Holy War (Romans 6:11-14) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: All right, we are, um, kind of covering some of the same.

Verses that we talked about last week we're in Romans six.

So turn there in your Bibles, Romans six.

We're gonna be zooming in on four verses 11 to 14.

Um, if you don't remember, last week we talked about how Christians are connected

to Jesus and that changes everything.

So when someone becomes a Christian, they get connected to Jesus, or, um, the fancy

word for that was they get baptized.

With Christ, they get united to Jesus.

And we saw that right in Romans six.

We saw that in verses five through seven.

Uh, Paul, the author of Romans, Paul, a real bible name is saying, if we've been

united with Jesus in his death, right?

That means that, that we've died to sin.

Right?

If you're a Christian, you the old self, the the sinful you is dead.

Crucified, right?

Jesus died.

You're connected to Jesus.

You died with Jesus.

If you are a Christian, right, and that means you're free from sin.

We talked about remember how, um, sin is, we talked about how

our life is like a castle, right?

And there's someone on the throne.

Either God is on the throne or sin is on the throne.

And so for a Christian, sin is no longer on the throne.

Everyone starts out with sin on the throne.

We talked about how sin is raining.

Remember that from Romans five.

And so sin is in control of your life until you get united to Jesus.

Jesus comes in and he takes control of the throne.

Of your life, and that's why they don't keep on sitting.

That's why Christians don't keep on sitting.

That's how this chapter started with, well, if we're saved by grace,

if God's gonna forgive everything, why don't we just keep sitting?

Why is it a big deal?

If God already loves me, God already forgives me.

Why don't I keep sinning?

Well, it's because we're dead to sin.

See that in verse two, we and sin don't get along anymore.

We used to love sin.

We used to.

Sin used to be our boss.

Sin used to be our master, but now we're free.

We don't wanna do that anymore.

If you are connected to Jesus.

But sin is still trying to take back the castle of Christians.

Sin is trying to come back and, um, take, take over once again.

And that's what we saw at the end of this, this chapter or this passage right here,

is that sin is trying to have dominion.

Sin is trying to dominate.

Christians.

Sin is already dominating unbelievers, sin is in control of them, right?

If you're not a Christian here, you're only doing what your

sinful desires want to do.

You're almost like, you know, see, remember, uh, you ever see

someone who's walking a dog that's way too big for them, right?

And their dog is really walking them, right?

That's you.

If you're not a Christian, your sinful desires are like that giant dog.

And the dog is just dragging you around wherever it wants to go.

Your sinful desires are in control of you.

They're dominating you, they're your master.

And, um.

You're a Christian, you're that, that's not true anymore.

Sin iss not your master, but sin is still trying to take

back what used to belong to it.

And so Christians are battling sin for the rest of their life because

we're stuck in this sinful world and we're stuck in our sinful flesh.

Right?

Our, our body is still.

Um, broken.

Our body's still messed up, so we still have these sinful desires.

It's kind of like, um, everyone folds your hands like, like you're praying, right?

Folds your hands.

Now fold 'em the other way where your other thumb's on top.

Does that feel weird?

Yeah, right.

Try to put 'em together.

Just that, that same way you have 'em right now.

Naturally you want to put 'em the, the way you always do it, right.

Right.

I'm always, I'm a right hand on top guy.

I, I'm always, if I, if I'm folding my hands, I, I'm doing it one way, right?

For you to do it, for me to do it like this feels weird, right?

Because my body has just, has, has these habits.

It's just the way my, my body is, my body wants me to do that, right?

If you're a Christian, that's kind of like what, it's, what you're,

what you're struggling against.

You're struggling against your, your sinful flesh.

You naturally, you're still gonna want to, to do it the old way.

You're, if you're a Christian, you're naturally gonna wanna do it the old way.

Still, you're still gonna naturally wanna be prideful or selfish or anxious.

Right?

But you're free now to do it.

The new way to put your other hand on top, right?

You're, you're free to do it the other way.

It's like if you weren't a Christian, you're stuck.

You, you can never, I could never put my left hand on top, but when

I became a Christian, now I can.

