A New Chapter (Romans 8:1-4) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: We're starting Romans eight.

Uh, which is really exciting 'cause Romans eight is one of the

best chapters in the whole Bible.

Um, but last week we talked about kind of how, what it's like for someone to try

to obey God on their own effort, right?

Someone who, who's trying really hard to, to obey God and keep God's law and it's

not going super well for them, right?

There's this struggle, this tension and, um, I don't know.

How this would go because, um, someone told me that you guys might

be too young for this, but do you guys, you guys remember this game?

Yes.

You guys remember this game?

Um,

this game.

I, I love this game and, uh, I was, I was decent at, at We Sports,

but the, the hardest, the hardest of the We Sports for me was.

Was this one we, we boxing was my nemesis.

Uh, I, that's not me by the way.

Um, but uh, is

Speaker 2: that me?

Speaker: It's not me.

It's actually me 3D.

It's not me.

Uh, anyway.

Yeah.

And my brother Luca, no.

Um, anyway, so we boxing.

I tried so hard.

I was a pro at all the other sports, uh, and we boxing.

I was terrible.

I couldn't get past.

I think her name was Emma.

You know, like the, the, she has like blonde hair, but she's black.

Anyway, just there's, you remember Emma?

Yeah.

Um.

Emma was my nemesis.

I could not beat Emma at wee Boxing.

And I tried, I tried really hard, like I would, I don't know about you guys.

I would actually be sore the next day if I played wee sports long enough,

like, like my back would be sore.

My arms like, and I'm playing wee boxing, and I'm like sweating and

I'm doing all this stuff, you know, and I tried really, really hard.

And maybe it was my controller.

That's what I thought.

All right.

Maybe it was me, but I, as hard as I tried, I could not beat Emma at we boxing.

I, I tried super, super hard and I couldn't do it.

And yeah, and that's maybe that's kind of like.

The person that we saw in Romans seven last week, right?

We saw someone who's trying to keep God's law.

They're trying really hard, and maybe they're even doing

some of the right things.

They're pushing the right buttons, they're making the right movements,

but they can't seem to quite do it the way they want to do it.

They feel like they're, they just can't get it all the way.

Maybe that's you.

Maybe you're, you're a Christian, or you think you're a Christian,

or you wanna be a Christian and you're trying to do the right thing.

You're trying to, to follow God, you're trying to trust Jesus.

You're trying to kill sin, and you feel like you just can't get over the hump.

You're, you're, you kind of get it.

You feel like you're doing the right things, pushing the right buttons,

but it's not working out for you.

You kind of feel stuck or you feel like you're, you're in this, this

middle state, or maybe you're.

You're not a Christian.

You feel like if you did wanna be a Christian, it'd be so hard because you'd

have to do all these things you don't like, and it would just be super difficult

and boring and, and it would just be this, this battle, and you'd be forcing

yourself to do something you don't like.

And what we're gonna see here is the difference between

Romans seven and Romans eight.

Remember in Romans seven, we saw a lot of statements like this, right?

This person who's trying to obey God for whatever reason, maybe it's

a good reason, maybe it's a bad reason, but they're trying to obey

God and they feel like they can't.

I don't do what I wanna do.

I do the stuff I hate.

I don't do the good I want, I feel like I'm stuck.

I'm captive to the law of sin.

I, I, they just can't do the right thing.

They feel stuck.

See what happens is this person, what they need is they need

someone else to come help them.

They need someone outside of themselves to come help them see this.

This is what happens.

They're saying, I, I wanna do God's law, but in my body, my

members, there's another law.

There's a, there's another thing forced that's happening, and it, there's like

this fight, it's waging war against my mind, and I feel like I'm captive.

I feel stuck.

I'm trapped in sin.

And then he says, wretched man, that I am, I'm a horrible person.

I can't do the right thing.

Who will deliver me?

Who's gonna rescue me from this situation?

I'm stuck in, I can't do the right thing I want to and I can't.

How do I get out of this?

Well, there's a solution right here.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So he says Jesus is the one who's gonna do it.

God is the one who's gonna get me unstuck.

