're losing the battle, right? If we are not aware that there is a war going on, we are losing.

If we're not aware that sin is killing us, that it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it's taking control of us, if we're not aware that's going on, if we're not aware of that battle, it's going to kill us.

In that moment when I got that diagnosis and everything was going on and was trying to navigate, okay, how am I going to take this much time off work? How am I going to do this? What is this going to look like? How is Mark going to take that much time off work to stay home with me? All the things in the moment and just I've never heard of any of these crazy sirengomyelia.

I've never heard of any of these things before. How am I supposed to navigate this in the moment? I felt like that was my biggest problem. Like walking through that. This is my biggest problem.

This is the biggest thing in my life right now and that's not my biggest problem. Think about in your life right now. Take a second to reflect and think what's the biggest problem in your life right now? Is it a marriage problem or a relationship problem? Is it maybe you're struggling with singleness.

Maybe it's conflict with a co leader. Maybe it's trauma from childhood that you're bringing back up. Maybe it's problems with your family. Maybe it's conflict with a roommate. Think of what you're thinking of is your biggest.

Maybe you lost your job. Or maybe you're trying to find a new job. Maybe you don't know what to major. Maybe you're having an early 20 life crisis. Whatever it is, think of the thing that right now in your life you're deeming as your biggest problem.

And for me in that it was that diagnosis, it's not our biggest problem. It's not our biggest problem because that problem is not killing you. That problem is not waging war against your soul. That problem is not affecting your eternity. Our biggest problem is sin.

Our biggest problem is sin. And we let the momentary problems of our day to day life distract us from what our biggest problem truly is. Because our biggest problem is our sin problem. But we let these momentary things distract us from that. And I'm not at all saying those things aren't hard to walk through.

Obviously we know trials come. I'm not saying that those things aren't valid and hard but they're not our biggest problem. And I think what we often do is we make them our biggest problem and it distracts us from what truly is our biggest problem. And that's what Satan wants. Satan wants us to be distracted.

Satan wants us to be blinded. Satan wants us to think that our momentary trials and problems, satan wants us to think, yeah, that is my biggest problem, because it distracts us from this disease inside of our hearts that's actually killing us.

He wants us to not be aware that there's a battle going on. He wants us to be blinded. He wants us to be distracted. He wants us to not be aware that there's a battle going on. Because if you don't know that there's a battle going on, you're losing the battle.

Right? That's where the title of today comes from. Be Killing Sin or it will be killing you. If you're not combating your biggest problem and fighting back against your biggest problem, it's going to be winning. Sin is going to be winning.

Be killing sin or it'll be killing you. If you want to turn to Hebrews twelve, I'm just going to read the first few verses of Hebrews twelve, one through three.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders in the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith for the joy set before Him. He endured the cross, scorning its shame, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary in this heart. I just want to focus on that first verse. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that's so easily entangled.

Will someone with an ESB read that part? I think it's different. It's worded differently than throw off. I believe someone had an ESB open. I don't yeah, we read that verse.

First verse, yeah. Let us also lay aside every weight in sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. So the sin that clings so closely or the sin that so easily entangles. I think that we forget that that's how sin works. I think we forget that that's how sin works, that it easily entangles, it easily distracts us, and that we have to be actively throwing it off.

I love that in that scripture he's using a present tense verb. We're actively throwing it off. When I was first diagnosed, I spent hours, an unhealthy amount hours researching, figuring out, okay, what is this thing? What are these diseases that I'm diagnosed with? What are they?

How do they work? How are they affecting my body? How are they going to affect my body for the rest of my life, what's the surgery? What's it going to entail? How long do I have to be on bed rest for?

How long do I have to be in the hospital for? I'm spending hours and hours and hours researching and trying to find ways to combat it, which to an extent that's not stupid, right? Like, I probably should figure out what's going on. But that's what we do with our momentary problems. We fixate on them, and we spend our time and our energy worrying and stressing about that thing that we're walking through.

And again, it distracts us from the real problem. Obviously, my physical health was at risk, so I was going to not be stupid. I was going to be wise and taking care of my physical health. But what was I doing for my spiritual health? Think about what my life would have looked like if I had spent if I do spend hours a day the way I was spending hours researching and figuring out and what does this look like?

What is this? What is this? What if I spent hours a day focusing on my spiritual health instead of my physical health? What if we prioritized our spiritual health over our physical bodies, our physical life? What would our life look like then?

