Spiritual Surgery (Romans 2:17-29) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: Romans two is where we're going.

We're finishing Romans two tonight.

We're gonna look at the last, I think, 12 or 13 verses.

But while you're turning there, I, um, I need to tell you about something.

It's the holiday season is coming up and so people like getting, you know, these

like fancy chocolate boxes, you know, those like, they're like the gourmet

chocolates and stuff and all that stuff.

And they've got, they look really cool.

They look, they look super delicious.

They, you, and they tell you what they are on the bottom of the box.

So I hate these to be honest.

If, if you wanted to get me this for Christmas.

Sorry, like, just get me a Hershey bar or something.

Like, I, I hate these.

And the reason, the reason I hate these is because it's not

really like chocolate, right?

Inside of all of this stuff.

There's gonna be all these weird, there's gonna be like strawberry, there's

gonna be nuts, there's gonna be all this weird, it's not chocolate, right?

It looks great.

It looks like this delicious, awesome chocolate stuff on the outside.

But on the inside it's usually like, or some of it's like white

chocolate and I don't know.

Anyway.

It's, I, I hate these things.

They're, they're, they're so, like, they're such a big letdown.

I had a guy in my community group at my last church in Kansas City who worked

for one of these companies and he'd like, bring stuff to community group.

And I felt so bad 'cause it looks so good.

And I'm like, actually, I know I've, I've learned, I know better.

This is not like chocolate.

This is a bunch of other stuff that they shove into a chocolate

and make it look really good.

Anyway, I, I really don't like these things because on the

outside they look great, but on the inside they let you down.

Right?

They're not the real.

Thing.

And see in our passage tonight, the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans

is gonna turn his attention to some people who on the outside look really good.

They look like they're part of God's people.

They look like someone that, that you think that person

knows what they're doing.

That person knows Jesus.

That person loves God.

But really on the inside, they're terrible.

They, they don't love God.

They're selfish.

And I'm, I want you to be thinking maybe that's me.

It's easy to grow up in the church, to, to know all these things, to be associated

with all the right things, to, to maybe do all the right things on the outside,

but on the inside you might not, you might not have a genuine relationship with God.

You can do all the outward things, right?

You can, you can do all the, the church things right and

not have a real relationship.

With Jesus.

See, real Christianity is about what's on the inside, not the way

it's presented on the outside.

So our main point tonight is that real Christianity comes from a new heart.

Real Christianity.

What, what it really means to follow Jesus.

What it really means to be part of God's people.

It comes from a new heart.

It comes from what's on the inside.

Something has to happen to who you are on the inside.

Right who you are as a person, what you love, what, what's most important to you.

That's where real Christianity comes from.

So.

We're gonna look at that in, in Romans two.

Before we, we get there, I just wanna remind you where we're at in Romans.

Okay?

Something that's might be really helpful for you when you read the Bible is that,

especially when you read a letter, right?

Like a letter to the Romans, or letter to the Colossians, something

like that, the author is making an, like an argument, right?

He's not like arguing in the sense of like, he's mad at you

and trying to prove you wrong.

He's, he's connecting his thoughts in like a, a structure and a flow.

What he's, what he's saying is building the Bible's, not just a bunch of random

stuff for you to be like, oh, that's cool.

I like that.

That's encouraging.

It's not like a pantry of, of things that you pull off the shelf and you

like, the Bible is a connected, like string of arguments and so, so far

this is what we we're kind of at.

We talked about our thesis state.

Remember we talked about how when you're writing a paper and your

teacher says, or you write essays, not papers, college people write

papers, you write essays and you're writing an essay and you're, you're.

Teacher says something like, oh, you need your thesis statement, right?

This is kind of, that was our thesis statement.

The gospel shows God's righteousness.

Remember that we talked about that when we first started?

Romans, the gospel shows that God is doing the right thing.

It shows who God is.

The first section of Romans that we're in right now shows us

that God's wrath is righteous.

God's punishment of sin and sinners is the right thing to do.

It's a good thing.

That's what this whole first section of Romans is about, and that's probably

why all of these sermons feel like I'm beating you up all the time,

because that's what we're in right now.

We're talking about how God's wrath is, is the right thing.

