What to do When You're Spiritually Struggling

This morning, galatians 5,.

How many of you in the room you are normal?

Oh, wait, wait, hold on, hold on.

How many of you are normal-ish?

Normal-ish, okay, okay, so you're normal-ish.

Okay, glad we got a bunch of normal-ish people here.

If you're normal-ish, then that means at some time in your life it's safe to say you have some struggles every now and again.

Who would say unofficial church survey?

Who would say sometimes I have struggles in my life, sometimes, okay, some of you didn't raise your hand you are a liar.

You're a liar, right.

We got relational struggles and we have financial struggles and we have health struggles and if you've been following Jesus for any length of time, you probably have some struggles in your spiritual walk.

Sometimes you want to do good godly spiritual things but just have a hard time doing those good godly spiritual things.

You know you want to be more selfless, but sometimes you find yourself being a little bit selfish.

You want to pray more and trust God more and worry less, but you find yourself kind of sometimes worrying more and trusting God less.

Maybe sometimes you have thoughts that you entertain in your mind, maybe they even take over your mind and you just think man, how can I get these out of my brain and we struggle.

And the list can go on and on of struggles that we have in our Christian walk.

You've experienced them.

Sometimes they're different by the week, sometimes they're different by the day, and sometimes it's like why in the world do I struggle with this day?

And sometimes it's like why in the world do I struggle with this?

Will I ever get past this?

Will I ever get past this thing that seems to be preventing me from moving forward in my spiritual walk?

And here's another question when do these struggles come from?

And what do we do if we're in a place in our life, maybe, where things are going well, but somebody else is struggling in their spiritual life, and they come to us and they say, hey, I need help?

How do we do if we're in a place in our life, maybe, where things are going well, but somebody else is struggling in their spiritual life, and they come to us and they say, hey, I need help?

How do we encourage them?

What do we say to them?

Well, that's what we're gonna talk about today.

No matter where you are, we're gonna talk about what do we do in our struggles.

One of the reasons why we struggle is because of a word that we used last week.

It was a word called flesh.

Everybody say the word flesh, ready Flesh.

Now, flesh it's not.

We're talking about our physical body, but we said flesh is the part of us that's connected to our old sinful nature, that causes us to put our own ungodly desires above God's ways and above other people.

And the flesh leads us to do certain things that well produce dissatisfaction in life and ultimately can produce destruction in life, and it causes us to give in to sin.

So what we're going to see today is how do we overcome it?

How do we deal with this struggle that we have?

How do we help other people in the struggle that they may have, because we all have them.

Well, let's pick it up in Galatians, chapter 5, and let's see what Paul tells us about it.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

If you're ready for the word, would you say amen?

This is what Paul says.

Paul says for the.

What's the word for the?

There's that word.

The flesh desires.

What is against the?

Okay, flesh desires.

What is against the?

These are opposed to each other.

So you don't do what you want, but if you're led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Okay, so now we have this flesh.

What does this flesh produce in us?

Well, it says it produces some things that are obvious Sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing and anything similar.

I'm warning you about these things, as I warned you before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Wow, what a list.

Anybody want to take a guess?

How many things is listed here?

14?

Close 14?

15?

15 things listed here.

It's like, you know, paul was not holding back.

He's like let me just give them all to you.

I gotta warn you.

Well, you probably already saw this as you're reading through this list.

Some of these are kind of normalized in our society, just kind of like what people do.

But Paul says this is a work of the flesh.

And the really smart people, the really theologians, really break these works of the flesh up into three different categories Sexual sin, superstitious sin and social sin.

And well, Paul starts off swinging for the fences and he starts with sexual sin.

So what is it?

Well, sexual immorality, immoral, moral impurity and promiscuity is any distortion of God's design for sex.

So what is God's design for sex?

God's design for sex is a marriage covenant between one man and one woman.

Now what's happened in our world is it's really easy to drift into like one or two ditches when it comes to sex.

One ditch that the church honestly is like kind of guilty of oftentimes is it's like sex is bad, sex is dirty, like we can't talk about that.

Don't say the three-letter word in church.