Now I can do that, but I have to think about it.

I have to try.

It doesn't just happen automatically if I just didn't do anything and I put my hands

together right hand on top, but if I think about it left hand on top, I can do it.

I'm free.

Right?

That's what we're talking about here.

If you're a Christian, it's not that it's gonna be easy, but now

you have the ability to defeat sin.

Sin doesn't have to dominate you anymore.

You can win, and that's what we're gonna talk about is how to do that.

Christians are always fighting a war against sin.

And in today's sermon, we're gonna look at almost three battlefields for that war.

Okay?

So Christians are always fighting a war against sin.

I want you to see there's three battlefields for that war, okay?

And the first battlefield, we're gonna call it the battle of belief.

Okay?

Battle of belief.

So first point tonight, fight to believe truth.

Fight to believe truth.

All of your points are gonna start with fight.

'cause that's what I want you to feel.

I want you to feel that there's a war going on.

There's a fight happening, um, and you're either winning or losing.

Um, you're in this, if you're a Christian, you are in this fight

whether you wanted to be or not.

If you're a Christian, you are fighting.

If there's no fighting going on, it should scare you.

It should worry you because it probably means you're not a Christian.

If you don't see any fight in your life, that means sin is

just dragging you around, right?

That that big dog is just walking you around.

There's no fight.

But if you're fighting that dog, if you're pulling on the leash.

That's a good sign.

There is a fight happening.

So the first battle is the battle to believe what God says, and that's where

we see this in Romans six, chapter 11.

So we're gonna start at verse 11 here, and this is the first command

in the whole book of Romans.

The first time that Paul, the author of Romans, has said, do this The

first time in the whole book, he says, you Christians must consider

yourself dead to sin and alive to God.

Believe all the things we just said.

If you're a Christian, you're, you're united to Jesus.

You're connected to Jesus, and so because of that, you're dead to sin.

You're alive to God.

You're a new person.

Old you is dead.

New you is alive.

You get to believe it.

That's really all he's saying.

Believe it.

Consider yourself.

Think about yourself that way.

Don't think about yourself the old way.

Think about yourself the way you really are after what God has done to you.

And that's because right?

It's easy to, to forget that.

He says it because it's easy to feel like you're still stuck in sin or think any

Christian would feel that, they would say, man, sometimes I feel like I, I

just keep sinning and I don't want to, but it feels like that's all I can do.

Sometimes

sin wants to make you believe that you are a slave still.

Even if you are a Christian, sin wants to make you think, well, you,

you just, you just can't help it.

You're just an anxious person.

That's who you are.

You're just an angry person, or, you know, that's just the way your, your body works.

You're always gonna feel those impure desires.

That's just who you are.

You can't get rid of it.

That's just the way, it's, I can't resist that temptation.

It's too strong.

I just, I, I just have to do it.

I have to get upset at the person I, I, I can't make myself enjoy the Bible.

It's so boring.

It's so hard to read.

I can't do it.

Sin wants to make you feel like you are unable to live for God.

It's one thing to know that, and it's another thing to believe it.

That's why it's the battle of belief, not the battle of knowledge.

You need to believe truth, not just know truth.

It's a lot of, a lot of people in hell who know all the right things.

It's a lot of people in hell who know really good theology, who know the right

thing about God, who've memorized Bible verses, but they don't believe them.

They just.

Know them.

It's almost like truth is bullets and belief is a gun.

The bullets don't help you.

You can throw bullets at people.

They don't do anything, right?

You can know a lot of Bible.

You can know a lot about God.

You can know a lot of things you should do, but until you believe

them, until you load those truths into your belief, gun and shoot them

is useless.

You have to, if you're a Christian, you can know all these right things.

Sign off on the, the church doctrinal statement, if you will.

But if unless you, you put those truths or those promises from God into your

faith, belief, gun, and start shooting,

you're, you're, you're not fighting.

You're just sitting there holding bullets.

And so maybe if you're a Christian and you grew up, you had good parents

who taught you the Bible and you.

Or maybe you're not a Christian.