Paul wants you to start here so you know something about yourself

before he moves on to other things.

So we talked about in chapter one, right?

God's wrath is righteous 'cause everyone rejects him.

We started talking about how people have no excuse 'cause.

'cause God, his existence, the fact that he's God.

It's clear it's been made evidence to everyone in creation.

We talked about that.

We talked about how God's wrath is righteous regardless

of religious background.

That's what we're covering these past couple weeks, and that's what we're gonna

be talking about tonight, is no matter where you're from, how you grew up.

Everyone deserves God's wrath.

And then to bring it back in two weeks, we'll be talking about

how God's wrath is righteous.

'cause none of us are good enough.

None of us are, are deserving of anything good from God.

And then where we're going, just to give you a picture of that is

then once you realize this, once you realize, oh, you know what?

God shouldn't let me into heaven, then your question should be, well,

why would God let anyone into heaven?

Why would God save anyone?

God if, if God should show his wrath to people, why would he forgive anyone?

And how can you do that?

And just be like, oh yeah, you sinned.

Well, that's fine.

I'll forgive you that actually, God's forgiveness shouldn't make

sense to you, not God's wrath.

So that's where Paul's going.

Okay, so tonight we are right here.

We are talking about how God's wrath is the right thing to do.

His, his anger towards sin, his punishment towards sin is the right thing to do,

even if you are a religious person.

Okay, that's where we're at.

So chapter two, verse 17.

Why don't you read along with me?

Okay.

Chapter two, verse 17.

So Paul, he's, he's talking to this imaginary.

This imaginary person and he, he's assuming that they are Jewish.

They're one of God's chosen people from the Old Testament, right?

God made these promises to Israel, and so he's saying, okay, let's say

you say you're one of those people.

I'm a descendant of Abraham.

I'm a Jew, verse 17, but if you call yourself a Jew and

you rely on the law, right?

The Jews had God's law.

They had.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy, and you boast in God.

You say, oh, I know God, right?

He's, he's my God, he's the God of Abraham.

He's the God of my people.

Verse 18, and you know his Will you approve what is excellent, right?

You know what God wants you to do.

You know the kind of things that that God loves because you are

instructed from the law verse 19.

And if you are sure that you yourself are a.

Guide to the Blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish,

a teacher of children having in the law, the embodiment of knowledge and truth.

So Paul, what he's doing here in these first few verses is he's telling the Jews

all the things that they love to hear.

He's telling the Jews, Hey, you guys are, are so awesome.

Right?

You have all of these religious advantages, right?

You, you have God's promises.

You have God's law.

You have a A, you're a people who God said, I'm their God.

Right.

You know what God wants you to do?

You know your Bibles really well.

You know what God says?

You know what sin and what's not.

You know how to have a relationship with God through the temple.

You know what?

That, that what other people doing maybe is wrong.

You can teach people how to live wisely from God's word.

He says all these great things about about the Jews, and then look what

he says in the next few verses.

Then you who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

So you guys have all of this religious knowledge, all of this,

all these religious advantages.

Do you not teach yourself while you preach against stealing?

Do you not steal.

You who say that one must not commit adultery.

Do you commit adultery?

You who?

Ab whore.

That means hate idols.

Do you rob temples?

Verse 23.

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.

The very thing that you think is, is making you special to God.

The very thing that you think, oh, this must make me one of God's chosen people.

This must make me right with God.

This must mean I'm good.

This must mean I'm going to heaven.

That's what the Jews are thinking.

I'm God's chosen people.

I'm part of the the right group.

I'm in the right crowd.

I have the right things.

I have a right relationship with God because of all the things I have.

He's saying, but you still are breaking the law.

You great.

You have the law.

You know what God wants you to do, but guess what?

You're still breaking the law.

And then.

He ups it here in verse 24.

For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among

the Gentiles because of you.

That word blasphemy, that's like when you take God and you put him down,

you treat him like he's not God.

And remember we talked about in chapter one, that's what makes sin sin.

What makes sin sinful.

What makes it evil is what it says about God, right?

What sin says about God is that God isn't that important.

God, isn't that awesome?

That God isn't worth following, that God isn't good for you, that God isn't wise?

That's what sin says because you say, I don't want that.