You know it's like hey, we can't talk about this, we can't talk about these desires.

You're not even allowed to have those desires In the youth group.

It's like don't say that.

It's kind of one ditch.

The other ditch, which is one that we all live in, and the world we live in is well.

You can have sex with whoever you want and whenever you want.

It's all good.

While you're at it, you can have sex with whoever you want and whenever you want, it's all good.

While you're at it, you can watch people have sex too.

Right, that's how we live, eh, it's how to normalize in our society.

But God says hold on, hold on, sex is for the marriage covenant and God says sex isn't bad.

I mean, think about this.

God created the first two people.

He created Adam and Eve, married couple.

He put them in the Garden of Eden.

And they were in the Garden of Eden and they were naked and God said hey Adam, hey Eve, be fruitful and multiply.

Do I need to translate what he was telling them to do?

Get it on, guys, let's go.

Sex is God's idea, not bad.

I mean, think about this.

You wouldn't be here without it.

It.

We talk about sex.

Maybe an analogy can be helpful.

So I, hey, some of y'all have minds, man, I said that and some of you guys are hanging with me, okay, so I have this lighter here.

Lighter, everybody say, ooh, fire, is this good?

Let me, is fire by itself?

Let's start this way.

Is fire by itself?

Is fire bad?

I hear some yeses, I hear some noes.

Okay, is fire good?

Yeah, is it Okay?

How many of you guys like to barbecue Barbecue?

Okay, I'm going to apologize to my vegan people in the room.

Hold on, okay, how many of you?

Somebody just tell me what is your favorite meat to barbecue?

Favorite meat to barbecue?

Ribs, let's go.

Ribs.

Rib eye Come on, my guy.

Rib eye, yes for sure.

Tri-tip, the third one.

It took the third.

What's that?

Chicken breast?

Okay, there you go.

Healthy guys up there.

Chicken breast, okay, somebody else?

What's that Hot dog?

There you go, all right.

So let's say you're barbecuing in your backyard and it's a barbecue, guess what you have to have?

You have to have fire.

Okay, you have to have this fire and you have your barbecue grill.

You got it all set up, you know, and you feel like you're like some master chef from the Food Network or something, and you're barbecuing and the fire is really good.

It's gone away now.

The fire is really good because no fire, no tri-tip.

No fire, no chicken breast.

No fire, no hot dog.

No fire, no ribeye.

This fire is good.

But what if that same fire that was in the grill went outside of the boundary of the grill and your house caught on fire?

The fireman knew what will happen.

It'd be bad.

That fire within the boundary that was good is now causing destruction, is now causing damage, is now causing heartbreak, is now causing pain, because the good thing of fire was taken out of the boundary.

And this is what God says.

God says sex is good, god says it's really good.

Then the boundary.

And here's the question the boundary of marriage.

So here's the question Does the creator of sex, god, know what is best for our sex lives?

Now we say, yes, it is because we're in a church service, in a church building.

But do we really think that?

And here's a question Can we trust God with our sex lives?

Can we say, god, I trust you with this, in a world that says I'm going to have sex when I want to have sex?

In a world that says, oh, we've been dating for a month and a half, yeah, we're going to move in together?

In a world that says we do whatever we want?

Now, I just got to state this obvious fact is that God's truth about sex is not very convenient, is it?

It's not convenient.

Okay, some of you are looking at me.

Whatever, I'm a single guy.

This is not convenient.

Okay, not convenient.

If you're in a romantic relationship with somebody that you're not married to and you have blood flowing through your veins, this is not convenient.

But if God is a God that truly wants you to experience fullness of joy, could it be that he has put boundaries around this for your joy?

And could it be that he's put boundaries around this for your joy, even if you don't realize what that is?

And, to be honest, like for some of us, there's a gap in our spiritual life between where we are and where God wants us to be.

And the gap is us surrendering our sex life to God.

I'm not saying this is easy, but the gap is saying, god, I'm going to line up with what you say and I'm going to live by what you say, whether that means I'm going to get married, whether that means that I'm going to, I'm not going to partake in this anymore, whatever that is.

