Let’s all stand for the reading of the Bible. Romans chapter eight verses one through eight.
See, Jack, we’ve been here forever.
We’re going to be here for another few more weeks that after Easter, I should say Romans chapter eight, I’ll begin in verse one.
If you’ll pick it up in the even numbered verses.
We’re looking at this ongoing series in this chapter titled, The Declaration of Dependence. That is dependence upon God.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit Jesus, oh for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh.
My flesh is weak. Your flesh is weak but the law, it’s perfect.
We couldn’t, we couldn’t get it together.
God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sin, sinful flesh on account of sin.
He condemned sin in the flesh.
Verse five.
For those who live according to the flesh, set anchor, fix their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit hard.
Yeah. Right.
Because the carnal mind, the earthly mind is enmity against God.
For it is not subject to the law of God.
Nor indeed can be can father, we pray for your Holy Spirit.
We trust we’ll be free and open to move in this place today because we have our Bibles open.
We seek to exult the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we desire to be ever increasing closer, more like Jesus kind of disciples.
So father, we pray now for your presence and for the movement of your spirit in Jesus name and all God’s people said, amen.
You may be seated church. So we’ve been looking at this declaration, that’s what’s really going on in Romans chapter eight.
As you uh have heard before, the high mark of this chapter is considered to be one of the greatest uh authorship of, of all scripture.
The chapter contains within it doctrinal realities and truths that are unparalleled in scripture.
The amazing thing about Romans chapter eight is that it takes the incredible and awesome holiness of God’s word and of God’s law, the Old Testament and it mates it perfectly with absolute harmony with what we call the gospel or the announcement that Jesus Christ has come and died on a cross and rose again from the dead to accomplish what to cause all of the righteous statements of the Old Testament to not be fulfilled in little lambs or sheeps or doves or bulls or offerings of animals, nor by the performance of Man Moses couldn’t meet up to the 10 commandments.
Uh Nobody could meet up to the demands of the commandments. They’re holy. And God made that very clear.
He said for in the day that you break these laws, you must have an offering of blood.
And the Old Testament talked to us about that.
There would be eventually one who would come that would take away our sins.
You see when you offered up an animal in the Old Testament economy, that blood was um like how you buy something today.
If you buy something on credit, you don’t have the money to buy it, but you buy it and you, you sign an agreement that you’re going to pay for it in the future.
When Jesus went to the cross, he was the payment for what God had promised early on.
Did you get that early on? God said use animal blood right now.
It will cover over, not take away cover over the sin issue until the payment comes.
And when the payment comes, you’ll know because I’ve told you about Him.
He will die for the sins of the world.
And that’s why we love uh Psalm 22 Isaiah 52 53 54 many other portions of the scripture.
And so we have this tremendous gospel purchase that’s for us to enjoy and to have so long as we come understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of what God requires for us to enter heaven.
Did you know that? I don’t know if you’re here for the first time today.
But let me be the first one to tell you you’re a sinner. I’m a sinner.
We may live a moral life. We may live a life that is better than our neighbor.
But the reality is we have the same imagination issues, the same wanderings of the mind, the fleshly appetites are always screaming to be satisfied.
But for the believer, for those of you here, I, I trust uh there’s a, there’s a war that’s going on within us and that is to live for God and the flesh regarding that is weak, the flesh cannot keep up with the demands of the law.
But what God does is He puts his Holy Spirit in our hearts.
It’s called being born again and we become a new creation and I’ll run through this very fast.
The first thing we saw is that regarding our declaration of dependence is based upon the fact that there’s no longer anything bound to us in the fact that we now have absolute freedom as Christians, freedom, freedom from sin, not freedom to sin.
I’m a Christian now I can go do whatever I want. No, no, no. You’re a Christian now.
You get to do what God wants you to do. It’s a big difference.
A lot of people like to use Christianity for a cloak to do stuff and then say, well, I’ll have God forgive me.
Well, that’s anti nos, it’s a false, it’s a cult type thinking and that’s not true.
What God does is way better than that. Thank God. Hallelujah. Right.
We have a gospel that comes inside of us and changes the way that we think it changes the way that we live.
And then second we saw that there’s an absolute condemnation of sin itself that when Jesus went to the cross, sin was condemned.
Now, that’s, that’s great to hear because all of our lives sin is what condemned us, right?
We had guilt and shame and the weight of it all upon our shoulders.
But when Christ came and died in our place and we wake up to that reality.
I know that we’re here in the 21st century right now.
Jesus died 21 centuries ago, but maybe you’re hearing it for the first time, 2000 years ago.