He's gonna help me finally beat Emma and wee boxing, right?

He's gonna finally help me do the thing that I've been trying to do.

But then the conclusion is I'm still stuck.

Then you turn the page to the next chapter of Romans eight,

and it's totally different.

It's like night and day.

Remember I showed you that chart last time of how many times the

Holy Spirit shows up in Romans seven verses, Romans eight, Romans seven.

The Holy Spirit's only mentioned once in Romans eight.

It's 20 times the difference between someone successfully obeying God

and trying really hard to obey God, but failing is the Holy Spirit.

The difference and what makes a Christian victorious, right?

They're winning in their life of obedience to God versus always losing

to their sin is the Holy Spirit.

That's our main point.

God gives Christians victory over sin.

Victory over sin doesn't come from you trying really hard or knowing a lot.

It comes from God.

God has to do it.

God's power through the Holy Spirit connected to Christ Jesus.

God gives Christians victory over sin.

What happens in Romans eight is there's two problems that we've seen

so far all the way up in Romans.

We've seen two problems, one about God's law.

The law can't give us righteousness, right?

All the law does is show us that we're not righteous.

Remember I showed you that like coloring sheet and told you how

bad I am at coloring, right?

The, what the law does is it shows you that you're bad at keeping the law.

It doesn't help you keep the law.

It shows you, you stink, right?

I can't do it.

I can't tell the truth.

I lie.

I can't be content.

I covet.

I can't be pure.

I committed adultery, right?

I can't be loving.

I murder, I I hate people in my heart.

That's what the law does.

The law shows us that you worship things other than God.

It shows us we can't do it.

It also doesn't help us do the things that it says to do.

Right?

The law is standing there saying, do better, but it doesn't

help you do better, right?

So there's two problems is the law shows us we can't keep it, and

the law doesn't help us keep it.

Romans eight is gonna address both of those problems.

Okay?

So look with me.

Romans eight verse one.

There is therefore, so even these two words, right?

There's therefore, now this is like a big transition here, therefore,

and now there's a, there's a contrast here between what we just saw.

Therefore, now new thing, new thing is happening here.

There's no condemnation, right?

Someone's condemned.

It means they're guilty for those who are in Christ Jesus.

The law shows you you're guilty, but it can't do anything about your guilt.

All the law does is say you stink.

You're horrible.

It can't do anything about that.

It just lets you stink and keeps pointing out that you stink.

It doesn't do anything about it.

How do you get rid of that?

How do you get rid of that feeling of guilt?

Right.

I messed up.

I'm not good enough.

Well, it happens by being connected to Jesus.

There's no condemnation.

Guilt goes away for those, for the people who are in Christ

Jesus connected to Christ.

Jesus.

Right?

And we, hopefully you remember from Romans three and four, how do

you get connected to Christ Jesus?

How do you get connected?

What does it mean to be in Christ by faith?

Right?

Faith is what links you to Jesus.

So our first point tonight, escape guilt by trusting Jesus.

When you don't measure up to the law, what do you do?

Right?

When you, when you see that gap, the law exposes that you're a sinner.

You can't do it.

If there's different ways people try to get rid of that guilt, right?

That feeling.

I know we've all been there, right?

Even when you're a little kid, you do something wrong.

You feel horrible about it, right?

Maybe you, you did something and then you didn't feel bad about it initially,

and then later on you're like, oh man, I should not have done that.

Right?

We've all been there.

What do you do with that feeling when you're convicted about sin?

What do you do?

There's different things people do, right?

Some people, they hide.

Remember Adam in the garden, right?

He hides from God, he runs away.

Maybe that's what you do with God.

You try to hide from God or you try to cover up your guilt.

You just say, I'm just not gonna think about it.

I'm not gonna talk about it.

I don't want anyone to find out.

I'm gonna bury it, right?

You're gonna clear your search history.

You're gonna avoid that person or that situation.

You're not gonna talk about it.

You're gonna hide it.

Maybe that's what you do with your guilt.

Or maybe you try to distract yourself, maybe you just try to

move on and, and move forward and not worry about it anymore.