And there's a gap for some of us.

And on the other side of that gap is where we can really step into the fullness of who God wants us to be.

Some fruits of the flesh are sexual.

Some fruits of the flesh are.

They're superstitious.

He says idolatry.

What's idolatry?

Idolatry is putting anything above god in your life.

Here's idolatry.

Idolatry is when anything becomes a god thing, sorcery.

It's witchcraft, witchcraft.

What's that witchcraft?

Things like y'all ready tarot cards, palm readings, psychics some of y'all came in this morning.

You didn't know, pastor Nate was like shooting for the fences.

Right, it's what the Bible says.

Right, the people of God should not be going to see a psychic, or should not be going to see a medium.

This is superstitious sin.

This is nature.

These are things of the works of the flesh.

We're just reading the scripture here.

He talks about works of the flesh that are sexual works of the flesh, that are sexual works of the flesh that are superstitious, but some they're social, they're like how we relate to each other and you've felt some of these before Hatred this is having a hateful attitude towards somebody.

Content, strife this is contention that divides people.

Jealousy, self-centered animosity, outbursts of anger, temporal eruptions Ever have one of those Selfish ambitions?

These are having ambitions that are primarily centered on you.

Ambition's a really good thing, like there's nothing wrong with ambition.

But if the goal of your ambition at the end of your ambition is you and being more comfortable and having more stuff and having bigger, better, faster, and it's all about you, that's a selfish ambition.

At the end of your ambition is you and being more comfortable and having more stuff and having bigger, better, faster, and it's all about you.

That's a selfish ambition.

Paul says hey, that's a work of the flesh.

Dissensions this is discord.

Factions this is being selfishly exclusive.

You guys ever seen the Divergent movies?

You know what I'm saying.

Divergent, okay, like the factions in Divergent movies.

It's like this clickiness.

That's what he's talking about here.

Envy, desiring somebody else's possessions have you ever desired somebody else's possessions before Me either?

But I've heard of people that do right Drunkenness, getting drunk, carousing, partying with excessive drinking and sexuality.

As you go through this list, every single one of us struggle with some of these at points in our life.

Some of us who struggle with these all the time in our life, and all of us because of our flesh.

We can get off of our religious high horse and our religious ivory tower and we can just say that we struggle and this is where our flesh leads to some of these things.

But, like we talked about last week, if we are dependent on the Spirit, it's going to lead us to a different place.

Verse 27,.

This is the fruit of the Spirit.

It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

If you missed the message, you can check it out on YouTube or the podcast.

The law is not against such things.

Now, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Those of us that are followers of Jesus, we've said no, I'm not giving into these things.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in.

What's that word?

Keep in Step with the Spirit?

Now, keeping in step with the Spirit is different than what we learned last week, which is walking in the Spirit.

It's depending on the Spirit, but keeping in step in the Spirit.

This is what this means.

Any of you guys out here, you guys like to go hiking, hiking, hiking.

We got some hikers in there.

Okay, let's go hiking.

We got a couple people at our church right now.

They actually just summoned Mount Kilimanjaro, which is crazy in Africa, and I've seen a picture of it yesterday.

But you know, you got different hikers and people like to hike and you ever hike somewhere.

If not, just kind of go with me.

You ever hike somewhere where you've never been and maybe you have a leader that they've been there before and you're kind of following them.

And maybe it's a place like Rockville, where there's all these different paths or going all these different places.

So the leader tells you to go this way and there you go that way.

Or maybe you're going down a hill and you're going down a decline and you're watching where they put their feet and then you put your foot there, and then you see they put their foot there.

So you're like, oh, that's a flat rod, I put my foot there, and so on and so forth, and what you're doing is you are following in step with the leader, with who's leading, and what Paul is saying right here is that we need to keep in step with the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit wants to lead us, because he wants to lead, and we need to.

Let us verse 26, not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another, when we walk through the passage.

It doesn't take a ton of self-awareness to realize that we struggle with these things in our life and sometimes we think, oh, I don't struggle with drunkenness or sexual immorality, okay, what about strife or jealousy or envy?

All right, here we go.