You had good parents who taught to you the Bible and you know all these right

things about God, and you know how to answer the questions in small groups and,

and all that, but you're just sitting there with a bunch of bullets and no gun.

It's, it's because you're not a Christian and you don't trust God.

You don't believe, you just know, or maybe you are a Christian and you,

and you know the right things, but you don't do anything about them.

If you are a Christian, you're like, I know I shouldn't sin this

way, but I just keep doing it.

I know I shouldn't be anxious, but I keep doing it.

I know I shouldn't.

I have those impure thoughts, but I keep doing them.

I know I shouldn't be selfish, but I just happen to, I just

get so upset at my siblings.

It just happens.

You're just sitting there with a bunch of bullets.

You gotta load 'em in your gun and shoot 'em.

Bullets don't save lives, right?

Bullets don't hit people on their own.

Right?

The things you know about God aren't gonna do anything for you unless you put

'em into action and believe them, right?

You gotta pick 'em up and fire 'em.

The thing though is that just believing something really hard

doesn't change anything either, right?

That's a gun with no bullets.

Some people say, well, you just need faith.

Faith in what?

Right?

Your, your gun doesn't work unless you've got bullets in it, right?

Don't put your faith in your faith Sometimes I think

we're tempted to do that too.

Oh, if I just believe really hard, it'll, it'll work well.

You're putting your faith in your faith.

You're not putting your faith in God, or maybe you're worried.

I don't know if I have enough faith.

Well, what's the problem?

Your faith or God, if you have a little faith that connects

you to a big God, guess what?

That's a better spot to be in than someone who has a lot of faith in a fake God.

A lot of people with a lot of faith in the wrong things, right?

And those people don't trust Jesus because they've got a gun and no bullets, right?

So this battle of believing truth, right?

Not just knowing truth, but believing truth

is so crucial because faith is also just how you see the world.

And that's why it's so important.

That's why Paul starts here, is you're, how you see yourself, right?

How you see God, how you see the things that that he's made, how you see sin

that's gonna change everything about you.

Faith is a way of seeing reality for what it really is, right?

If you see yourself as stuck in sin, if you're a real Christian

and you see yourself as stuck, oh, I'm just, that's just who I am.

That's just the way, that's just my personality.

I, I'm not, I, I don't, I'm never gonna be able to share the gospel with people

because I'm not an outgoing person, right?

You're in, you're looking at yourself as a slave to sin.

You're looking at yourself as a slave to fear, and so your

faith, right, is informing.

Your how you, how you live.

'cause of the way you're looking at yourself, the way you're

looking at God is changing.

Sin is kind of like, you know, those mirrors that mess

up how, how you look, right?

You ever seen those?

They're like carnival mirrors is what they call 'em.

Mm-hmm.

Those mirrors that, that make you look really weird, right?

This is what sin does.

Sin takes the way things really are and changes it, so it looks different.

It tells you things that aren't true.

There's a, there's a great book about, um, anxiety.

It's called when people are Big and God is small, and that's the point here.

Sin makes people really big and scary, and it makes God really small and unimportant.

So you're scared of what people think.

Well, what's your sin is doing?

You're, you're anxious Desires are doing right, is they're making the people really

big and they're making God really small.

You're way more scared of the people than you are of God, right?

So your sin is changing the way you see the world.

Faith is a real mirror.

Faith shows you the way things really are.

God is big and people are small.

God is important, and people don't really matter that much compared to God, right?

That's the way faith sees the world.

Faith sees that God's promises are sure you can take 'em to the bank.

God's or faith sees God's promises as good.

What God says is good for me.

Sin says God doesn't really want you to be happy, right?

People who live that way, they're, they're boring.

That's what sin says.

It changes the way you see the world.

Faith says, no.

God got what God says is so good for me, and he's so wise and he loves me, and so

if I trust him, it's gonna go really well for me and it's always gonna be worth it.

Even if it doesn't feel worth it, my sin might tell me it's not worth it.

My faith will tell me it is.

And that's the way things really are.

Faith is seeing things the way they really are.

Sin is looking at this, right?

When, when you're looking at the world through the lens of your sinful

desires, this is what you see, right?