When he died for you, he died on the cross with literally you on his mind.
Only God can do that. No human could do that. God did that.
And when he did that, he took your sin and mine and Jesus took that which condemns us.
I forgive me in advance. When I say this, he grabbed it by the throat and he nailed it to his cross.
And by doing so, Jesus condemned sin so that no longer has power over our lives as believers.
He sets us free and it’s glorious. And so church here’s where we go. We dive in. Now.
The third argument is this, the Christian’s declaration of dependence is this that there’s a perfect union now that we have with Christ.
And last time we just barely touched on it together.
But it’s, it’s found in verses four and five that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh.
But according to the spirit that God’s word is fulfilled in the life of the true follower of Christ, the world.
Today. America today needs to see what a real Christian is all about.
A real Christian is all about loving, not only others but even our enemies.
A real Christian is salt and light in the community.
A real Christian wants to step up and step out to protect the innocent, to help those that have no power to help themselves.
The real Christian and listen, you pick the, you pick the good work, but it’s preempted by this.
The real Christian. The true Christian does those things because they have the gospel at work in their life.
I’m I’m a little headed up to here with people who are saying, you know, we just need to preach the gospel.
We just need to preach the gospel. We don’t need to get involved in abortion.
We don’t need to get involved in all this.
We just need to preach the gospel, listen, that is something to be repented of because if you just preach the gospel according to the Bible, that’s where you start.
When you preach the gospel, somebody gives their life to Christ. Are you with me?
Then from that moment on you and I go out into the world and we make a difference.
We tell people the truth and we give them the love of God and the hope of eternity.
And it’s wonderful. How does that happen by this divine union that God has established for us?
And it’s found in verse four, that we have this perfect united life.
Now with the will of God, the Christian loves to live in the will of God.
And so this is done by the centrality.
I’ll put it of the Holy Spirit which is stressed in this portion of scripture.
Mark this down in your notes church. This is amazing from Romans chapter one to Romans chapter seven.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned five times. Romans chapter one to Romans chapter seven.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned five times in Romans chapter eight alone, the Holy Spirit is mentioned 21 times telling you that everything about our lives as believers is all based on the centrality of the Holy Spirit being the governor of our lives.
Friends, listen, the Holy Spirit is not a force.
He’s not a power, he’s not an it, he’s an actual person.
The Bible says that you can make angry the Holy Spirit.
The Bible tells us that you can bless the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says that we don’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit.
And Ins and Saphir in acts chapter five learned that they can sin against the Holy Spirit.
He’s an actual person. He’s the third person of the Trinity. Father, son Holy Spirit. God is one.
The Bible says, but he reveals himself in three persons. One godhead think of a triangle.
That’s one shape with three sides. God, the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit.
It’s remarkable. But the truth of the matter is this that there’s this united power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives to bring us in line with God’s plan with God’s will listen to what J C Ryle, the great preacher of yesterday scholar once said as far as our spiritual life is concerned, God takes no consideration of anyone’s gender, age, education, talent, class, ethnicity or any other human distinction.
He differentiates people solely on the basis of their personal relationship to Him through Jesus Christ.
Here it comes by the Holy Spirit. What a great statement. That is a powerful statement. Don’t you love that?
Are you rich? Are you poor? Are you white? Are you black? Some color in between?
Listen, what is your status? What is your, where are you according to the Bible?
God delivers his love to you just as he would some king and some palace or some popper on the street.
The gospel is good for all.
The gospel is now ready and has always been ready to be told to all.
But it’s got to come from us people. Why did God save you?
Who to go to heaven? That’s, listen, that’s your retirement program.
That’s good news for all of us. Uh That’s good news.
But the fact is the Bible tells us that the righteous requirement of the law is being fulfilled in us, not by us, not through us.
Thank God in us. Colossians chapter three verse one.
Colossians 31 says, if then you were raised with Christ, that’s by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Seek those things which are above.
That’s the work of the Holy Spirit where Christ is seated at the right end of God here, listen, verse two, set your mind on things above.
Well, that’s the work of the Holy Spirit, not on the things of the earth.
Listen, listen, verse three for you died and your life is hidden with Christ and God.
When Christ who is our life appears, that’s when he returns for us, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
What a great promise. That is God’s will is the desire of the believer’s heart.
Can you ask yourself today that that’s your will. It’s my will, that God’s will be done in my life.
Jesus said it this way, not my will, but thy will be done.
The greatest liberty and freedom of all.
The greatest declaration of independence is being dependent upon the will of God, let God take control.
And he’s very good at doing that.
He says in verse four, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, that’s the qualifying statement in some way, in some way, mark this down.