Or maybe you rationalize it, you say, well, it's not as bad as

those people, so I'm not really that guilty 'cause they're worse.

Or you say, well, I know I was like sinning, but it was because I was

really tired, or my sibling was really annoying and that's why I'm guilty.

And you, you make it not as big of a deal, you rationalize it.

Or maybe you just wait.

You just think, if I wait long enough, I won't feel guilty

about anymore and I'll be okay.

Or maybe you try to make up for it, right?

You try to do good things.

Oh, I know, I sin.

But, um, if, maybe if I read my Bible every day this week,

then I'll be okay with God.

Right.

What do you do to try to make up for your guilt?

Well, the Bible will say that none of those things are gonna work.

None of those things.

Hiding, waiting, making up for it, distracting yourself.

None of those things are gonna get rid of your problem.

They're just covering it up.

What?

We're seeing here in Romans eight.

One is that we need to take our guilt to Jesus.

He's the one that gets rid of it.

There's no condemnation for the ones who are in Christ Jesus, not the ones

who try really hard to get rid of it, not the ones who do a lot of good

things, not the ones who you know aren't as bad as the other people, right?

The, the people who aren't condemned, who aren't guilty are the people

who are connected to Jesus.

I think it's awesome that Jesus did a tangible thing.

That's what we see.

I'm gonna skip verse two for now, but in verse three of Romans eight.

So remember we talked about the two things the law can't do right?

The law can't make you righteous, and the law can't help you keep the law.

Like the law can't get rid of your guilt, and the law can't help you love God.

God has done what the law weakened by the flesh couldn't do.

So the law, it's like sin hijacked the law and used it to do bad

things instead of good things.

So.

Lock it can't take away your guilt and it can't help you love God.

And what did God do to fix that?

Well, the first thing he did is he sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

So Jesus, he took on human form, right?

That's what we celebrate at Christmas.

Jesus didn't take on the sin part of flesh, but he took on human flesh with

all the weaknesses that we have, right?

Jesus got tired.

Jesus.

Um, you know, if he didn't sleep well, right?

There's, there's things that happened to Jesus.

Jesus, he got hurt right there.

There's, Jesus had the weaknesses of human flesh.

He got hungry, right?

Um, so Jesus came down in human flesh and he condemned sin in the flesh.

So, who's he here?

Well, it's God.

He condemned sin in whose flesh?

Jesus.

Flesh.

So what's happening?

That's Friday, right?

Good Friday.

That's what we're talking about.

This is good Friday in Romans eight.

God took the people who trust Jesus.

He took their guilt and he condemned Jesus for it.

That's what we celebrate on Good Friday.

We celebrate.

God took my guilt and he said, Lewis, you didn't keep the law, but I'm

gonna treat Jesus like he's you.

Right?

That's what we celebrate on Good Friday is my sin got condemned, but in Jesus.

So Jesus suffered the consequences that he took on the guilt of my sin.

And that's what faith is.

Faith is saying, Jesus, you have to do this.

I can't do it.

I can't take away my guilt.

Jesus, you have to do it.

That's what faith says.

That's what it looks like to trust Jesus.

That's what it looks like to be in Christ is you trust Jesus.

You get connected to Jesus by faith, and so now instead of you getting treated like

you, you get treated like Jesus, right?

You.

He takes your guilt and you get his righteousness.

His good works.

And what's awesome is this is a tangible thing that really happened, right?

There's a lot of people that love going to, um, Catholic church

because there's a tangible thing that they do that takes away their sin.

They go talk to a priest, they go to the mass, and they take communion,

and it takes away their sin.

So it gives you this experience of, oh, I get to do this thing,

and then I, I did it, and now I know I did it 'cause I saw it and I

felt it, and God took away my sin.

That's wrong.

This is a real thing that really happened that took away your sin.

Right?

And now it feels weird because you're just praying.

Right?

When you, when you take your guilt to God, you, you pray and you ask God

for forgiveness, and you trust that Jesus takes away your sin, but this is

a really thing that really happened.

Jesus really suffered for your sin, right?

For the lies that you said this week, for the impatience that

you showed towards your siblings.