You see God is not important, or, um, God's word is boring and can't help

me, or a prayer doesn't do anything.

Or that that person, they're not worth loving.

For God could never save me.

Right?

That's what sin tells you.

Faith tells you, if I confess my sins, God is faithful and just to

cleanse me of all unrighteousness.

That's what faith tells me.

And so you're fighting for faith.

You're fighting to see the world, the right way, to see God the right way.

And

it's one thing to know those things, right?

It's one thing to know the Bible verse I just quoted to you, but it's

another thing to believe it and right.

Put the bullet in the gun and shoot it.

Right?

Two very different things.

I think a good example, anxiety is a great example of this, right?

Because let's say you're anxious about something, right?

You're, you're anxious about, um, you've got a test coming up and you're really

anxious and you're, you're like, oh, I don't know how this is gonna work.

I don't know if I'm gonna pass whatever.

Right?

Um, what anxiety says is, well, if I fail my test, I'm, I'm worthless.

Or if I fail my test, my parents are gonna kill me.

Uh, or if I fail my test, everyone's gonna make fun of me.

Or, um, whatever.

What faith says is, you know what, um, what's more important than my

grade is whether I'm glorifying God by studying hard and trusting him, right?

That the grade isn't as important as my worship, right?

Me worshiping God is way more important.

Me trusting him, me honoring him by, by working hard.

That's way more important than whether I get a 65, a 75, an 85 or a 95.

And so what you do right is you, you say, okay, you, you,

you take what you know, right?

You have to know things.

Hey God, God is so good.

God, what God says about me is way more true than what I say about me.

Even if I say I'm dumb.

That doesn't define my worth.

Even if my friends make fun of me for failing a test, even if I don't

get into the get the GPI want, I don't get into the college I

want, or I failed the SAT, right?

The, that doesn't matter as much as what God says.

So you take your, your, your bullets, you put 'em in your belief gun, right?

Your faith gun, and you shoot and you say you, you talk to yourself and, and

you tell yourself to believe the way things really are of, you know, studying

for this test is gonna be worth it.

Because God sees every second I study and he loves hard work for his glory, right?

God wants to take care of me.

God has promises for me that are better than the, the promises that sin makes me.

And you, you tell yourself that and you believe them, and then you live.

Right?

And maybe you're saying, well, I tried that.

It didn't work right.

I tried to believe it didn't work.

You keep shooting.

Right.

If you shoot and you miss, you keep shooting, right?

You, you keep putting your, your what, you know, you put, you keep

putting God's promises into your gun and you keep firing, right?

I think, you know, in kung Fu Panda when, um, Poe Kungfu Panda two right

PO is standing in the, in the ocean.

And, um, the peacock guys on the ships, they're trying to shoot

him and he keeps, like catching the cannonballs and throwing them.

And so the peacock shen right, he shoots the cannon at him, and Po

like catches it and like blocks it.

And then what does Shen do?

They shoots him again, and then they're like, he's blocking all of them.

He's like, keep firing.

You know, you, you know what I'm talking about.

Right?

Uh, that's, that's gotta be your mindset as a Christian.

If you're a Christian, you gotta keep firing.

You keep, you keep shooting until you believe God's promises.

Right.

You don't just sit there, all I missed didn't work.

I give up.

Right.

That's, that's weak faith.

You, you keep firing until you've killed your sin with faith.

That's what Paul says in Galatians two.

I've similar language to what we're talking about, I've

been crucified with Christ.

It's not I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live.

I live in the flesh, right?

I'm still in my sinful flesh, but I live by faith.

That's how I survive.

I don't survive by knowing things.

I don't survive by doing things.

I don't survive because of who I'm related to.

I don't survive because of how much I read my Bible.

I survive because I trust Jesus.

Moment by moment, day by day.

Promise by promise.

Temptation by temptation.

That's how you live and you believe these things about God and you keep

shooting them and you don't give up.

That's what faith does.

That's what Paul cares so much about, that you consider yourself dead to sin.

Right?

If you, if you feel like that sin is dominating your life, right?

You, you load this verse into your gun and you shoot it and you say, that's not me.

That's not who I am.

