Why You Keep Struggling (Even When You Want to Change) | Romans 7

If there is no opposition on your Christian journey, then you are not growing. If there is no opposition on your journey, you're not growing. There has to be some friction to help you grow. And for an object to move in in the study of physics, a object cannot move in a frictionless environment. There must be some friction. There's some opposition. So if there's no friction on your journey, then likely you're not growing and progressing, but you're probably being stuck and still and stagnant. [00:09:09] (33 seconds)  #GrowthNeedsFriction

You can have the desire. Paul says, I got the desire to do what's good, but without dependence on God, I can't do it. We cannot and I want you to write this down. I want you to memorize this. I want you to put this in your spirit. Wanting to change is not enough to produce change. Wanting to change is not enough to produce change. The war is real, but willpower alone will not be sufficient to win this war for you. You can have the greatest willpower, you can have the greatest desire, but that in and of itself won't do it. Spiritual desire must be met with spiritual dependence. Spiritual desire must be met with spiritual dependence. [00:27:05] (55 seconds)  #DesireNeedsDependence

You can have good desires that are not godly in nature, and the key for us is to understand that not all of our desires are these wild sinful living desires, where to live for the Lord means I've gotta turn from my wicked ways and all the things that I'm doing that are not holy, and now give it all to God. But sometimes, it's not that I'm choosing between a wild life and God's way. Sometimes, it's between choosing between principles that I've been taught are right and the principles of God. Principle, for instance, I've been you've been taught to to to give your all on the job and to always go above and beyond. God is calling you saying to give more time to your family. [00:21:41] (57 seconds)  #GodlyPrinciplesFirst

Sometimes the struggle the struggle is real, and the internal conflict is a normal part of the spiritual growth. Again, is not a sign of spiritual failure. If you are struggling to do what you think is right, that's not an indication. Again, and I wanna hone this in and hark on this throughout this study tonight, That opposition that if you have an internal conflict, it is not a sign of spiritual failure. It's just a sign of where the work needs to be done. Because the reality is this, there are within us because of our sinful nature, there are competing desires, not just external temptations. [00:19:34] (53 seconds)  #StruggleIsGrowthSign

Celebrate the progress that now you see it because the reality is it was always there, you just didn't see it. You don't see it until you're ready to grow. And if I could even expound on that, I believe there are some things that God does not reveal to us until we have become resolved to grow. God does not reveal to us certain conflicts until we're ready to grow because if we get it too soon, we won't know what to do with it and it will cause us to be paralyzed in the reality we live in. But when we become resolved to grow, then God says, I can show you the conflict because now you'll do the work to get through it. [00:24:11] (40 seconds)  #GodRevealsWhenReady

When you make the decision to do the spiritual work and you know that you're gonna put in the work, you you roll up your sleeves, put on your hard hat, and you find that you're not always successful in reaching the goal, That is not failure. It is not failure when you find and bump into the areas that are opposition on your journey. When you find the things as Paul is saying, when you wanna do good but you can't, and the things that keep rising up. That's not an indication of failure, but rather it's an indication of the opposition so that you see what kind of work needs to be done. [00:15:25] (43 seconds)  #OppositionNotFailure

One of the traps many people fall into is they don't see their own cycles. Every year when the and daylight savings out on the East Coast and then all across the country, it depend on where you are, and in November, November, the clocks go back. And when the clocks go back, it goes from being, light outside during the day, into the evening to being pitch black. In Baltimore, I swear it used to be pitch black at like 04:30. It's pitch black outside. We got a little bit more light in Atlanta because we're a little further west, but the the days get shorter. And what happens is persons leave work in darkness and they don't see light until they're going to work again. [00:35:53] (45 seconds)  #RecognizeSeasonalCycles

There is nothing in life more rewarding than making the decision to do the work to grow and look in the Lord and then to see the fruits of that labor. There's nothing greater than to say, I'm gonna trust God and I'm gonna do what God said. And then to see the fruits of that when you give your all to God, when you give your all to living the life that God has called and created you to live, and then you see how God transforms you when you do give your all to him. Before we get to our questions tonight, for a moment, I just want you to reflect on some of the work you need to do. [00:44:12] (51 seconds)  #FruitOfFaithfulWork