So here's kind of what we're going to spend the rest of our time in the next 10 minutes or so.

Is what do we do about them?

Okay, paul, like, yes, you have this list here, yes, we know what these are.

So what?

How do we handle them?

Well, this is what we got to do.

The first thing we got to do is we got to be honest with ourselves about our struggles.

We have to be honest Now.

This is part of overcoming the works of the flesh.

This is part of overcoming our sin is being honest Now.

Sometimes, when our sin gets exposed, we get defensive.

So maybe somebody lovingly tried to gently point something out to you and you thought, or maybe you said you don't know what you're talking about, I can stop whenever I want.

Well, everybody else is Well, at least I don't.

Maybe you've said it, maybe you've said it, maybe you've thought it.

It's gotten defensive.

It's like we've said before when I see your sin, I become a judge, but when I sin, I become a defense attorney.

But when I sin, I become a defense attorney.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, hey that.

But you know what they do.

You know what they did.

At least I didn't.

Sometimes what we can do is we can get defensive and we're not honest.

And until we get honest about some things and honest about kind of where we're at, we're not going to be able to take steps in our faith and get real.

Sometimes what we think is, when it comes to our sin, is we're like man, I'm never going to be able to overcome this once.

We do become self-aware of some of these things, but because of our identity in Christ, we can't overcome things.

We got to be honest.

Number two we got to be honest in community with others.

Scripture says in James 5, 16,.

It says, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

We like that idea of being healed, don't we?

Man, I want to be healed from this issue, from this challenge, from whatever.

I want to be healed.

But you see what the top line says right there Confess your sins to one another.

Is there a better way or another way?

I mean, is there any other options?

It says confess our sins to one another and pray so we can be healed.

This is hard, isn't it?

It's hard admitting my shortfalls to myself, much less with somebody else.

That's what we have to do.

We've got to be honest with somebody, and this is why we have to do everything we can to allow FCC, this community, to be a very safe place.

In fact, I believe the church should be the safest place in the world, where people can struggle and not be judged, where people can wrestle through things and not be shunned away, where people are accepted and where we can have conversations with people about right where they are.

And what I'm saying is is the church shouldn't be soft on sin, but it shouldn't be hard and condescending on people either.

The church shouldn't be soft on sin, but it doesn't need to be hard and condescending on people either.

It's like when you have struggles and issues, we don't say man, what's wrong with you?

I can't believe you're struggling with that.

No, jesus received people where they are.

And remember Jesus said you who are without sin, cast the first stone.

And remember the church should not be a museum for the saints, but it's a hospital for sinners.

The church is not a museum for saints, a hospital for sinners, and this is really good news for me and this is really good news for you.

And in order for us to have this place that's safe, this place where we can confess our faults one to another, we have to.

Actually this is going to be sound crazy we have to get to know one another.

Like we have to get to know one another.

Like we have to get to know each other, like we have to have real relationships with each other.

Like church is not a transactional thing, where I come on Sunday and Pastor Nate gives us a halfway decent sermon I hope he does, you know.

Hopefully worship is good.

It's not just like.

This is what it is.

It's a community, like it's a family, where we actually do some life together.

One thing as a church is that we are more dedicated than ever before to creating environments where community and relationships can happen, where you can get to know people, where you can spend time with each other.

This is why we have community groups and growth groups.

This is why next Sunday, after the service, we're going to be having a barbecue.

It's going to be a great time A jump house and dessert baking contest and all kinds of stuff.

Why?

So you can talk to somebody else around you and get to know people around you.

This is why, in the fall, we have a ladies retreat and a men's retreat.

This is why we had a young adult retreat earlier this year.

Why?

Because we want to build a community here where we actually care about we care about how people are doing, not just what people are doing when we're praying for each other, where we're actually challenging each other, sometimes because we need to be challenged.

It's in community where people are healed.

But this type of community only happens when people are committed to it.

This type of community is not just found.

This is community that is forged.

And could it be that on the other side of your healing, the place where you can find healing is when you step into community.

Could it be that we keep up some walls between us and community and those are the very walls that are between us and our healing.