I don't have to be anxious anymore.

Anxious me is dead.

Just as sure as Jesus died, anxious, me is dead and I am alive.

I don't have to do that anymore.

Right?

And, and you keep shooting.

Then tomorrow you're anxious again and you keep shooting and

you also keep reloading, right?

That's why you care about you reading the Bible.

You believe these things, and that's why it's a fight, right?

It's not a one time event.

Oh, I believed and now my sins gone.

Right?

You keep on doing it because that's how you live as a Christian.

And so if, if that is you, right?

Some of you're probably like, yes, that's me.

I trust Jesus and that's how I live.

And some of you are like, that's not my Christian experience.

So ask yourself, is that me?

Am I really fighting or do I just give up?

Because that says a lot about the type of Christian or maybe not even Christian.

You are.

And these.

The desire for this doesn't come from you trying really hard.

It comes from the Holy Spirit, right?

You're united to Christ and God does something to you.

He gives you a new heart.

We talked about how all you want before you're saved is to sin.

Your main priority is you, and then God does something to you.

The fancy word is regeneration, and he changes your heart.

He gives you a new heart.

He gives you the Holy Spirit, and now you want these these good things.

You want these things that come from God, right?

That the problem is, is you have some influence over those desires.

You can strengthen or weaken what you want.

And so the second battlefield that we're gonna talk about is the battle of desire.

So we talk about battle of belief and now the battle of desire.

So 0.2

is to fight, to want the right things,

fight to want the right things.

We talked about, we're still stuck in our sinful flesh, right?

Our tendency, we still have that it takes work for us, right?

To, to put the other hand on top when we're folding our hands, right?

It takes effort, um, to want the right things, which might

feel weird to you, right?

But what's happening is if you're a Christian, you have

competing sources of desires.

You have your new heart from the Holy Spirit, and you have your sinful flesh,

and they're both pumping in desires.

Into who you are.

And so you have some really good ones from God, and you have some really

bad ones from your flesh, right?

If you're not a Christian, you only have one pump sinful desires.

That's the only pump you've got.

That's the only desires you get if you are a Christian.

Now there's two pumps, right?

There's good desires from the Holy Spirit, but you're still in your sinful flesh, so

you still have some sinful desires, right?

And then in heaven, there's one pump.

Good desires from God 'cause your sinful flesh is gone.

So what's happening is sin is trying to take control of your desires.

It's trying to smother that or clog, if you will, that good pump.

That's what we see in verse 12.

Don't let sin reign in your mortal body, in your, your body

to make you obey its passion.

Sin is trying to, to give you these desires and, and take control

of your, your neutral desires and bring you back into slavery.

There's a, there's a desire war going on here.

Sin is trying to take back your desires if you're a Christian.

If you're not a Christian, sin already has control of your desires.

Everything you do is not about God, and that's why it's sinful, right?

How do I know when a desire is sinful?

Well, when it's independent from God, when you have a desire that has nothing

to do with God, not a good sign, right?

Sin says, I don't need God to make me happy.

I could live a perfectly happy life without God.

And some of you wish you could do that.

Some of you wish your parents didn't take you to church.

You wish you didn't have to hear more sermons and you wish you could

just live as though God didn't exist.

And you probably do live as though God doesn't exist, and that's you.

And that's that's because sin is in control of you.

Sin also says, I can be happier my way than God's way.

Right.

That's when a desire becomes sinful.

If it's saying, I need this my way, not God's way, that thing that you want is

probably an idol in your life, right?

I need, you know, to look like that.

I need to feel like that I need to love this person.

I need to, to be this smart.

I, that's, if you're saying I need that, or I won't be happy,

that's, uh, not a good sign, right?

That, that, that desire has probably been taken over by sin.

It's more important to you than God.

Getting that thing is more important to you than God, right?

If you're willing to sin to get it.

If you're willing to sin because you don't have it, those are two

good signs that it's probably not a good desire for you, right?

That thing is probably an idol in your life, and so your desires and

your motives like the things you want.

They're either for God or they're against God, and so you need to train

or influence your desires to be for.

God.