For the impure thoughts that you had for the envy that you had in your heart.

Jesus really suffered for each one of those things and you,

you can make that real to you.

When you, when you look to Jesus, right?

You, you think about, well, this is what we, this is why we do communion.

It's to give you a tangible reminder of Jesus' flesh was really broken, right?

That's why we, we, I guess Annie and Zoe, right?

They break up the, the communion wafers into these like jagged pieces, right?

It's not in these little squares.

And the point is it was condemned in, in real flesh, right?

Real, like a real person really suffered.

His body was really broken.

He really bled to take away your sin.

There's a really good hymn that I love that talks about this.

It, it, it says that it's cocking to people who maybe feel

like they can't come to God.

They feel too guilty.

And it, um, it encourages you to look at Jesus and think about all

that he suffered and say, isn't that enough to take away your sin?

And that's what we do on Good Friday.

We think about, man isn't, look at all the things that Jesus

did to suffer from my sin.

And then you leave it there and you say, that's enough.

I don't need to add to it.

I don't need to make up for it.

I don't need to do anything else.

I can't add to what Jesus did.

He already did all of it.

He took all of my guilt.

I can't add to it by being a, a better person this week.

I can't add to, to what Jesus did.

But maybe you're out there and you're saying, I don't feel guilty.

Maybe that's you.

You're saying, well, you're talking about guilt, you're talking about

all this stuff and I don't feel bad.

I sin.

I like it.

Maybe that's you.

There's a football coach.

I read his biography when I was a kid and, um, his, his name's Tony

Dungy, he's the coach of the Colts.

He was the coach of the Peyton Manning when they won the Super Bowl.

And he had a, he had a son who couldn't feel, um, much paint.

So he had a son.

His son was like five and would like put his hand on the

stove and wouldn't feel it.

And so his son kept hurting himself 'cause he didn't know he was getting hurt.

He would like touch the stove or, or eat these really hot cookies

and like burn his hands and he wouldn't know he was getting hurt.

If you don't feel convicted of your sin, that's you, right?

Your, your hands right are touching the really hot stove

and you're just letting him burn.

And if you don't feel bad about your sin, you're actually in a really bad spot.

You might think you're getting away from it or getting away with

it, or you, you might think that.

Oh, it's not a big deal.

Or you maybe think it's so fun.

I love it.

Really what's happening is, is you're burning your hands and

not even feeling it, right?

When you're convicted of your sin, you touch the, you touch the stove and you

go, ow, it's hot, and you back up, right?

That's the point.

That's why you feel bad about your sin, is your, your conscience is

like your pain receptors, and it, it yells at you and it's like, stop.

Don't do that.

That's hurting you.

But if you don't feel guilty, it's because your sin is, is burning you

and it doesn't bother you anymore.

More.

And so you're in a really dangerous spot if that's you.

But Jesus can still take your sin away, right?

You can still, you're not too far gone, but you're in a

really dangerous spot, right?

You're not better off 'cause you don't feel bad, right?

So if you're out there and you're like, man, I love my sin,

it doesn't bother me, right?

I, you're in a really precarious situation, right?

You are.

You're in real danger.

But anyway, God doesn't just.

Help Christians escape guilt.

He doesn't just give you victory over the consequences of your sin, right?

You sin.

You deserve God's wrath.

He doesn't just say, okay, great.

I can take away the consequences of your sin.

He also gives Christians victory over the power of sin, okay?

And that's our second point.

Defeat sin by the power of the spirit.

So we're talking really about two things.

We're talking about what does God do with the consequences of your

sin, and what does God do with the power of your sin, right?

Because the problem is when you get God's law, right?

The person in Romans seven, they, they get God's commands and they're like,

okay, God told me to do these things, and they try to do 'em, and guess what?

They can't.

So the command said, you can't do it right?

You're bad at this.

And so now they're guilty.

So that's one problem.

The law, God's commands can't help them keep it.

The the commands God gives you don't help you keep the commands.

They just tell you what to do.

Right?

They're just the instructions.

The instructions don't help you build anything.

They don't give you tools.

Right?

