260111 Grounded to Live

``In fact, a in your notes, struggling with sin is not failure. It shows you are finally free. Dead people don't fight. Living people do. If you're struggling with sin, it means that it doesn't have dominion over you. It's still tempting you. You still feel like it's pleasurable. You're still battling it, but it means that the spirit is battling with you, that you recognize this is wrong and you don't want it to ruin your life. And so by by being saved by grace doesn't mean we don't sin anymore. It means that, man, we're gonna struggle. And on this side of eternity, we're gonna keep struggling. That's why there's grace. And we struggle. We're saying this is not good. I I want God to lead in my life. [00:47:25] (50 seconds)  #StrugglingIsNotFailure

The apostle Paul's remind us grace is not cheap. It's costly. God gave his son to come and suffer and to die on a cross to be punished and condemned to hell for us. That's a pretty high investment cost. I mean, you're all great and everything, but I am not sacrificing my kids or grandkids for you. It's too costly, and you wouldn't do it either. But God did. [00:32:28] (31 seconds)  #GraceWasPaidFor

And I'm gonna give you my gift of grace that Jesus turned the cross, but the Holy Spirit is water, and I'm gonna adopt you as mine. I'm gonna unite you to Christ. You who are a child of sin, I'm gonna make you a child of God and unite you with Christ in his righteousness, in his work, so you do have a choice. You do have a a new life in you. Paul's like saying, you're not just doing a baptism just for a child. When that child comes or anyone comes into this waters in baptism, we are being united with Christ. And just as Christ descended and ascended, so do we. And the sinful self is being dead to Christ and we're being brought a newness in Christ. We are given salvation in Christ. Why? So we may walk in a newness of life. That's a pregnant verse. [00:39:10] (61 seconds)  #BaptizedAndUnitedWithChrist

We present ourselves to God to be his instruments. We learn that his grace is for us and his grace works through us. I've talked to many people about who want they think about, like, I wanna get involved in church or I wanna go into ministry or I feel calm in my life. And then they go, but I did all this in my life. And they just disqualify themselves. And often or not, the sin in our life is actually what qualifies us for the ministry that God wants to do in us. That doesn't mean go sin more. It just means that our brokenness leads us to his grace. And that grace and healing is often what somebody else needs to hear too. That their brokenness is not too great for grace. [01:01:53] (49 seconds)  #BrokennessQualifiesYou

What is Paul doing? Paul is trying to help us make a shift. You see, look, you're gonna struggle. You've been struggling. And maybe the reason you're struggling and when you're having trouble in your Christian walk is because you've been living by your willpower, and you've been defining things by your human understanding. I want you to live with resurrection power. So a is a shift from willpower to his power and realizing that the power that raised Jesus from the dead, that power is alive in you, and is greater than sin. [00:50:27] (34 seconds)  #FromWillpowerToResurrectionPower

But here's what he does. He doesn't minimize sin, but he breaks its power. He breaks his power. See the power of sin. Sin, God does not want anybody. He's a jealous God for you. He created you to be with you, and he wants to that relationship to grow. When he's living with you in your relationship, what? You get to be part of his blessings that he wants to pour out on you. But when you're under sin and sin has a rule of your life in your heart, in your mind, you are separated from him. [00:34:08] (38 seconds)  #GraceBreaksSinsPower

Therefore, we're not striving to overcome dead sins. We're we're not we're we're in that we've been freed from that. And what we really are focused on, not striving to overcome sins, we're focused on living out what's already been done for us. See, it's a different point of perspective. You already have everything you need. You have salvation completely given to you in Christ Jesus, fully complete in you. And that's the freedom that he gives to us. It's full complete. He's giving you everything you need. [00:42:37] (39 seconds)  #LiveFromWhatChristDid

So what do you do? You do what the apostle Paul says. What? We live our lives living in a new life, working out our salvation. That's not working out so we attain salvation. That is living in the grace that already God has given us. That grace that has already prepared good works for us in advance to do. The good work that God has for you to do, he's graciously already given it to you and completed it in you. It's in here already. It's just like walking my grace. Walk in the identity of who you are as my child, and you will walk in the good works I've already prepared in advance for you. You don't have to strive to be this great Christian. It's already in here. [00:43:16] (45 seconds)  #WalkOutSalvationByGrace

See, the the funny thing about sin is that it promises us great pleasure. It promises us more freedom. And so we lean into that. It is attractive. We long for that. But the reality is that sin takes away your decisions. And if God doesn't intervene with grace, you who were born a sin, a child of sin, you are stuck in the rule of sin over you. You do not have a choice. You're bound to the rule of sin in your life, which is your own selfish kingdom or the influence of Satan. God comes to deal with sin to give us freedom from our own selfish flesh, not to make sin safe, not to make sinning safe. He comes to give us grace so we have a choice. [00:35:13] (62 seconds)  #SinPromisesPleasureStealsChoice

They did a study with rats. They put rats in a cage. And in the cage, they had one red button. And it wasn't the Staples easy button, but it was a little button. And they would go to the button, they hit the button, and they got a little charge. And the charge was pleasurable. And they kept going back to the button. They learned that there was a pleasure there. And you watch the rats keep going back in the button, and they would even put food in the cage, but the rats kept going to the button. They put another rat of the opposite sex in the cage, but the rats kept going to the button. The button of pleasure enslaved them, and they died with food and others around them. [00:45:53] (59 seconds)  #PleasureButtonTrap