And this is also related to faith because it takes faith to

believe and want the right things.

'cause the only way you want something is if you think that it's worth it.

You have to see, okay, this is gonna be worth it, and then you want it, right?

That's how, that's, that's how people work out or don't work out, right?

I believe that it's worth it, so I'm gonna do it, or you don't believe it's

worth it, so you don't do it right.

It's whether you think it's worth it or not.

That determines what you do.

That takes faith, right?

You put your faith in the exercise or the trainer or the gym or

whatever to make it worth it.

That takes faith.

That's how Christian life works too.

You put your faith in God to make obeying him worth it or not.

If you think obeying him is worth it, if you trust him, you

obey, and that's a desire issue.

'cause you only do what you think is worth it because you want to.

If you don't think it's worth it, you're not gonna wanna do it right.

Like, um, the, you know, like the fake coffees at McDonald's, like the, they're,

they're like a frappuccino basically.

Right?

Those things are not worth it.

Right?

Because the, because later in the day you're gonna feel it, right.

Not worth it.

Even though they're good.

I can look at them and say, yeah, that would be fun, but not worth it.

Right?

That's, that's the value judgment of faith.

Right?

I'm trusting that drinking water is better than drinking that.

Right.

Um, there's a.

Let's see.

I probably don't have time for that.

Um, let's just use an example here.

Um, let's say you don't wanna do homework.

That's a relatable situation, right?

That you're probably facing tonight.

Maybe you have homework to do right after this.

Um, hang on.

Where am I here?

Yeah, let's say you, you, let's say you don't wanna do homework, okay?

We'll get to this verse in a minute.

Let's say you don't wanna do homework, okay?

That's a desire you have.

You have a desire to be lazy.

You have a desire to play video games, you have a desire to do whatever, right?

You don't want anything but homework.

Right?

Um, how do you change that desire?

Well, if you're a Christian, you can use faith to change your desire.

So kinda like we talked about before, is you take your bullets, what you know, you

say, well, I don't wanna do my homework.

Well, I know that God is glorified when I'm working hard and that

Jesus died because of my laziness.

My laziness is a sin that put Jesus on the cross.

And you think you believe those things you don't know, know those things.

You believe those things and you say, wow, laziness is gross.

Jesus died for laziness and you believe it and you think about man, Jesus was

like nailed, physically nailed to across.

They, they put nails through his wrist because I was lazy.

And you say, that's horrible.

I don't wanna do that 'cause I love Jesus.

I don't wanna do something that Jesus died for.

You say, man, it's so good when people work hard for God's glory.

This is the way I can worship God.

I can show that God is worth it by doing this super lame thing

called homework for God's glory.

'cause it's that God is that important to me.

And I can show people that and you, you put those bullets in your gun and you

shoot 'em and you say that's worth it.

And you convince yourself by faith that doing my homework that

I don't wanna do is worth it.

'cause it's for God's glory.

And that's what I want.

It took some work to get there.

Right.

But you fight for it.

That's why, that's why all these points are fight.

You fight for it.

You, you put some effort in and you, you talk to yourself and you, you either

strengthen or weaken your desires because, for example, if you're sitting there just

thinking about, oh, my homework stinks.

I hate homework.

My teacher's not even gonna look at it anyway.

This is horrible.

I could be doing so many better things right now.

Right.

Is that strengthening or weakening your desire to do your homework?

Weakening it right now.

If you think about the things we talked about earlier, Hey, God hates laziness.

Laziness is so bad for me.

I don't wanna be a lazy person.

If I'm a lazy person, I'm, I'm gonna be unloving towards people, right?

If I'm being lazy, that's actually me being unloving towards my friends,

towards my parents, towards my family, towards my future spouse, right?

Um, also, God sees me and God knows, and he loves hard work, right?

And so you think about those things, maybe that helps you.

That fuels, it feeds your desire to do your homework for God's glory, right?

That's what we're talking about here in this verse, Roman.

This is Romans 1314.

It says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I wanna focus on this part.

Make no provision for the flesh to gratify or satisfy.

It's the desire.

So what I think about here, I heard someone explain this like

this to me a few years ago.