Could it be that God wants to do some things in your life through his local church, but it takes you saying I'm going to take a step and get committed and be engaged with the people of God For us to heal in our struggles?

We've got to be honest with ourselves, we've got to be honest with others.

And number three, we have to use spiritual weapons to fight the works of the flesh.

Spiritual weapons to fight the works of the flesh.

Now I thought about changing this.

I thought about changing this to we need to use spiritual weapons to go to war with the works of the flesh, because I think that's like a better picture.

You'd be like a war movie where you know, braveheart, ah, you know, and all these guys Like this like war, because the works of the flesh guys, they ain't going away.

Our flesh produces these.

So what we got to do is we have to use God's prescription to fight the works of the flesh.

Bro, your willpower and your self-discipline is not enough, man, it's not.

This is what God's given you, god's given you scripture.

This is what we do.

This is what God's given you.

God's given you scripture.

This is what we do.

We have a work of the flesh that we struggle with.

This is what we do.

We find a scripture, a verse, and we meditate on this verse and we memorize this scripture that directly speaks into that work of the flesh.

That's what we do.

We go to YouVersion Bible app Gosh.

I love the YouVersion Bible app.

Go to YouVersion Bible app Gosh.

I love the YouVersion Bible app.

Go to YouVersion Bible app and we find one of the devotional plans that speak directly into that struggle that we're facing and we go to war with that.

That's what we do.

We use prayer.

You know what prayer is.

Prayer is communicating the fact God, I can't, you can.

That's what we do.

We pray.

We run to our identity in Christ.

We just sang a song, one of the most powerful songs we sing here.

Who you Say I Am Someone's like.

We need to get that song on repeat.

Y'all, like this week, put that up on Spotify.

Save that thing, repeat it.

We need to understand who we are in Christ.

This is why this is important, right?

Because a dog doesn't meow Dog, don't meow right.

A cat doesn't fly.

A cat really doesn't do anything.

Actually, I'm just kidding, they act.

Animals act like who they are.

When we understand who we are in Christ, it will show us what to do.

When you know who you are, you will know what to do and you are never more like you if you're a follower of Jesus, when you are resting in your identity in Christ and you are obeying God.

That's when you are fully you, and what we have to do is when we're struggling with the works of the flesh.

It's like, hey, I'm struggling here, but that's not who I am.

I'm not some mean person.

I'm a person of love.

I'm not a bitter person.

I'm a person that's forgiven.

This is who I am.

I'm not a selfish person.

I am one that serves.

This is who God says I am.

I'm not in bondage.

I've been free and I'm telling y'all we have to use these weapons to fight the works of the flesh.

Next weapon we have is the Holy Spirit, which leads us to our fourth and final way to handle our struggles is we let the Holy Spirit lead us.

The text says to walk in step with the Spirit and the Holy Spirit's gonna lead you to do some things to help you avoid the works of the flesh, maybe some things that aren't clearly lined up in Scripture.

I say clearly lined up, but I mean that aren't clearly said in Scripture.

So maybe, for example, there's an environment where you know if you hang out in that environment, you have a propensity to do certain things and you have said, oh well, god doesn't say I shouldn't hang out in that environment.

But you know, you know what happens when you go over there and the Holy Spirit is going to lead you to say no, let's not go there.

No, let's tell them in the text we're not able to make it tonight.

That's the Holy Spirit.

Let's tell them in the text we're not able to make it tonight.

That's the Holy Spirit.

There might not be a direct line in Scripture that says you shouldn't take this position because this position is going to take you somewhere that maybe you shouldn't go.

That's going to cause you to realign your priorities and devalue spiritual things.

There might not be a line in Scripture that says that, but the Holy Spirit might say no, you should say no to that opportunity.

And some of us, what we can do is we can play theological gymnastics, and what I mean by that is we know the Holy Spirit's leading us to do something or it's telling us to say no to something and we're just like, well, there's not a verse, so I can go ahead and do it.

But like, well, there's not a verse, so I can go ahead and do it.

But the Holy Spirit wants to lead you and I'll tell you why this matters.