Secondly, is that the declaration of dependence is based on this, that there’s a perfect uh united uh relationship through the love of Jesus Christ.
There’s this United love that we experience through Jesus Christ. And it’s beautiful when he tells us here.
By the way, this is um us walking.
According not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit notice that there’s a choice there.
That word walk means our new behavior. So we had our old behavior before. Now. We have a new behavior.
We walk differently. I don’t know how my computer did this, but I was searching the word walk and looking at the Greek words and how it appears, walk, walking, walks and I shouldn’t bring this up in church.
But you know how your computers these days listen. It’s almost like they jump into your head.
So what pops up was I think his name, I’m sorry, forgive me in advance.
But you know the bee Gees.
And there’s the one guy with the, with the afro hair and he’s a big, he looked like a big guy.
But he though what popped up was, uh, I could tell by the way he walks, staying alive, is that it, it’s a, wait, what I’m studying the Bible here and this youtube thing of the, of the music video, I can tell, I can tell by the way he walks, he’s got no time to talk or something like that.
And it’s like what? And then, but it made me think a moment because back in those days, those are the disco days.
They were wearing disco clothes and nobody wants to remember what disco clothes look like.
But when you’re walking with Jesus, when you’re walking with him, you take on the appearance of Jesus walking.
That doesn’t mean you have the same git or the same stride or the same movement of the body, but it’s the same places.
Are you with me? You walk where Jesus walks and if you walk with Christ, he’s gonna take you to places where he wants to go.
Oh, please don’t forget this in our lives from the moment.
You know, we were set free at the age of what, maybe three or four, we got a tricycle.
There was a sense of freedom and we took off down the street, right?
We’re going and then, you know, you, you just kept graduating a little bit more and then you got, do you remember this?
Do people even care about this anymore? That is you? I, I remember being allowed.
I just reached the age to get my driver’s permit. Freedom.
But then that freedom was short lived because you wanted to share with people.
And when you have your driver’s permit, you can’t take anybody, you can’t kill anybody but yourself.
They don’t let you put anybody else in the car.
But when you get the, now the clearance for your driver’s license, I remember getting my driver’s license and on the Saturday, the first Saturday of my driver’s license I got in a old Volkswagen.
My, my dad had got me and I took off, drove for hours all day Saturday. Why? Freedom?
There was a freedom and there’s things in your life that you pursue because it gives you a sense of freedom.
Maybe you have a sense of freedom on the golf course or maybe on surfing or whatever you might do or whatever that hobby might be.
There’s a sense of freedom to it.
And I want you to just think right now that if that’s true in your life and it is true.
That is God hinting to you that there’s a freedom to be experienced in Jesus.
That is unlike any other experience that you can ever have. God is a God of freedom.
And so when we come to the gospel people think, and I think Satan lies and says things like, oh, you’re just gonna, you’re not gonna have any fun after all.
Doesn’t go. Isn’t God? The one that says, thou shalt not thou shalt not, he’s the thou shalt not kind of God.
You should have fun. You should live it up. You should have a good time.
God is the one who says you shall not do this because that’s a great way to get yourself killed prematurely.
I don’t want you to do this because I want to teach you value of life and of, and of other people’s property.
How, how about that? And I want you to be a person of your word.
You can’t buy integrity, you can’t download it. There’s no app for that.
So what you do is you obey me.
And what happens is people will recognize you as a person of integrity. Only God can do that.
And in that is freedom and liberty and power, all because of Christ loving us.
It’s quite remarkable, thirdly perfectly united by the power of the Holy Spirit, the will of God, the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in verse five.
For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh.
There are two key words here at church, mark it down the word according the Greek word is and it means to go along with, watch this.
It’s listen, it can be for the positive or negative.
Are you guys with me to go along with May or may not be bad to be on the way with as if to be holding the hand of another that may or may not be bad.
Sounds nice. It depends on the setting to be underway or en route something on the surface wrong with that.
But it, it begs the question of who’s leading, who if you reach out to your grandchild and take their hand and start walking with them.
That’s a good thing.
If you see some stranger in the mall grab your grandchild’s hand. Ok.
That’s go time. Uh someone’s gonna get hurt and it’s not gonna be my grandkid.
You know what I’m saying? Who’s leading, who, how about this?
What is leading you or who is leading you in the decision making process?
Who’s holding my hand and the things that are brought before me that I have to decide on who’s holding my hand.
This is very important.
Everybody for all of us, maybe you’re a young person here today and we all know that we all used to be young once.
I wouldn’t want to be young again. Everybody wants to look young. I don’t know.