Because reality is, I could have spent hours researching this or that and trying to figure out a plan, but that wasn't going to affect my soul. That wasn't going to affect my eternity. But what if I had spent hours on something that would what if I had spent hours focusing on my spiritual health, saturating in Scripture, equipping myself for the spiritual battle that's waging war against my soul? Now, that would benefit me. Now that would actually make a difference in my life.

So in that I feel like God I really started kind of thinking and praying through, and I feel like God was really putting on my heart in this season. Just like our physical health, well being versus spiritual and how we just have our priorities so out of align. I'm not saying going to the gym is a bad thing. I'm not saying shopping for clothes is a bad thing or putting makeup on is a bad thing. I'm not saying that at all.

But how many hours a day do you spend tending to your physical body compared to how many hours a day are you spending tending to your spiritual body, your spiritual health? Are you spending ten minutes in the morning with Jesus and then 90 minutes going to the gym and doing your hair and your makeup and this and that and figure out clothes to wear? Again, I'm not saying they're bad, but when you look at your minutes in a day and how you're spending them, it kind of shows you where your priorities are, kind of shows you what health are you prioritizing? Are you prioritizing your physical health or your physical life or are you prioritizing your spiritual health because again, there's a war being waged against your soul and ten minutes with God in the morning is not enough to fight that battle. That is not going to be enough.

You will lose. If your time with the Lord and your time preparing to combat the battle that is going on inside your soul is restricted to a 1015 minutes quiet time in the morning, you are going to lose. That's the reality. If a soldier spent 1015 minutes training a day and then carried on their day doing this or that for the rest of the day, they're not going to be a very good soldier. They're going to lose.

They're going to be the puny ones. But that's what we're doing. That's what we do. So often we constrict our time with the Lord to this just little 15 minutes quiet time. Do that, have your quiet time, but that's not enough.

How are you tending to your physical body versus your spiritual health? How are you tending to your physical health versus your spiritual health? Again, taking care of your physical health is good. You should do that. I think that's honoring to the word I'm not thinking of that.

It's not at all. We should take care of ourselves, but which one are we prioritizing more? And then I think if we dig deeper into that, it's like, okay, well, why do I prioritize my physical health well being more than my spiritual health well being? Why do I care more about what clothes I wear, what I look like? Or even if you go deeper into how just my life is portrayed to other people or on social media or whatever.

And I think if you dig deep, it's like, oh, because I care what other people think of me. Other people can't look at me on the surface and know that my spiritual health is horrible or it's bad or it's damaged or it's tainted or I'm sick, but they can look at my physical health and know what's going on. So we prioritize the things that people see, not what the unseen is. And again, I don't claim to do any of that perfectly by any means. This is just what God, I feel like has been honing in and teaching on teaching me in the last little bit.

Our sin is killing us. Our sin is a lot bigger of a problem than we make it out to be. And because it's ugly and it's heavy and it's hard, we try to live ignorantly bliss. And we can't be doing that. We can't be doing that because it's wreaking havoc on our life and eventually catches up and it boils over and other things.

And that's what Satan wants. He wants you to be content with he just wants you to be content. Satan wants you to be content. Satan wants you to be content with your spiritual life being. It's okay.

Satan wants you to be content with your life looking and being just good enough. As long as my lifestyle looks good, as long as I'm still leading, I still live with Christians, they're still doing contact work. As long know externally my life looks good and I'm fine. That's what Satan wants you to think. Satan wants you to live like that.

Satan wants you to live like as long as things look know, I don't really have to dig deep under the surface to what's going on inside my soul. Satan wants you to think that your sin is just not that bad. Satan wants you to compare yourself to other 22 year olds your age or partying and doing this or that, or even compare yourself to other Christians your age who aren't truly doing discipleship and ministry. Satan wants you to compare your life to everybody around you and make you think that like, oh, I'm good compared to other people or compared to kids in other ministries or compared know this or that, I'm good enough. That's what Satan wants.

He wants you to be distracted. He doesn't want you to know how sin so easily entangles and how sin so easily clings to you. He doesn't want you to know about that battle that's going on because he knows that if you're distracted by it and you don't think it's that big of a deal, then you're not going to combat it and then it can kill you. He wants you to be distracted because if you're not killing sin, it's killing you. So he wants you to not have the urgency to kill sin.