I wanna do my thing.

That's what makes something evil, is you're saying, uh,

well, God's not that important.

That's what blasphemy is.

And so the Jews are actually causing the Gentiles to think God's not

a big deal because of their sin.

They're, they're saying, oh, look at us.

We're so great.

We're God's people.

We have all these, these great things.

And then they live.

Hypocritically, and actually, isn't that what a lot of people say about the church?

Isn't that what a lot of people say about Christians?

Well, oh, all the Christians are hypocrites, so I don't wanna really go to

church, or I don't really, I, I, I just, me and God, we kind of do our thing, but,

you know, I don't, I don't wanna really be part of church because all the Christians

there, they just, they're hypocrites.

They don't, they don't actually do the things they say.

That's, that's a really common thing you might hear.

But what Paul is saying is all of these religious advantages you have, all the

things you know about God, all the, the ways that you think make you right

with God, those things actually show that, that you're breaking the law too.

None of that helps you, none of the outward signs of your religion help you

if you are still breaking God's law.

So our first point tonight.

Is to, don't rely on outward signs of religion, don't rely

on outward signs of religion.

Right?

That's what the Jews were doing.

They were saying, look at all the stuff we have.

We have the temple, we have the law.

We know our Bibles.

We've memorized books of the Bible.

We go to the right places.

We, we don't worship those idols.

We don't eat those foods, right?

We're not like those people over there.

So there are outward signs of, of Jewishness, of, of religion were what they

relied on to make them right with God.

They said, we are gonna go to heaven because look at all

the stuff that we do, right.

We're we're right with God because of all the stuff that we do and all,

all these different outward things.

So the outward signs really convince them, right?

That, oh, I must be right with God because I have this and I have this right.

Maybe for you it's, I go to church, I have Christian parents I serve at church.

I know a lot about the Bible.

I know the gospel.

I memorize Bible verses.

Maybe for you, because of all those outward signs of religion,

you've convinced yourself, oh, I must be a Christian.

And this happens a lot, right?

If you talk to maybe a lot of the kids in our kids' ministry.

They just assume, oh, I'm a Christian because my parents are Christians.

I'm a Christian because I go to church.

Right?

If you talk to your friends at school, they might say the same thing.

How do you know you're a Christian?

Well, I go to church.

I've always been a Christian.

The outward signs of their, of their parents' faith really have

just, they've assumed that, oh, that must mean I'm part of this too.

And what we're gonna learn is that that's not true.

The outward signs of Christianity don't make you necessarily a Christian.

What makes someone a Christian we talked about was a new heart, not

outward signs of Christianity.

It's kind of like, so I, I watched this YouTube channel about animals.

That sounds really weird.

He pretends like life is like a video game and he rates animals

as like playable characters.

He'll go, he'll like do like S tier all the way down to like F tier.

Anyway, so I was watching this video about snakes and he showed me this.

He showed this thing and I thought it was, it was really cool.

There's these, there's two kinds of snakes.

One of them is venomous, the other one is not.

But this non venomous snake tries to look like the venomous snake

to scare all the predators away.

See, this is what they are.

Oh yeah.

You ever heard of this before?

Yes.

So one of these is a coral snake.

That is venomous.

One of them is a king snake.

They look really similar.

It's trying really hard to look like a coral snake, but it's not.

It's not venomous.

It's just a constrictor.

It doesn't have any poison that it can inject into you.

So one of them is poisonous, one of 'em is not.

But the whole point is, even though they're different snakes on

the outside, they look the same.

Right?

They're trying to look the same, but one of them is the real thing and one of them.

Is not.

Now, I showed this to, um, our admin, Mrs.

Smith, to Kelly, and she lived in Florida and this is actually

something they have to deal with.

And so she knew, oh, that one's, that one's the real one and that

one's the not poisonous one.

And so she knew that this is the coral snake, this poisonous venomous rather.

And this one is Kings snake.

That one is not See.

But if you're just walking, right, if you're, if you're, you know, living

in Florida trying to run away from the alligators and you see one of these

on the ground, I love when I looked up, how do you distinguish them?

The first thing was look closer, and I was like, what?

I'm not gonna be like, I wonder if this snake is venomous.

Let me see.