Um, you know, provisions, right?

Like food.

Um, I always think of like packing a lunch.

You know, don't pack a lunch for your flesh.

Don't feed it, right?

Your, your flesh, if you're a Christian, you've got those competing desires, right?

You've got your flesh and your spirit, right?

The Holy Spirit, and they're competing, they're fighting each other.

The one you feed is gonna get stronger and then when you starve is gonna get weaker.

Right?

That's what this verse is saying, right?

Um.

It's almost like I've heard someone explain it this way too.

You've got two dogs and they're fighting each other, right?

The dog you feed is gonna win.

The dog you starve is gonna lose.

Right?

Or another way you could put it, imagine every day you

have to fight a giant, right?

And you could name that giant.

You could say that giant is anxiety, or that giant is

anger, or that giant is lust.

And you can say, I get to control what that giant eats.

That's what we're talking about here.

You can control what your sin eats, you can feed it or starve it.

So are you, are you feeding it or are you trying to hold onto your sin?

If there's a really interesting book, I probably wouldn't recommend it

'cause I think it's about purgatory, but it's got a really good picture.

There's this story of this guy, okay, so this guy, and he wants

to get into heaven, right?

There's angel and he wants to get into heaven, but he has this

red lizard and this is like his lizard represents his sin and the

lizard is like kind of killing him.

But he loves the lizard and he wants to keep it.

And the angel is like, I, you, if you're gonna come into heaven,

I have to kill the lizard.

And the lizard is talking to him like, no, no, no, no.

You don't want that.

Don't kill me.

I love you.

I care about you.

Um, you should keep me alive.

I'm good for you.

That's what the lizard's saying to this dude.

And the angel is like, no, no, no.

Like the, if I kill the lizard, you'll be so much happier.

You'll be so much better.

You'll get to be with God if I kill this lizard.

The, this dude is like so unwilling to get rid of the lizard.

That's what we do with our sin.

If you're a Christian and you've got sin in your life, that's

unconfessed unrepentant, and you don't wanna get rid of it, that's you.

You're holding onto the lizard.

You're saying, God, please don't let me give this up.

Please don't take this away from me.

Or maybe you're not a Christian and that's why you're not a Christian,

because you're holding onto this sin in your life and you're saying, God, I, I

would follow you, but I can't do that.

Don't ask me to stop doing this.

I need this to be happy.

You're holding onto this lizard and the lizard's killing you, but you

put it on life support and you wanna keep it around 'cause you're buying

the lie that it makes you happy.

'cause the lizard, your sin is telling you, you need me.

You'll be miserable without me, you're not gonna make it.

No one's gonna love you or whatever, right?

Different lies that your sin tells you and you have to kill

it, but you keep it alive.

And there's different ways we do that, right?

Maybe it's the influences that you take in, whether it's

on, on media or your friends.

Maybe you're around people that that feed your desire to sin.

You're around people that love to gossip, so you gossip.

You're around people that are really anxious, so it makes you more anxious.

You're around people that are really angry or really worldly or, or talk about

really bad things or listen to really bad music, and so you're feeding your flesh.

That's why your Instagram feed is called a feed.

Because it feeds something, right?

It either feeds your sin or it feeds your godliness.

It's doing one or the other.

You can also do that with godly desires.

You can fuel your godly desires and you can starve your godly

desires too, and you'll talk about that more in small groups.

But the point that I, I want you to see here is that you have to fight for this.

You have control over what you're feeding, your desires.

That's up to you.

What you want is under your control.

The things you like, the things you enjoy, the things that you get

excited about are under your control.

It's not just who you are.

It's not just how you're wired.

Those are influences, but some of the other influences are you, what

do you put yourself in front of?

What do you take in?

What do you talk about?

What do you tell yourself?

And so all of these.

Things can cause you to want God more or want God less, or to love

sin more, or to love sin less.

And a lot of this comes down to your effort because your

effort comes from your faith.

If you really trust God, you think it's worth it, you'll do it.

And that's our, our third battlefield is the battle of will.

Right?

The battle of your decisions.

So 0.3,

fight to make good decisions.