He wants you to think it's not that big of a deal, so you're not actively trying to kill it because that's how he works. He's sneaky like that and that blindness and that ignorance to the severity into the magnitude of our sin then pours over into our abiding. So that's kind of where we'll switch kind of to now is obviously as Christians, this is a topic of conversation amongst leadership, amongst our Bible studies, amongst our accountability partners. As Christians, we want to be disciplined, we want to abide, we want to be with the Lord. I don't need to convince anybody in this room that we have to abide, we have to be with the Lord.

But why do so many of us struggle with discipline? This is not an ad at my Bible study because I'm sure a lot of Bible studies have this conversation, myself included. But I feel like every week we're like struggling with discipline or I need prayers for discipline, with accountability, with Bible studies, with whatever. And if you're not having that conversation, you probably shouldn't be having that conversation because I think if we're being honest, we all are probably struggling with discipline, with being with the Lord. So why do we struggle?

Hopefully you've all read Story of God. If you've never read Story of God, you should absolutely read story of God. It's my favorite Bible study tool with girls and just for my own time with Jesus. So highly, highly, highly recommend. But in the Disciplines week of Story of God, there's a quote that stuck with me for years.

I don't know if it's Rick or the story from life, people who wrote it or whatever or that quote, but it says, discipline without desire is drudgery. Discipline without desire is drudgery. And, yeah, you can probably resonate with that. Yeah. When I don't have the desire to be disciplined, it feels like a chore.

It feels drudgerous. Feels like something I have to check off a box or it feels like I got to make sure I got to do that today or waking up early to do it feels like drudgery, like it feels like a sacrifice. Discipline without desire is drudgery. So where does desire to spend time with the Lord come from? If discipline without desire is drudgery, then how do I desire to be with the Lord more?

And your initial thought might be like, oh, we got to fall more in love with Jesus. Yes, we do have to fall more in love with Jesus, but how do we do that? We have to understand the depth of our sin. We have to understand the depth and the magnitude of our sin because that is what will fuel our desire to be with Jesus. When we understand the depth and the magnitude of our sin, we see how badly we need a Savior, and that fuels our desire to be with Him.

When I know how ugly and how sinful I am, how ugly and sinful my flesh is, that fuels my desire to be with Jesus, because I'm like, oh, my gosh, I need you so badly. I can't do this on my own. What a wretched man I am. What a wretched woman I am. I can't do this on my own.

But I think for me, at least for my Bible study, the conversation that's taken place over the years, I think we lose that peace. I think that we don't have enough conversations about the magnitude of sin, and we don't have enough conversations about how our sin is blinding us because it's ugly and it's heavy and we don't want to deal with it. So we've been under the rug. We are such a culture that hates ugly, hard things and conflict, but we keep doing that, and we are losing sight of the magnitude and the depth of our sin, and that's overflowing into our discipline and our time with the Lord. We have to understand the depth and the magnitude of our sin.

Go ahead and open to Luke 17. It's going to be in starting in verse 41, jesus answered him. Simon, I have something to tell you. Tell me, teacher. He said two people owed money to a certain money lender.

One owed him 500 Danari and the other 50. Neither of. Them had the money to pay him back. So he forgave both debts. Now, which of them will love him more?

Simon replied, Well, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven. You have judged correctly, Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, do you see this woman? I came into your house, you did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet.

You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little. Whoever has been forgiven little loves little. Forgiven much loves much forgiven little loves little.

If you minimize your sin down to this little problem, that's not that big of a deal. If your understanding of the depth of your sin is that your sin isn't that big of a deal because you ignore it and you sweep it under the rug and you just kind of act like it's not there, then you're going to love little, you're going to see a little need for Jesus. You're going to love Jesus little, and you're going to minimize the magnitude of the cross. If your sin is not that big of a deal in your eyes, then the cross isn't that big of a deal in your eyes. And I think this is important to say.

I know that in your heart or hearts what you believe. If someone asks you how big of a problem is sin? You're going to respond, Sin is the biggest problem. You know the right answer. But I more mean like in the day to day life.

In your day to day life, if sin is not that big of a problem, if it's not something that you are praying about and thinking about and combating and it's kind of just this thing that day to day gets swept under the rug because it's ugly and you don't want to deal with it. When you minimize sin down, then you're minimizing the cross. However big of a deal sin is to you is how big of a deal the cross is to you. So if day to day sin is not that big of a deal to you, then day to day the cross is also not that big of a deal to you. You're living like that.