I guess you can look younger, you know, but nobody wants to look 16 again because somebody might mistake you for a 16 year old that would not be good.
Not in this world. Our young people today have to make decisions about their personal, private life, thought life and physical life that you and I have never confronted.
And just when you think you bought them something cool because it’s you know, their friends have gotten it and now they can wear it and they can do, you can text them with it.
Little. Do you little? Did you know that pornography can be sent to that device?
They didn’t tell you that at the Apple store?
I said Apple, like Facebook feels really good to say that.
The other word is this set.
This is a strong word.
The word set here means this to have an understanding of, to think about or to ponder to adopt a view or to develop a world view or position.
By the way before I keep reading, you know, every single one of us have a world view.
Did you know that? He said not me, I stay out of that stuff. It’s too late.
You already have one. Your world view is what you think about the world and life and living death, money, a world view.
I I’m sorry, I have to insert this too.
So the other night, Lisa is playing with our grandson, the youngest grandson, Ames.
She’s playing um life, you know, the game life and Ames.
Uh he’s very petite little guy, but he’s either going to be, he’s either gonna be, he’s brilliant.
He’s a little mathematician, he’s scary smart.
Um He’s either going to grow up to be a navy seal or a president, no navy seal or Isis.
We’ll see how it goes.
But uh that little guy walks into a room and he goes like that first thing he does, he walks into the room, he looks, he checks the exits, he looks at it while the windows and then he’ll come right up to you and he’ll just go like this, he’ll go to the next person.
Totally. It’s just bizarre. He’s like, he knows every, he’s like sizing you up on how to take you out.
So, so Lisa said, well, we have to pick our careers, you know, you pick your career and you get your income and the card says you’re a doctor.
So you get 100 and 30,000 a year.
And he goes, uh, I don’t, I don’t like that number and she goes, well, it’s the rules of the game.
He goes, no, he goes and gets a piece of paper, tears it up and makes his own little icon and, and writes down $500,000 a year.
This is not a joke. He puts it on the table and she goes, what is that?
And he goes, I’m a swat commander.
I think I should get for being a swat commander.
I think I should get $500,000 a year. So Lisa said, well, I’m going to be a teacher.
So I’m gonna get the same pay. And he goes, I don’t know, I don’t know. But watch this.
Everybody down deep inside. When you have the luxury to be liberal, you can.
But when life hits things change he landed on some box and he had to pay some taxes and he refused.
He said, I’m not going to pay taxes. I’m not going to do that.
The guy is like six years old. That was his world view.
I want to keep what I make.
And we, she tried to tell him that’s, that’s not how it works in America.
That’s a world view. One’s own personal belief system or schematic for life.
Imagine that blueprint for life. You’ve got one, I’ve got one but is the one that you and I have the one that God has given us in His word.
This is my rule we would say or my truth.
People are saying today to be true to yourself or to be sincere.
That’s what people have done with this word is that they’ve polluted it.
It’s remarkable, but they can do this because the word allows for it.
Just know this is a day of reckoning. God doesn’t make you do this.
You’ve got the opportunity to have somebody hold your hand in life.
You can reject that hand or not, but someone’s going to hold your hand or something is going to hold your hand.
And that thing could be a world view on how you see things and you can make up whatever your world view is.
But just know this God has his and yours will not last. His will.
Proverbs 14 verse 12 tells us there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
Wow. Isn’t it amazing that the way, seriously think about this for a moment, the way a person thinks can actually take their lives.
There’s a war looming between Armenia and Azerbaijan right now and Iran is stoking it.
As of this morning, Iran Azerbaijan and the Iranians are stoking the battle.
The battle lines have been drawn, there are massing forces, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
As of this morning, I think we’re at 79 or 80 attacks in the last two years against us forces in Syria and in that region and in the last few hours, there’s been yet another attack by Iran on the United States.
And Iran, why is Iran doing this? Because they can you want to know why?
Because China and Russia are backing them up to do it.
There’s been a clear notice given everybody, the United States must evacuate the Middle East.
We have no longer any authority there. We got to get out war.
Jesus said at a time near the end, there will be wars and rumors of wars, Lisa and I, as I told you, we were flying back from Hawaii and I looked out the window, I happen to know a little bit about this thing.
Most people would have just passed it up, but you look out in the Pacific Ocean and there was this gigantic, well, I’ll just say it’s a gigantic golf ball under way and it’s a massive monster of technology.
The SBX- 1, there’s only one of them in the world. It’s ours for now.
I think I’m sure China has copied it by now and they’re working on it, but that 1, 1 device can do some serious stuff.