Like, no, that's not what I wanna do.

Not helpful Google.

Anyway, so

the whole point of this, right, is that this king snake.

Is trying to look like this snake on the outside, but really

it's a totally different snake.

And I think a lot of people who grew up in church do the same thing.

They have the same outward appearance, right?

You might serve in the same places, you might say the same things, you might

know the same verses you might have.

Your parents have similar beliefs, right?

You, you might have similar beliefs.

You, you believe that God created the world.

You believe that the Bible's true, but on the inside, you're totally different.

One of you loves God and one of you thinks God is kind of lame,

so don't let the outward signs of your Christian religion trick you into

thinking that you're actually a Christian.

Just because you might look like a Christian on the outside

doesn't mean you really are.

That's Paul's point here.

Here's some outward signs of religion that you might rely on.

These are things that are good.

But they might not.

They don't necessarily mean that you're a Christian, right?

Just because that snake has the same colors as the other snake

doesn't mean it's the same snake.

Same thing here.

Maybe it's your Christian parents.

Maybe you think, oh, well my parents are Christian, so I must be a Christian.

It's a great thing to have Christian parents.

It's awesome, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a

Christian, or maybe you grew up going to church, or maybe you're involved

in church, or you serve at church.

Maybe you read the Bible every day.

Maybe you are just known as the Christian kid, maybe at school or in your family.

You're the good kid, right?

You're, you're that you're the good kid, you're the Christian kid.

People know you as that person.

Again, that just 'cause they know you, that on the outside doesn't mean

that you are necessarily a Christian.

Maybe someone told you you were a Christian, right?

Maybe your parents told you you were a Christian, or your leaders

told you you were a Christian.

Does it matter whether I think you're a Christian or not?

Ultimately, no.

Does it matter if I tell you you're a Christian or not?

Does that make you a Christian?

No.

No.

Right?

What matters is what God says, what his word says about you, right?

So maybe you're relying on that.

You're saying, well, I know I'm a Christian because my parents told me this.

Or I know I'm a Christian because everyone at school thinks I'm

a Christian, or I know I'm a Christian because, uh, my parents.

Are Christians or I know the Bible, or maybe you think, oh, I know I'm a

Christian 'cause I feel bad about my sin.

We talked about this last week, right?

Feeling bad about your sin does not necessarily mean you're a Christian.

It's good that you feel bad about your sin, but there's a lot of people who

feel bad about their sin and never do anything about it and end up in hell.

There's a lot of things that are maybe good, but don't necessarily

mean that you're saved, that you have a real relationship with God.

You don't wanna rely on those outward things to say that you're a Christian.

'cause those things might just, might just be there, right?

They might just be the, the signs of, of religion and, and

churchianity, as one pastor called it.

But maybe you have no real relationship with Jesus, right?

What, what you should really rely on to know if you're a Christian

or not is do I trust Jesus?

The whole point of, of, of trust is that that's, that's what

what you're relying on, right?

If, if someone asks you, why are you a Christian?

And you say, well, because I did fill in the blank, that's not a good start, right?

Because what are you trusting in something you did?

Right?

And that's not what Christians do, right?

Christians trust in Jesus.

We trust in what Jesus did.

So what you should rely on is, oh well.

Jesus paid for my sin on the cross.

I am not good enough to go to heaven.

There's nothing about me that makes me good enough.

There's nothing about me that that means that God should forgive me.

The only reason that I should go to heaven is because of

Jesus, something that he did.

That's what I rely on.

I rely on him to take away my sin, and I rely on His righteousness

to make me good enough.

You trust that, and I rely that he rose from the dead.

That's why I know I'm gonna live forever with God and not

just die and then not exist.

So the problem with relying on these outward signs is it's your resume, right?

You're saying, look at all the things that I did.

You're not admitting that, oh, I'm not good enough.

I don't measure up to God's standard, right?

I'm a sinner.

Because what you're doing, when you rely on these outward signs,

you're pointing to look at, look at all the things that I've done, God.

I memorized the books of the Bible.

I went to church.

I love this person.

I shared the gospel.

I go to Bible study, I do this, and that's your resume, not Jesus' resume.

What you should be pointing to is, look what Jesus did for me

and I trust him, and that's why I think you should forgive me God.