So how do we have a better understanding for the depth of sin in a healthy way? Because obviously that can get unhealthy really quickly. How do we have a better understanding for the depth of our sin so that it fuels our desire to be with Jesus? Right? Because we talk so much about being with Jesus, abiding with Jesus, being with the Lord, being with our Father.

We know that we need that. We know that we have to be with the Lord and we have to be with Him. That overflows into everything we do if we want to be good missionaries, obviously it starts with we have to be with the Lord and sit with the Lord. So how do we, in a healthy way, have a better understanding for the depths of our sin so that it fuels that desire to be disciplined and be with the Lord? Go ahead and turn to Romans 87, verse one.

Obviously I could read all of Romans eight I probably could read all of Romans to get to this. But we're just going to start with the first whole verses of Romans eight. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh. God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.

And so he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the flesh have their mindset on what the flesh desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have the mindset on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God.

It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but are in the realm of the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God lives in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.

And if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your immortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you. So it's about flesh versus spirit. It's not as much our lives are no longer about resisting sin. They're not as much about resisting sin as they are about walking in the Spirit. We'll get into Galatians Five in a moment, but Galatians Five talks about how the flesh and the Spirit are in conflict with each other.

That Romans seven that we read earlier talks about how they're waging war against each other. The flesh and the Spirit are in conflict. It is either the flesh or the spirit. There is not a middle ground. We have to be daily walking in the spirit.

We have to put off our flesh and walk in the Spirit. The Spirit is what gives us the ability to have a healthy understanding of our sin problems. When you're walking in the flesh, you're calloused to your sin. You're walking in your flesh, you're not sensitive and aware of your sin problem. Again.

That's what Satan wants. Satan desperately wants us to be calloused to our sin problem. So our flesh will do like one of two things. It's either going when we're walking in the flesh, we either ignore our sin and we become callous to our sin and we sweep it under the rug and we act like it's not that big of a deal and we become really, really numb to it and we're not aware of it. Or when we're in the flesh, we like sulk in our sin and we get shameful in our sin, which that is not from the Lord.

Shame is not from the Lord. When you are sitting in your sin or trying to understand the magnitude of your sin and you're feeling those feelings like shame, that is your red flag. That that is not from the Lord, that is not from the Spirit. Shame is not from the Spirit. When you're sulking and sitting and finding your worth and your identity and shame and sin, that is not from the Spirit.

That battle has been won and that is not the way that the Lord wants you to feel in it because shame puts your eye back on you. Shame makes it about me. Me. Shame makes it about how I fall short. Shame makes it takes away from the battle that's already been won.

But when we're walking in the Spirit and we are praying and asking God to reveal our sin and we're walking in the Spirit and we're thinking about the depth and the magnitude of our sin, that will lead to conviction, that healthy feeling. The Spirit leads to conviction, which then leads to repentance, which puts our eyes back on Jesus, not on ourselves. Because when we think about sin or when we recognize our sin or we're convicted about our sin, we just take it to the cross. We repent, we look to Jesus and we move on. We don't sit and we don't talk.

We don't find shame in it because that's not from the Lord. That's not what the Lord wants. The Lord wants us to be aware of our sins when we're walking in the Spirit, we can, but he wants us to repent and turn to Him. The spirit leads to freedom. The Spirit leads to conviction and repentance, which leads to freedom.

Your flesh does not.

But we can't act like it's not a condition that we're still dealing with until we go home. It is a battle that we will fight and we can't stop. We can't put our blinders on, we can't put our weapons down, we can't turn a blind eye, because if we're not constantly in the battle, if we're not constantly ready to combat, then sin will be killing us. But we also have to remind ourselves that it's the Spirit, the Spirit that fights, the Spirit that does it. Because Jesus took care of our sin problem on the cross.

It's not something we have to deal with forever, because Jesus took care of our sin problem on the cross. And thank God jesus took care of our sin problem on the cross. Thank God that we don't have to do this alone. Thank God we don't have to fix it on our own. All we have to do is walk in the Spirit.

It's not as much about resisting sin and fighting sin as it is about I'm going to choose to walk in the spirit. The flesh and the spirit is one or the other. It's not the middle. And I think that that is where things get scary. And for me personally, that's where things have gotten scary.