And so I got a hold of somebody who’s in the, know I said, what’s up?
I just see that it’s about four miles north northwest off of Pearl Harbor. From my judgment.
Yep, you’re on it heading to North Korea.
Well, when you look that thing up, SBX- 1, when you look it up, it is a deterrent against intercontinental ballistic missile strikes.
It has the capability of causing the brains of the other guy’s missile to go cuckoo and land somewhere else.
Wars and rumors of wars.
And I think, you know what you said?
Well, Jack people have been talking like that for years. Yeah, you’re right. So let’s forget about that.
What about the war going on inside of someone’s mind?
I don’t think we’re gonna get nuked. You don’t have to get nuked.
All you have to do is get your eyes off of Jesus Christ and sink, right?
And that’s that at an hour like this in our world today. Listen, COVID was warm up.
Iran, Russia, China have been meeting, follow it this week.
Listen, those of you who are businessmen, you can find it. You know where to look.
But this is another thing, those nations have gotten together, three of them and they’re putting pressure on Saudi Arabia, those three nations hate Saudi Arabia.
Guess what? Russia? China and Iran got together this last week and said to Saudi Arabia, we are no longer going to buy oil from you anymore.
With us dollars. Did you know you have to use us dollars to buy oil in the world?
That’s why you’re ok. That’s why you’re able to sit here with some money in your bank.
Did you know those three nations said we’re not going to do it anymore. We want America to come down.
So here’s what we’re going to do.
You’re going to sell oil to us with our own currency and they placed Saudi Arabia in the hot seat and those of you who are in the economic world and finance business causes a shutter to go up your spine because if that were to happen, the US dollar would crash.
There’s no longer a gold standard in the world.
There’s a US dollar standard in the world. But if that happens, it’s no longer the standard.
These are critical moments. Why do I say this? I want you to be prepared for this reason.
What’s coming is what’s coming.
But you and I have the choice to get ready to meet what’s coming with or without Christ.
And I choose Christ. I know that he’s got my life. He’ll take care of my mind. I won’t listen.
If I lose every nickel and dime I have and it goes down the hole.
I’ve got a place reserved in heaven for me. That moth or rust or thief cannot steal that.
What Jesus did on the cross had nothing to do with money. It had everything to do with eternal wealth.
And that is you and I being saved from our sins and walking the streets of glory with Christ Almighty.
It’s your salvation. He bought you people at this hour should be flocking to Christ when they see the destabilization of the world.
And maybe that’s what’s going to happen.
Wouldn’t it be great if we’ve got to blow the doors off of this, knock the walls out whole church in the street because tens of thousands of people are coming to give their heart to Christ because there’s a specter of no hope.
Listen, you put your hope in money. You’re gonna be disappointed.
Jesus said, you’ll either love money or you’ll love God.
You’re gonna have to serve very, very clear.
So what do you think in Philippians 3 19? The Bible tells us these are headed for destruction.
People without Christ who walk according to the flesh, their God is their appetites.
They brag about shameful things and they think only about this life here on earth.
Does that sound familiar? Yes.
Now I was told I shouldn’t use this because nobody knows what it means anymore.
But I I want to address the YOLO crowd. I wrote.
So how many of you know what yellow means? Raise your hand? Uh That’s horrible.
Is there a new one? The yellow thing is you only live once.
So remember when we remember when we were kids, it was like grab all the gusto you can remember that.
Look out for number one. Remember that?
Well, I guess it’s not by the, by the showing of your hands, it’s not yellow anymore either.
So there’s a new one. But what do you think? What are you thinking?
And a w Tozer said this, what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about us?
Think about that right now.
What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about us.
Who do you say that God is? Isn’t that what Jesus said? When he went to cry of Philip?
He took the disciples, which is amazing. They’ve been ministering.
Jesus could tell that the guys retired, the boys retired and Jesus said we need to get away and he takes them to cry of Phillipi, which in northern Israel, it’s like, uh it’s like going up to like Lake Tahoe.
It’s, it’s spectacular. It’s beautiful. It’s amazing.
And so they get up there and they’re on a break, but it doesn’t last very long because they go to cry of Phillipi.
And that’s where all of the Pagan worship, cult centers were built.
And when we go to Israel, we tour those spots.
They’re right there and the people would shout great is Diana of the Ephesians.
And then they would engage in the worship of Diana.
All of it was explicit, all of it was sensual, all of it was drunkenness.
No matter what God it was. You just went from one drunken sexual God or goddess to the next. OK?
Are you with me? And um Jesus takes the disciples there for a break.
That’s like us go, hey, that’s like me taking the staff to Vegas.