It's like batteries not included, right?

The law, God's law came without batteries and it didn't just come,

uh, it didn't just come with the, with showing you you're guilty.

It also came without the ability to keep it.

So not just doesn't show you, you, uh, just doesn't show you

that you're not good enough.

It also shows you you can't do anything to keep the law on your own.

And that's why the batteries that God gives you is the Holy

Spirit when you're a Christian.

God doesn't just say, I'm gonna take away your guilt and your condemnation.

I'm actually gonna help you do the things I made you to do.

You're actually now going to be able to obey God if you're a Christian.

That's why, remember we talked about in Romans six, when someone's connected to

Jesus, they don't just keep on sending the same way they used to, right?

They don't stay loving the same sins they used to love because when

you become a Christian, you get new batteries right, and you get you.

You become different, and now you are able to do the things that God

has always commanded you to do.

That's what we see here in verses one and two.

There's a connection here.

So there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, right?

So all the people who are connected to Jesus by faith, guilt is gone like

not guilty anymore, forever, for the law of the spirit of life has set you

free in Christ Jesus so that the Holy Spirit has freed you from the loss.

So think of like the power.

Think.

So the power of the Holy Spirit has freed you from the

power of sin and death, right?

We talked about how we're all stuck sinning.

We talked about this in Romans six, right?

We're slaves to sin before we become a Christian.

All you can do is sin.

You're stuck.

Now, how does this connect?

And this is really interesting 'cause usually four is like a cause, right?

Usually four means something like, um, I, um, went to the

store for, I needed groceries.

Usually that's, it's a reason In this case though, it's, it's kinda like this.

I knew I was hungry for my stomach growled because I knew, I knew I was

hungry because my stomach growled.

This is the evidence that this happened.

So how do you know you're not guilty?

Well, you see God do something in your life.

You see the evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life and you're like, oh,

now that I'm able to actually do the things that God's commanding me to do.

How I know that this other thing already happened.

So being freed from the power of sin is evidence that you are not

guilty anymore, if that makes sense.

Alright.

This is a package deal and essentially what we're talking about here is

we're talking about that every single person who's justified, who's made

righteous is gonna be sanctified.

Who's gonna, is gonna start living a holy life.

Every single person who trusts Jesus, who's a real Christian, is

gonna live like it essentially.

Every single person who gets their guilt taken away isn't just gonna keep doing

the same things that made them guilty.

They're gonna live differently because the Holy Spirit is going

to come in and change everything.

So if you're not being sanctified, right, if you don't see evidence of the

Holy Spirit in your life, if you don't see God giving you new desires, if you

don't see God killing your sin, if you don't see that you want God more, you

should ask yourself, maybe I wasn't.

Justified.

Maybe I never became a Christian in the first place if there's

no evidence of that in my life.

And so if that's you, you, you don't see any love for God in your life.

You don't see any desire to be with God.

You don't see any love for others.

Maybe it's because in the first place you never became a Christian.

And for you, if you are a Christian, you will certainly be sanctified,

which I find that so encouraging that.

God definitely will kill my sin.

He 100% will kill my sin.

That's so encouraging.

'cause a lot of times, right, I'm not very good at fighting my sin and I have

God's promise that he's gonna do it.

All of God's power is working towards your holiness.

If you're a Christian, you have the full omnipotence of God.

To power your pursuit of loving God.

All of who God is, is for your holiness.

If you're a Christian,

all of God's power wants you to overcome that.

Sin wants you to start living for God.

I had a, um, psychology teacher.

In, um, my senior year of high school, I think, and he was

prepping us for the AP test.

I was in AP psychology and we, uh, he, he was really good, really good teacher.

And what he did was he said, look, if you guys do everything, I tell you, you're

gonna at least get a three on that.

You're at least gonna pass the AP test if you just follow my instructions.

If you, if you make the flashcard, you take the quizzes, you study the things.

I guarantee you you'll get a three.

Everyone in the class got a three more.

Like it was only a few people that actually got a three.

Everyone got fours and fives basically, and he was like, look,

I've done this for 20 years.

Like this is my thing.