But I think in our Christian community, that's where things get scary is we're really good at making our lives look like we're walking in the spirit. We're really good at making our life look like everything's fine and dandy. We don't have this big lifestyle sin problem or this big thing that really makes it really obvious. We're really good at living in the middle. And really we're walking in our flesh and really we're doing things out of our own strength.

And really this is the way we're walking. But on the surface, it might look like we're walking in the spirit and that's great. And that's where things get really scary because there is no middle ground. If you are not actively choosing and fighting to walk in the Spirit, then you are walking in the flesh. And as young life leaders or whatever, we are now navigators leaders, we can operate like a machine.

Like, I could go I could probably go a month and go to school and love kids and go to campaigners and give this awesome listen and run a hangout and do all these things. And I can go to leadership and I can go to Bible study and we can operate like a machine and we can do all of those things out of our flesh. And I think if you're honest, you have at some point in time, it's really, really easy to get in the grind of life and the busyness of life, and I'm still doing all the right things. Nobody knows I'm struggling. Nobody knows that my spiritual health is not good.

Nobody knows what's going on inside my soul, because on the surface, I look like the world's best young wrestlers leader. On the surface, I'm hanging out with kids, I'm coaching, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. There's all this big sin problem in my life that's wreaking havoc. That's not happening on the surface. Looks like I'm killing it.

But you know your heart. If you are not actively choosing to walk in the spirit, then you are walking in the flesh. If you are not actively fighting your sins, your sin is killing you. And I just think that's where it gets really scary for us because we know we have been so in a good way, trained and equipped, that we know what to say. We know how to do it.

We know how to live the life. We know how to do the machine it's machine. We know how to do it. You can do it out of your own strength for a little while. You can make that work.

We know it doesn't work right? That's where it gets scary. There is no middle ground between the flesh and the spirit. They are in conflict, they are in war. You can't live in the middle.

If you are not actively choosing to walk in the spirit, then you are choosing the flesh, whether it looks like it by glancing at your life or not. If you are not actively choosing in this moment, I'm going to step into the spirit and walk in the spirit, then you are choosing the flesh.

And then that's where sin really creeps in. When we are more concerned about what our life looks like than what's actually than actually walking in the spirit, that is when things really creep in. That's when pride creeps in. I think pride is a really big issue, myself included. I think pride is a really big issue within our community and just amongst Christians.

I think that we think that as long as our life looks good, as long as other people think I'm doing a good job, when I compare myself to other people or to other leaders or like I said, like other people your age, we think that we're fine and that's when that pride problem really creeps in. But you have to remind yourself, I'm not going to compare. The flesh does that. The flesh compares to other people. The flesh fuels your pride but the spirit humbles you.

The spirit compares you to Jesus. And when you compare yourself to Jesus you're like, man, I suck, not suck. Like I'm a sulk in it. And you know, not that. But when we're walking in the Spirit and we compare ourselves to Jesus, it humbles us of I just want to look more like Jesus.

I don't want to fight to make my life look one way or another. I just want to look more like Jesus. The spirit leads us to want to look more like Jesus. The Spirit leads us to want to fall more in love with Jesus. The Spirit brings us back to the Father and puts our eyes there.

The Spirit helps us focus on our spiritual well being. But the flesh is the contrary, the flesh fuels our pride. The flesh is when we as long as other people think, I'm fine, it's fine. The flesh doesn't lead you to want to look more like Jesus. Your flesh leads you to want to just look good enough.

Good enough that people don't ask questions, good enough that people aren't concerned about you, good enough that you get by, but it's killing him. It's wreaking havoc in your life, your sin problem, our sin problem, my sin problem, when we get distracted by it, is wreaking havoc in our life. So to recap, we want to be disciplined. We want to be Christians who are disciplined. We want to be people who be with the Lord.

We know that's important. We all know John 15. We all know we have to remain connected to the vine. Why is it drudgery? Why does sometimes being disciplined feel like drudgery?

It's because of our blindness and our lack of understanding of the depth of our sins. We are blind to the magnitude and the depth of our sin problem. How do we help in a healthy way, have a better understanding of our sin problems? It all comes back to walking in the spirit. If we are not in the Spirit, we will have a skewed view of sin and the magnitude of sin.

When we're in the Spirit, then ask God to help us with our sin. So obviously we have the sin problem, the magnitude of sin, but then we have sins in our daily life that we're struggling with. When we're in the Spirit, we can ask God, god, please reveal to me what sin is the log in my eye, what Rick was saying. What sin do you need me to address? What sin am I being blinded by?