Hey, we gotta take a break. What does that mean?
He takes them up there to this pagan epicenter and they’re all shouting great as Athens or, or Atlas, great as Athena, great as Diana, great as Zeus.
And Jesus says to the disciples, hey, guys who do you say I am?
And they’re a little nervous.
You could tell because one says some say your Elijah come back from the dead.
Uh Some say you’re the prophet.
Um So and so they have their, they have their, their answers.
And Jesus says, Peter, not personal. He always goes personal.
You know why our our God and you know why this is personal because our God is personal.
And so Jesus says, Peter, who do you say that I am?
And Peter, he had no idea what he was about to say because Peter says you are the Christ the Son of the living God and then Peter like, and Jesus said, I tell you what, Peter, you did not say that of your own accord.
My, my father gave you what to say just now. That’s, that’s from the spirit of God.
That’s, that’s the truth, Peter. You are correct. God gave you the answer. Don’t you love that? Christian?
Listen, you don’t have to be a theologian. Thank God to go to heaven. Ok?
You just need to be spirit filled, owned by God, stamped by the Holy Spirit, his possession.
And you’re his Titus chapter two, verse four, excuse me, Titus three verse four says this.
But when the kindness and the love of God, our savior toward man appeared.
And this is this parent, what’s called a parenthetical insert, not by works of righteousness which we have done.
But according to His mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit.
Isn’t that amazing? God? Does it? God does that?
So hang on to your seats.
If you walk according to the flesh, you say I’m not too sure about this.
Well, you, you have two choices. You gonna walk according to the spirit. God’s in control.
God’s holding your hand or are you gonna walk according to the flesh? Which is really easy to do.
Let’s be honest, the flesh.
Let’s, it’s funny because God will take your hand if you, if you extend it. He won’t grab your hand.
You know, if God doesn’t want me, if God doesn’t want me to get drunk anymore, when I go to the bar and start drinking, then I won’t get drunk.
Ok? You’re on your own.
But if you say Lord lead me today, he’ll take your hand. He’s faithful all day long.
He’ll take you. He’ll keep you all day long.
But if somebody were to say I’m taking my own hand, this is what I’m gonna do with me today.
It’d be us, me myself and I, and we’re gonna have a great time together. Just me.
Mhm. And you embark upon that route, you know this something’s gonna come of it.
I, I would just lay this out. What, what are your thoughts going to be?
What are your actions going to be? You look around the world today.
It’s a good thing that weekends are only two days long because most people don’t survive those two days.
It’s a good thing. They got to go back to work on Monday and be somewhat responsible.
If you wanna take a ride along with a police officer, you always ask him what’s the best, what’s the best ride along?
Oh, Friday night. Why? Because the zoo is open and all the animals come out.
Well, what happens Galatians 519 when you follow the desires of your sinful nature?
Notice that my sinful nature has got a, got an opinion on all things all the time.
The results are very clear. Sexual immorality. So I didn’t do anything.
Did you think it? Impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery.
That’s mind bending drugs, uh, mind altering drugs, hostility, hostility, quarreling.
This is just people who get in, they’ll get in a fight with an ant.
They just fight with everybody. Isn’t it beautiful outside? What’s so beautiful about it?
It’s like, back off, don’t tell me to back off. What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you?
Right? It’s like, oh golly, can I leave this planet?
Jealousy, outburst of anger.
That’s just a temper that is you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Selfish ambition, dissension, division.
Everywhere they go, the family breaks up or the job is ruined everywhere they go, the teamwork falls apart, envy, drunkenness, wild parties.
We get the word from this or, and other sins like these.
Let me tell you again, as I’ve told you before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But you already know that we all know that everybody knows that. Romans chapter one verse 28.
This is the flesh. This is walking in the flesh since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God.
He God abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do the things that should never be done.
Verse 29 their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior.
And gossip and it just dawns on me why Facebook pulls us before we even preach this message.
My notes are uploaded early in the morning online.
They probably read about themselves right here in Romans one and they said that’s gotta go, we gotta cut the some little snowflake there at the place just started melting.
Matthew seven verse 20. Matthew chapter seven verse 20.
Therefore, by their fruits, Jesus said that’s their lifestyle, their life choosing, you will know them.
Just look around and examples of this in our day.
So I’m gonna read this because I don’t wanna mess it up.
It’s not only doing that which offends Almighty God.
It is also what you and I allow.
What do you and I allow or tolerate or willfully ignore in our lives just to keep the so called peace.
We’ll just turn and look the other way.
So number one is Christians, do we allow violence? Of course not.
Then why are we silent as our Children are being violated and mutilated?