If you just follow the instructions, this is gonna happen.

Right?

It's kind of similar to God's promise to Christians.

He says that God's will for you as a Christian is to be sanctified to grow.

God is certainly going to do that.

If you, if, and part of it though is you participate in that.

If you want to impress your, if impress your parents, you can,

you can say these two words.

You can say that salvation is what's called monistic.

Mono meaning one.

Right?

It's all God's work.

Right?

You don't contribute anything to it.

Right?

Clay has a shirt that says the only.

Thing you contribute to your salvation is the sin that made it necessary.

Right?

That's, that's the only thing you bring to the table.

God does everything in salvation, but sanctification is synergistic.

It's a, it's a team effort.

It's you and God both working.

And so just like with the AP test, I had to study, right?

The teacher didn't study for me.

I had to study.

But if I did it his way, I would do it.

I would, I would pass the test.

That's pretty much what God promises to you.

You, you have to really study right?

You, you have to know God's promises and believe God and fight your sin and

really put in your effort, your blood, sweat, and tears into killing your sin.

But if you do it, God promises that he will sanctify you.

Now, it's not gonna be robotic, right?

It's not gonna always look exactly the same every single time,

but God promises that if you are a Christian, you will grow.

Guaranteed.

Right?

So if you feel like, man, I'm struggling, I can't do this.

You can tell yourself, you, you can read Romans eight and tell yourself, I can.

God's spirit is in me.

If I'm really a Christian and it's going to, it's gonna, it's gonna happen.

God's gonna grow me.

And so you can, you can take that to the bank, right?

You can say, God, you promised to sanctify me.

You said in your word that you've given me the spirit and

that I am now able to obey you.

I really can do this.

And there's some temptations, right?

You feel like I can't do this.

Oh, I just, I just get angry.

I don't even think about it.

It just happens, or I just get anxious or, oh, I just can't stop thinking those

things or feeling those things and, and it just feels like it happens to you, right?

You have the Holy Spirit in you to help you, right?

All of who God is, can and will help you to follow him.

Something else that we see is that in these next few verses,

so we already saw this, right?

God sent Jesus, he condemned my sin in Jesus' flesh in order that

the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.

So here's what we're talking about here.

The purpose of God justifying me is to sanctify me.

You see that?

The righteous requirement of the law.

What's that?

Well, what we're talking about here, and we'll see what we probably won't

'cause we probably won't get there.

Romans 13, it says that the, that love fulfills the law.

So really the point of the law is love God and love others, right?

If you're justified, you will love God and love others because

you're living by the spirit.

You have the Holy Spirit's power.

The Holy Spirit is in you, and so therefore, you will do this.

You will really do the things that God command.

The purpose of being justified is so that you can be sanctified.

Sometimes we think that God justifies you and then, or rather God needs to sanctify

you first so that you can be justified.

Right?

We talked about this at Summer Revival.

We talked about how sometimes we think that, oh, um, I need to clean myself up

a bit first, and then God can save me.

That's not how this works, right?

This happens after this.

You keeping the law happens after you're justified.

Your sin has to get taken away first before you can really obey God.

So if you're out there and you're saying, well, I wanna become a Christian, I just

need to start doing the Christian things first, then I'll become a Christian.

That's not how this works.

You get saved, you get justified, then you start changing.

That's the way that God works.

I.

Also, he doesn't just justify you, right?

Save you for you to just go back to where you were.

God gives you righteousness and he expects change 'cause he's, he's gonna

give you the Holy Spirit and change you.

So you should expect being a Christian to change everything about you, right?

If you really did trust Jesus to save you, you shouldn't expect

your life to look exactly the same.

You should expect new motives.

You should expect new dreams.

You should expect new goals.

You should expect new purposes to the, maybe you do the same things.

Maybe you grew up a Christian home and you still read the Bible,

but now you do it for different reasons and it feels different.

You're like, man, God is speaking to me and I'm reading

the Bible, and it's awesome.

You're not just like, oh, I'm just doing this for my parents.

So maybe your outside looks the same, but now the inside is way different, right?

So God expects change.