And by good I mean, right God honoring God, glorifying decisions.

And those are because of your priorities, right?

What you think is important becomes and shows up in your decisions.

What you think is important is gonna show up and what you decide to do,

how you spend your time, what you talk about, the people you talk to, that's

gonna show up in your decisions, your priorities show up in your decisions.

Right.

We talked about this verse a little bit last week, that you're either

presenting yourself to sin or you're presenting yourself to God, right?

You're, you're either offering yourself to sin and saying, here's sin.

Use me.

Use me.

I wanna sin.

Here you go.

Here I am.

Your decisions are either doing that or they're saying, God, use me.

I want to serve you.

I wanna love you.

I wanna live for you.

You're, you're either doing one or the other, and that that's.

Every decision you make is is offering yourself to God

or to sin one or the other.

And if you're a Christian, you have the ability to give yourself

to God and say, God, I'm yours.

I wanna live for you.

If you're not a Christian, you can't do that, right?

The the dog of sin is walking you

and all this stuff we're talking about doesn't happen on its own right?

You have to do it.

You really have to believe it for yourself.

You really have to feel it for yourself.

You really have to decide it for yourself and do it right.

Your, your parents can't do it for you.

Your leaders can't do it for you.

We do it if we could, right?

If it, that wasn't me, you all would, would do the things I'm talking about

and feel the things I'm talking about and love Jesus the way that, that I

want you to, but I can't do it for you.

You have to do it.

Your sin is trying to kill you.

Right?

It's not just there.

It's not just there to have fun.

It's not just there with you, right?

It's trying to kill you and how you see it is gonna change a lot

of, a lot of how you feel about it.

Do you see it the right way with faith, or do you see it as.

Not that important or not that big of a deal.

Recently I was, um, I was teaching some friends how to play pickleball,

um, and it was their first time playing and they weren't very good.

Um, but the Daniels were also there and so I, I was used to playing with

these people that weren't very good.

Right.

And then Matt comes in and he's across from me and just.

Rips this serve, and we've been playing, like we've been playing with

people who don't know how to play.

You know, we're just like hitting it.

And then Matt just like rips this serve at me and I no chance

was not ready for it, right?

Because I wasn't ready for someone trying to kill me with their serve.

Right?

I was just there walking around, having fun, teaching

people how to play pickleball.

Hey, don't step in the kitchen.

You know, make sure he bounces on each side, right?

I'm in that mindset, right?

I'm in.

I'm in just rally mindset and then Matt comes in and just rips this serve right?

Which there's nothing wrong with that.

Right?

I'm glad he did it.

'cause now I can tell you about it.

Um,

I think a lot of you approach your life, like I approached that pickleball game.

You're walking around expecting life to just be a walk in the

park, but your sin is trying to kill you and you keep it around.

You say, I, it's not that big of a deal.

God will forgive me anyway.

Or, uh, it's okay.

I can just waste some time like this.

Or it's, everyone does it.

Your sin is trying to kill you.

Your lust is trying to kill you.

It's not trying to make you happy, and it's not trying to, to just let you exist.

It's trying to kill you, right?

Your anxiety is trying to kill you.

Your anger, your discontent, your laziness.

They're trying.

To ruin your life and you need to see it that way.

'cause otherwise you're, you're gonna get run over.

And so I hope that you take it seriously and you fight, right?

You, you learn God's word and you believe who he is and you

believe his promises and you fight.

You load him in your gun and you shoot and you keep shooting

because your life depends on it.

So let's pray and we'll go to small groups.

God, we are so thankful that the commands you give us are for our good.

Um, we often don't recognize that you are, for us.

We think that your rules are bad for us, that they're not fun, that they're boring.

But I pray that you help us to see it the right way.

Help us with eyes of faith to see that.

Your commands for us are not because you don't like certain people

or because you, you have a bunch of rules you want us to follow.

Um, but your commands for us are for our good because we really need to live

your way if we're gonna really be happy.

Everything else is just a.

A poisonous trap that will kill us.

And so I pray that you help us to see our sin that way.

Help us see you that way, and we pray this all in Jesus name.

Amen.