And I thought, this is like two pictures of what our battles with sin are like. Right? When we sometimes were tempted, we feel like the kids and and the sin is the the golden retriever. It's just pulling us along. We can't help ourself. I can't stop. I have no power. And the reality is that sin is like the little yappy dog there, and you're the big person. All you gotta do is pull the leash and it stops. But so often, we just listen to the yap long enough that we give in. [00:51:49] (34 seconds)  #DontLetSinPullYou

B, practice daily reckoning. I mean, saying, I am dead to sin alive in Christ. Say that. I am dead to sin alive in Christ. I didn't hear you yet. I am dead to sin, alive in Christ. Say that. Say you're alive in Christ. Say Christ is with me. Practice daily truth. Man, Bible talks about guarding your heart and mind in the truth. You gotta have the truth. Truth guards us. [00:59:16] (32 seconds)  #DeadToSinAliveInChrist

And I think one of the things we sin because we still sometimes think God's not looking. God's not there. He knows. He's there. One of the hardest things to do, I think, sometimes when you get tempted is to start to pray. Because when you pray, you're recognizing God is there and it stops you. We often just start again negotiating and thinking on our own. That's not praying. We gotta start acting in our belief. [00:59:47] (29 seconds)  #PrayWhenTempted

They say, look. We're either gonna love God or we're gonna not we're gonna follow our own selves. We are actually free to commit to something better and greater. And we get a chance to just respond by grace to the God who's freed us, to the God who created us out of love, who loves us and wants to bless us and give us his good gifts are the very things that we so desperately really want and need. See, grace gives us that choice. [00:36:15] (36 seconds)  #ChooseGodNotSelf

I mean, I cringe inside when I hear Christian parents say, you know what? I'm just gonna raise my child to let my kids decide. They don't have a choice without grace. You don't. You're under the rule of sin, of Satan. You're a slave to sin, the scripture says. So parents are basically saying the biggest decision of my kid's life is gonna affect our whole eternity that's more than just whatever they live on this earth. Eternity, I don't wanna influence. I wanted them to be their choice to make it or not. You realize the world is helping make their choice the other way. The world is gonna influence. Satan's gonna influence. And so for us to just step back and say, well, you know, let it go. They they we're saying, hey, go ahead. Rule over my kid. [00:36:50] (65 seconds)  #ParentWithPurposeNotPassivity

Then there's other people who swim on the other side in salt water. And they're like, oh, we have God's grace to be totally free. We're free to do what we want. Free to decide. It's all good. We're gonna be forgiven. So how we live, what we do, it doesn't matter. Right? We would call those people life is a beach. Right? It's just they're there. They're on the saltwater side. It's it's free. You get to decide. That's what great Christian freedom is. No sin. [00:25:58] (33 seconds)  #SaltFreshOrBrackish

Freshwater people are about being very pure. There that's what freshwater is. It's pure, and you gotta keep it pure. And, like, yeah, they believe that you're saved by grace. But if you wanna keep grace and remain in grace, then you better be very religious, and they tend to be very legalistic. And there is one way to do it and only one way. And and the way you follow God and and they have these lots of rules and very religious with it, legalistic, and they tend to try to tie these rules of scripture, although it's not a direct line. It's a dotted line. It's kind of oh, I think it's implied. And but that's their way. You gotta stay pure or you can lose all the grace. [00:25:11] (47 seconds)  #GraceIsTooGoodToAbuse

there's a group in the middle, and you know what they are. Brackish. Right? Brackish. And and and and the middle in the brackish is just it's mixed up. And they lean this way some days. They lean this way some other days. It depends what's going on. It depends what's happened. It depends if they sinned or not or what the sin is, how they view how that sin affects your grace in your relationship. And so there is just a mix, and it just it tends to flow both ways, and there's no real certainty and assurance in it. [00:26:33] (41 seconds)  #RomansToRealLife

I mean, sometimes, number one in your notes, grace just sounds too good. Really. Right? Grace sounds too good. Apostle Paul writes this in Romans six. Right? I mean, I didn't get to get away with it. I mean, grace sounds so good that we can run away with grace, and and and we can kinda go that way. It just it's so good. And this group's like, it's maybe too good to be true, and so we're adding stuff to it. And this one says it's so good, I just go do whatever. So and then you get this confusion again. [00:28:12] (41 seconds)  #GraceFreesYouForMore

Paul's writing Romans to a group of people he's who they have come to faith in Jesus. They're converts, but he's had no relationship with. So this letter is preceding his visit, and he's trying to introduce it's a lot of doctrine. He's trying to ground people in the faith. And I think he's sitting there wondering, these Roman Christians these Roman Christians Roman society was hedonistic, very pleasure oriented. It was also materialistic, and it was also very affluent. And it was also pluralistic. They had many gods. And so he's right into this culture which is pretty similar to our culture. And he's going, I just laid out grace real clearly. I wonder what they're gonna do with it. [00:29:25] (51 seconds)  #SinHasSeriousConsequences