He's the one that's working to change Christians,

but also, and we kinda talked about this a bit, but Christians

have the ability to obey God.

You as a Christian, if you are, have everything you need to obey God in every

situation and you really can do it.

You really can.

Trust God.

When you feel anxious, you really can be patient.

When you feel annoyed, you really can be pure.

When you're tempted, you really can do all of these things that God

is asking you to do because he's given you the Holy Spirit to do it.

And sometimes when we're, because we're, we're sinners, right?

We, we feel like.

If there's something missing, right?

All this, this sin is too strong, or I'm not good enough, or I

don't know enough, or whatever.

Um, and I remember one of the worst feelings as a kid for me was, you know,

when you're trying to build Legos and you were like missing one of these things.

Worst feeling in the world, right?

And you're like looking all over and you're like, where is it?

Where is it?

What do I do?

I, I need the, the, you know, weird thing that looks like a door stop.

Like, I, I need it.

Where is it?

I got like, you're, you're, you're like throwing over pillows and you're

digging through the trash and you're like, is it somewhere in there?

What happened to it?

Right.

This is the Lego death star, I think.

And that's the bath for the storm troopers.

I don't know why, but there you go.

Um,

which, when you think about it like.

Nevermind.

I'm not gonna go there.

It was when

the point is right, if you there, there's no missing pieces

in you trying to follow God.

You have the Holy Spirit.

You have God's word, right?

You have everything you need to overcome the temptations that come your way.

Right?

You have the omnipotent spirit of God who, who later will see in Romans

eight who raised Jesus from the dead.

You can do it.

Your sin is not stronger than you.

There's no missing pieces.

As you, as a Christian obey, God, there's, there's nothing that extra that you need.

You're not like, oh, well, maybe if I, you know, got more of the Holy

Spirit, then I could really obey God.

You've got a hundred percent of the Holy Spirit you need.

You've got all.

Right.

Or maybe if I, you know, just could be, you know, more, I don't know if I was

just smarter or if, uh, maybe if I had grown up in the church or maybe if I had

better parents or maybe whatever, right?

As a Christian, God gives you all the power, all the ability

you need to obey him, right?

Your sin is not stronger than you no matter what, right?

You have, you can walk into every day with the confidence

to say, I can obey God today.

I can glorify God today.

I can make Jesus look great today.

I have the Holy Spirit and he wants to help me do it.

And we'll see later in Romans eight that God is for you to do that.

He wants you to do that.

God's not sitting there waiting for you to get your act together as a

Christian and say, well, once you try really hard, then I'll help you.

Right?

The Holy Spirit's already in you.

If you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit is for your sanctification, for your

godliness, for your growth, and.

Also right?

You.

You do have to participate in it, but at the same time, right?

I want you to see that God is for that, right?

God's not just waiting for you to do better and then he'll help you.

Right?

God is working in you to help you grow and because maybe you're someone who you

focus more on your part than God's part.

And, and this is probably the, the best part of the sermon for you is that your

ability to obey God comes from God.

Even the fact that you want to obey God comes from God.

So if you're out there and you're saying, man, God saved me, and now I'm so good,

look, I'm just so, I'm crushing it.

I'm so good at obeying God.

Maybe you're in a season where you're, you feel like you're doing really well,

or the Bible's making sense to you.

You, you feel like you're growing, you feel excited about God.

You love going to church.

You love coming to True North.

You love listening to sermons.

Make sure you don't forget that.

That's not just you trying really hard and being really cool, right?

That's God and his spirit working in you too.

So let's pray and we'll talk about that more in small groups.

Father, we love you and we're grateful that you love us.

And so I pray that as we go on to talk about this sermon, that you would help

us to be honest, help us to be focused, help us to, um, be helpful to each other.

I pray that we wouldn't distract each other, that we wouldn't.

Undermine what you're trying to do, but that we would work with you to grow us.

You, God, are working for our good and for our spiritual growth.

And so I pray that no one here would work against you and oppose

you by being distracting or by being dishonest, um, or by looking

down on you or being hardhearted.

I pray that we would work, um, with you and not against you

tonight in our small groups.

We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.