Once you become aware of the conflict, it arrests you and makes you realize I can't just do whatever I want. I gotta choose. Am I gonna do it the flesh way or God's way? This past Sunday, we preached in our enough enough already series, preached about enough of being on the fence that Jesus is calling his disciples as he took them to Caesarea Philippi. He's requiring them, you gotta choose. Either you're declare me or you're not. Who do you say the son of man is? And once you become aware of the tension between the two that they're in conflict, you can't just do whatever you want. You gotta make a decision and you have to do it God's way if you wanna grow and develop on your Christian journey. [00:25:23] (46 seconds)  #ChooseGodsWay

How many of you know there've been times where you say it, I'm gonna do something. You even started down the path, but sooner than later, you started creeping back down the old ways. Without a deeper shift, desire will fade and old habits will return. Without a deeper shift, desire will fade and old habits will return. And so we must stay in a posture of dependence in God. Because as as we said, those patterns will come back. Those old ways will resurface, and they will work against us becoming who God wants us to be. I use the gym analogy because it's it's easy for us to understand and articulate. [00:30:32] (54 seconds)  #DeeperShiftNeeded

you may have the greatest desire, I'm willing to do it, but the flesh is weak and that in and of itself is not gonna get you where you need to be. You have to be dependent on God because good intentions and we've learned this. I and I want want you to drop an emoji in the chat if you know this is true. How many of you have learned that good intentions do not always translate into consistent behavior? You can have the best intentions to go to the gym. Every morning, every night you say, I'm going to the gym tomorrow morning. It can be the best intentions, but you wake up and hit that snooze button. [00:28:25] (38 seconds)  #IntentionsDontReplaceDiscipline

Spiritual growth requires for us to identify not just actions but cycles. Spiritual growth requires for us to identify not just actions but cycles. We do not grow simply by identifying the actions we take that are sinful or separate us from God. We grow by also understanding the cycles. For some, and these are cycles that are generational. You know that there's some cycles and and and this may help somebody because I think and and and again, in the blueprint, our our our goal is not just to go line by line in the scripture. Our goal is to help us as we're really growing and progressing. [00:35:02] (52 seconds)  #IdentifyCyclesNotJustActions

Understanding what opposes our transformation. One of the important things to understand and to accept as a believer and accept as a Christian and hear this, that is desiring to grow is that transformation and change is not easy. It is not simple. There are things that resist it and oppose it. Growing and developing in Christ is never a grant a given. There's always opposition. The enemy, the devil does not want us to grow as stronger Christians. And I wanna pause and even drop this here as we've said before in our bible study lessons. [00:08:26] (42 seconds)  #GrowthFacesOpposition

Let this be the year where you say, no. I'm aware of this cycle and I'm doing something different to break it. It's like talking to a a person who's who has in their family history has history of of whether substance abuse or or alcohol abuse, alcoholism, and they make a decision that I'm not gonna be an alcoholic. Now they can make that decision, but that decision saying it in and of itself isn't gonna change anything. But then they make also the the actor says, because I'm making this decision, I'm not putting myself in a place where there's alcohol. I'm not going to the bar and expecting myself to just be strong enough to drink a club soda when everybody else has a nice looking drink that looks good and they enjoying it. [00:45:56] (51 seconds)  #AvoidTriggersBreakCycle

And because we're getting ready for what God's gonna do, we gotta do the work so that when we stand on that Easter in our lives and that stone's rolled away, we're ready for the next chapter and there's no baggage that we hold in. Oh, I want somebody to write in the chat. If I was in church, I'd say this is a shouting point. This is where we get happy on. I want you to declare this, put it in the chat. I want you to say it as you type it and say it in your preacher voice. This is my season to let some stuff go, to do the work, to get delivered from the things and the cycles that have been holding me back because I'm not carrying this into my next chapter. [00:49:42] (41 seconds)  #DeclareThisSeasonOfFreedom

Sometimes it the flesh rather. Sometimes you wanna do, but you don't. You can't. You keep going down the wrong path. You keep and somebody even say self sabotaging where you wanna do good, but you don't. You sincerely and I want you to hear this. You sincerely have a desire to change, but you still struggle to do it. You sincerely have a desire to change, but you still struggle to do it. How many of you know that that's been you from time to time? Write in the chat, drop the emoji. That's been me. That from time to time, you have wanted to change. You have a sincere desire to change. You have been resolved in your heart that I'm gonna do the work to grow on my journey, but yet you have struggled to make it happen. [00:18:43] (51 seconds)  #SincereDesireYetStruggling