I'm going to end with a little story Me and Pastor Cody last year we were at a church service and they asked me after the service.

He said hey, did you notice the gentleman that was leading worship music?

He had two microphones.

I said, yeah, I noticed it, but I didn't really think about it.

I said help me understand it.

So the worship leader he had a microphone here and when he spoke and sang into it it went into the room in the congregation off the speakers.

But he had another microphone here that every now and again you know he'd be playing.

Then he would like whisper into it or I don't know what he did.

I wasn't no.

Pastor Cody said you know why he did that?

I'm like I don't know why worship people do half the stuff they do.

You know.

He said that microphone goes into the in-ear monitors of the different people that are on the team.

So what he'll be doing is he'll be leading, he'll be singing out and then he'll whisper something to direct the team, to lead the team, to guide the team, to tell the team hey, okay, we're going to get started.

And now In the middle of the song, sometimes a whisper or something.

Hey, we need to kind of recalibrate that.

But can you imagine what would happen if the keyboardist hears in his or her inner ear monitor the worship leader is directing and leading and the keyboardist is like I don't think I want to do that.

I saw a YouTube tutorial last week and I think a better way would be to do I don't know.

Can you imagine if the drummer, if the drummer should I do it, yeah, do it.

All.

Right, here we go, ready Donovan is fired.

We're getting a real drummer in here.

He's great.

Can you imagine if the drummer's back here and the drummer's like this guy's good on the guitar, but you don't know how to drum.

I'm doing what I want to do over here, like you got.

It's like man, I was just at a concert the other week and they did it differently.

I'm not doing what this guy wants.

And you got the bass guitarist over here.

I'm living out my dream right now.

And you got the bass guitarist over here.

I'm living out my dream right now.

Guys Got the bass guitarist.

Hope I don't break this thing.

I learned you turn it on by turning the knob.

I just learned this today.

Let's see we good, we good.

Okay, hold on, let me do it.

Let me hit it like three times.

And then you guys got to act like you're really impressed.

Okay, you ready.

Okay, can you imagine the bass guitarist they're doing their thing.

The keyboardist they're doing their thing.

The drummer they're just drumming for Jesus and going all over the place, you know.

And the worship leader is like, hey guys, don't come on like I'm trying to direct you to do this.

He's trying to lead them.

Can you imagine it would be mayhem.

It'd be probably worse than what you just heard me playing.

But what happens is when the worship leader whispers into the in-ear monitors of the drummer and the keyboardist and the bass guitarist and they listen, it creates beautiful music and the Holy Spirit wants to whisper to you.

And when you listen, it creates beautiful music for a listening world to hear, and some of us are at a place in our life where the Holy Spirit's trying to lead us to take steps, and this is what we're thinking.

We're like ah, I know that's what the Holy Spirit's saying, but this YouTube tutorial over here, this is what this TikToker's telling me to do.

You know, I mean, I know this is what the worship leader's saying, but I think this is the better way, because everybody else is doing this and, before we know it, what's happening is all, as followers of Jesus, our lines are out of sync and he's going this way and she's going that way, and a watching world is like what in the world is going on?

But if we will be people that will be led by the Spirit and listen to the Spirit and take steps as the Spirit is leading sometimes they're hard, they're not always easy, but if we will take steps as the Spirit is leading, this is what's going to happen.

We're going to make beautiful music for a listening world to hear.

So here's my question what is the Holy Spirit leading you to do this morning?

What's a step in your faith you need to take?

For some of us, being real honest, it's just us here.

We're always honest.

Some of us need to repent.

Some of us are living in a place of the fruit of the flesh and we are totally okay with it and we've just said this is how I'm going to be.

Nope, it's time to repent For some of us.

The Holy Spirit is leading you, man, to take a step and maybe fight some of these fleshly battles with spiritual weapons.

Take that step.

For some of you, the Spirit is leading you.

You just need to be open with your struggle, like for the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time ever, this is a safe place.

You can be struggled, you can be honest, at least with yourself, some of us.

We need to take a step into community and we need to say, hey, I need to be more committed to the people of God, wherever it is, wherever the Holy