But when we're not walking in the spirit, we are not going to be in tune with that. We are not going to see that we're not going to be aware of the log in our own eye. So my encouragement to you this weekend is to sit in that, to walk in the spirit, say, God, I want to fight my flesh. I want to walk in the spirit. But in that, God help me.

What cinema? Is it idols? Is it pride? Probably pride for every single one of us in some capacity. Is it jealousy?

What is it? Really dig deep this weekend. Get the log out of your eye. Really dig deep this weekend by walking in the spirit and in the spirit. Ask God to help you with your sin problem.

Turn to Galatians five, scripture we're going to read.

Yeah.

Starting in verse 13.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, serve one another. Humbly in love for the entire laws fulfilled. In keeping this one command, love your neighbor as yourself.

If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you'll be destroyed by each other. So I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Again, reiterating, it's not about resisting sin. It is about walking in the spirit, throwing off the flesh and walking the Spirit. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious sexual morality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish, ambition, dissensions, factions and envies, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit, singular fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. I know I'm running out of time, so I'm going to try to go through this last part quickly. The spirit is one spirit.

It is one spirit with many characteristics love, joy, peace, forbearance kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. When we are walking in the Spirit, we have all of those fruit and abundance. God does not pick and choose which ones he's going to give us and which ones not. So if you catch yourself saying things like, man, I'm just really struggling with patience, I need prayer for patience with this one person, or I'm really struggling to find joy, I need prayer to find joy. Shift that way of thinking of that's not the problem.

The problem isn't that you need more patience or need more joy. The problem is that you're walking in the flesh and that is why you are lacking that thing. So instead, shift to hey, I need prayer to throw off my flesh and walk in the Spirit, because I'm lacking patience, I'm lacking joy, and that is my red flag as, oh, I'm trying to go in the middle because maybe out of my own flesh it looks like I have love, joy, peace, right? Maybe on my own flesh I can pretend like I have those things, I can do that on my own strength. But if I'm lacking patience or I'm lacking this or I'm lacking that, that is a red flag that you are walking in the flesh.

Because the Spirit does not pick and choose which fruit characteristics it's going to give you, he gives them to us all in abundance. So again, it's not about as much about resisting sin as it is about walking in the Spirit. It all boils down to, are you going to wake up today and choose the spirit or choose the flesh? And if you're not actively choosing, if you're not actively combating, sin is winning. Flesh is winning.

If you are not fighting your sin, your sin is killing you. I have other things, but read John 15 this weekend. Be real with your accountability partners. Have real conversations with your accountability partners. Don't let yourself be calloused.

Know the spirit's promptings. Learn to lean into the spirit's promptings.

But it all comes back to Jesus. It all comes back, thank God, that our biggest problem has been taken care of. Let our struggle and our fight with sin and this battle that we have to fight with sin, let that fuel our hope in heaven for the day that we don't have to fight this anymore because it's so temporary. Our life here is so temporary and our battle with sin here is going to be so temporary. Let when you get defeated and you're like, gosh, this sucks.

This is hard. Let it fuel your desire to be in heaven, to be with Jesus, where sin won't be a problem for us anymore. I had more, but I ran out of time. So this is what I get for you. I'm not running through my stuff, but guess it was my fault.

All right, well, someone pray, close this out and then y'all can go to the next one. Actually, I'll pray. Hey. God, thank you so much for Jesus. Thank you so much for the cross.

Thank you so much that you took care of our biggest problem for us on the cross and that it's not our problem to fight anymore. We just have to walk in the Spirit and you do the work for us. Lord. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for Jesus.

Thank you for Jesus. Thank you that because of Jesus, we have the tools to combat. Thank you. That because of Jesus. We have the spirit.

God, thank you that you love us enough, that you don't leave us high and dry. You give us the tools. You give us the armor of God. You give us all the things that we need to fight the battle here on earth. But God, thank you for heaven.

Thank you for the hope in heaven. Thank you that this fight will be temporary and that one day we don't have to do it anymore. But God, we don't ever have to do it out of our own strength. We can do it because you give us what we need. We love you.

We're so thankful for Jesus. We're so thankful for the forgiveness we've been given of our sins. We're so thankful, so thankful for the cross. Lord. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for the cross. We love you so much. And to your name pray. Amen.

Sorry. I love.