It was so that’s not, I don’t have kids in school. Think about that for a moment.
We don’t believe in violence, but we hear about our Children being maligned in the public school setting system.
But we don’t uh lucky for me. I don’t have any kids in that school district.
I don’t have to get involved. Wow.
Number two as Christians, do we condone lying? No, of course not.
Then why do we allow lies to be told to us and others by politicians in the halls of power.
Yeah. Oh, we’ve got to take all the water that God gave and we got to send it out to the ocean.
Oh, or, you know, in light of everything we could see this happening next.
So we’re going to charge you this tax because of what, well, something could happen. I see.
As Christians, do we approve of injustice? Oh, no.
Then why do we allow unjust judges to run wild in our courtrooms today without impeaching them?
You know, judges can be impeached if you want to.
Number four, as Christians do we allow hate?
No, we’d never allow hates.
Then why do we allow C RT Marxism and socialism to be spread in our classrooms and universities by funding those schools who do those things.
So let’s listen, it’s been nice having you here at church all these months or years.
But this is might be where we break up.
We’re sending more money to universities and public school systems than what we would ever give God in his work, right?
Take a look at the amount of money you tithe to God versus the taxes you pay to education.
But if you and I stop spending God’s money to violate our kids in this system, we might be able to rescue some of them when the United States, when the Children of the United States can no longer compete with most of the industrialized nations of the world by grade.
In other words, if you take 1/6 grader and you take an American sixth grader and an, and a European sixth grader and put them in an algebra test, you should see what happens.
Oh, and by the way, when you put an American kid and uh through an English test in the 9th grade, and then you take a European kid and put them through not an English test but an English German Dutch and Latin course.
See what happens. See what’s your point.
My point is this as Christians were to make a difference.
And the fact of the matter is our God deals with truth and he deals in love and sometimes this stuff hurts.
But the fact of the matter is this, we’ve been drinking the kool aid to be told for decades.
You need to put money away for your kids’, college, put money away for your kid’s college.
I highly recommend you take that money and you can send your kid to a course or to an institution that will give them.
If you want them to be an attorney or a brain surgeon, there’s ways to do it but not the way that it is now.
But see, we’ve been conditioned.
Well, this is the way that it is just remember, we’re perpetuating that monster, the things of the flesh your kid goes into uh goes into uh university believing in God comes out hating God and you those who are of this world think like this.
And this is, by the way, the P J V, this is the Pastor Jack version of Romans.
Romans 1 28. There are those who say we don’t want to have anything about God in our lives.
So then God gave them what they really wanted. He gave them over to their own way of thinking.
He gave them a mind that is void of thoughts of Him, of God.
So they could do those things which they wanted things that are offensive to God.
So they became the very things that they desired, filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, strife, our murder, strive to see it.
Evil mindedness. There are whispers, the Bible says now this is the Bible back, bitter haters of God, violent, proud boasters, inventors of evil things disobedient to parents, un discerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, Unmerciful who knowing all along in the back of their minds that the righteous judgment of God will come upon them, make fun of it.
They continue on even worse by infecting others.
Those who practice such things knowing full well that they are deserving death and hell for their actions.
Also support those who do the same kind of things or worse by defending those who practice the very things that God says He hates.
We got a whole dialogue in our world today that the Christian is the hater.
We’re the, we’re the hateful ones we’re hated because we tell people you ought not to do that.
We only tell them because we love them. Listen, we love them.
If we didn’t love them, we wouldn’t tell them. Spread the word.
I did a funeral service this last Friday and I’m not going to get into the details of it because it’s too grievous to my heart.
Still. Just know this, that I don’t care who it is that has, that has lived life.
If they could speak from the dead to us right now, I can’t quote them verbatim.
That would be impossible. But I got a good idea what they would say.
You better love God with all your heart. That’s the response that they would have.
That’s the only answer John 1523.
Jesus said he who hates me, hates my father also the most loving one.
So on and on. This goes verse five.
But those who live according to the spirit, set their minds on the things of the spirit. Hallelujah.
Look at that. The word set is to be anchored to Isaiah 26 3. Please write this down.
Everybody wake your neighbor up, tell them to write this down.
If not while they’re asleep, write it on their arm when they wake up.
At least they go home with a Bible verse Isaiah 26 3. We’re all gonna need it.
I’ve needed it from time to time. And it’s this, it’s addressing God.
God will keep Him, you her us in perfect peace whose mind is stayed or set on Him because we trust in Him.
God will keep you in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him? Because you trust in Him.
He’ll never abandon you. To walk in the spirit is to walk in these promises.
Ephesians 24 for God who is rich in mercy. Thank God. Right?
Because of his great love where what he loved us, even while we were dead and trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.
For by grace, you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus verse eight.
For by grace, you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast for. We are his workmanship.
This is precious, that work.
The word workmanship is poem in Greek for we are his poem created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
God wants to do a work in your life by the spirit of God.
I either decide to let him do that or I decide to do my own thing which leads to total death and destruction.
Galatians five, we’re almost done. Galatians five verse 22.
But the fruit of the spirit notice this, the fruit. It’s singular by the way, it’s pretty cool.
It’s kind of neat. Watch this. Scholars will, will bicker back and forth.
I’m glad scholars bicker back and forth. Um, I’m, I, I, I’m just gonna go with what it says.
The, does this listen, watch everybody but the fruits of the Spirit.
Oh, no, no. It’s singular. It’s singular. In any language.
You read the Bible in the fruit of the Spirit is love. Many say.
And I agree there should be a period at the end of love, the fruit of the spirit is love.
See, in our culture today, we don’t know what love looks like.
The great philosopher Tina Turner said, what’s love got to do with it?
She didn’t understand Crosby stills nash and young.
If you can’t be with the one you love you, you, you, you understand how carnal that is.
If you cannot be with the one you love, well, then just love the one you’re with by the way that did come right out of the hippie era that explains a lot.
The love of God is pure. It’s awesome. It’s beautiful. The love of God.
When listen, when you love one another, the way we are, it, it doesn’t matter to me if you’re beautiful or ugly, it doesn’t matter if you’re healthy or if you’re sick.
Listen, the love of God trumps everything. Honestly, I’ve never said this publicly.
But the number one big issue I had with COVID lockdown for a church was this issue right here.
For the fruit of the Spirit is love.
Now, I never made that public because it’s an argument that only you would understand.
You can’t, you can’t tell the governor we can’t stop church because when you love someone, this is how Christians do it, you know how you had the strip clubs open and that’s what they love.
Well, this is what we love. It’s loving one another will save lives.
It will cause people to have hope and God will honor that.
But only you understand that the world doesn’t get it. I understand that the world doesn’t get it.
But the fruit of the spirit is love and out of love comes joy.
Listen, you can’t have joy without God’s love. It’s not gonna happen.
Peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.
All these things come out of us by the spirit of God because of the love of God.
None of us, listen, none of us, none of us grew up. And people were saying, you know what?
He’s got such long suffering. He just has it are self control.
I’ve never seen anyone with such great self control. These are supernatural things against such. There’s no law.
Wow. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.
In other words, in a few moments, let’s get up and let’s go do those things. How do we do?
How do we do that? Let God do it through you.
When he says, when he leads, when he guides, when he takes your hand, just follow him, just do what he’s asking you to do.
It’s liberating. I’m gonna ask you to all stand. We’re out of time.
Um You can look at your own life today and decide is this me?
You know, is this my life?
Now, this message in the book of Romans obviously is a message to Christians.
So the sanctuary has been a nursery today or no, that’s not the right word, not a nursery because it would be, if it was an evangelistic message, it would be a nursery.
How about that? But the sanctuary today was a workout gym, a health club for the soul man for disciple making.
But I don’t want to leave anyone out. Paul the apostle spoke to the Corinthian Church.
He was speaking to the church in Corinth, a church that none of us would attend.
That was one weird church.
If you were on your donkey, you would just keep driving right by in 2nd Corinthians 6 1.
He said as God, our co laborers, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it for God says at a just at just the right time I heard you and on the day of salvation, I helped you indeed the right time is now said, the apostle today is the day of salvation.
If today things you heard are so foreign to you and so strange to you, you might wanna ask yourself, have you been Christianized or have you really become a follower of Jesus?
There’s a big difference. And that’s only a question that you can answer. Father.
I pray that you bless this church.
These doors are gonna open now and these people are gonna go out into the communities of their influence and of their lives.
And I pray that your Holy Spirit would come upon each and every one of them father, that you’d fill them with your power.
And Lord God, that they would go out with love and with boldness because Jesus has died and has risen from the dead and that this earth is not our home.
We await heaven. But until we get there, Lord, may we make a big influence in this world for what’s right?
Because God, you are the God of all love and light grace and forgiveness.
And if anyone today is saying, yes, Jesus, I need you for real in my life.
Then Lord do what you do as they repent of their sin as they say right now to you.
Lord forgive me, I repent of my sin and I need a new life in Jesus.
He’ll give you that new life.
We pray this in Jesus name and all God’s people said, amen. God bless you. Guys.