Not because of meme, but because of Jesus.

But also sometimes Christians, we can start to rely on these outward signs too.

Maybe not for salvation, but maybe we get really prideful.

We start boasting in these things like, oh, well look at all the things that I do.

Like, yeah, I know God saved me, but since then, look at me and we

start looking down at other people.

Maybe we look down on newer Christians who don't know as much or haven't grown

as much, or maybe we look down on, on people who aren't Christians because,

oh, I can't believe they do that.

Can you believe that they said this?

Can you believe that they talked about this thing, or they watched

this video, or they watched that show?

They like that thing on Instagram.

We can easily, or they play that game, right?

We can, we can easily start looking down on other people for things

that God did in our life, right?

Sanctification is God's work in you.

It's, it's a fruit of the spirit, right?

Not fruit of your really hard work, not fruit of you being really awesome, right?

Those things are fruit of the spirit.

They're, they're from the Holy Spirit.

They're not from you being such an awesome person.

Sometimes it's easy for us to get really prideful and, and

say, oh, well I must be so great.

No wonder God saved me.

And that's not what we wanna do either, right?

Because then we're, we're taking our, our really, our our repentance,

our, our gift from God that he's done in us, that his work through us.

And we're saying we're taking credit for it.

We're saying that, oh yeah, the evidence of God's work in my life, that's all me.

That's what we're doing.

So it's really easy for Christians to do something similar.

And also you probably noticed in verse 24, it talked about the name of God

can be blasphemed before other people because of you, if you claim to be a

Christian, you are representing God.

People are forming an opinion about who God is, who Jesus is, what he's like,

what church is about because of you.

Even if you're not a Christian and you go around saying you're a Christian, people

are forming an opinion of church of Jesus.

Because of you, you have an opportunity to make God look really bad, right?

Someone could say, oh, I don't want to, I don't wanna be a

part of that, that religion.

I don't wanna be, I don't want to have if, if you're God's like that, no thanks.

Right?

Or you can do the opposite.

You can be the reason someone says, you know what the, I

don't, I don't know anyone else who's as joyful as that person.

I want what they have.

I don't know anyone else who's patient like that person.

I don't know anyone else who's kind like that person.

I want what they have.

If you have an opportunity to make God look really, really good, 'cause

hopefully in that moment you're not gonna be like, yep, I know.

I don't know anyone as patient as me either, right?

Hopefully you're gonna say, you know, that's God's work in me.

You're not gonna take credit for it.

You're gonna say, this is God's work.

God's grace, God's spirit.

So you have an opportunity to make Jesus look great to other people.

Now, Paul's gonna go on to talk about the, the outward sign of religion

that the Jews were most proud of.

They were they that was like, this is like, this is their thing.

This is what makes us God's people.

Okay?

And that thing you'll see here in verse 25, okay, so read along with me, verse

25, Paul's gonna talk about circumcision.

Now, circumcision was an outward sign that the Jews were part of God's people, right?

It was this sign that God gave Abraham to say, these are my people.

I've chosen you.

If you don't know what it is, go ask your parents.

So circumcision.

Indeed your, your covenant marker, right?

The sign that you are part of God's people, right?

In, in our, in our day and age, this is baptism, right?

This is, this is the, the outward sign that someone is a

Christian is they get baptized.

That's what they do.

That's the outward sign.

So this is almost like saying, well, I got baptized, so I

must be part of God's people.

That's what these users are saying.

They're saying, I have this marker, so that means I'm.

Part of God's people, right?

So for circumcision, indeed is a value if you obey the law.

But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

So it's, it's like it never happened.

It's, it's almost like you don't even have it.

Verse 26.

So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law,

will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

So verse 26 is saying the opposite, right?

Who if someone who has never been marked as part of God's people.

Keeps the law and they start doing the things that God says and they

start living from a, a heart that that shows that, oh, maybe they

really are part of God's people.

That's the person that shows more evidence of being part of God's people, not the

person who has the outward sign, but the person who actually lives like it.

Then verse 27.

Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn

you who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law.

So just because you have the Bible, just because you have this sign that

you're God's people, if you're still breaking the law, if you're still living

like you're not part of God's people, these people who maybe aren't, you

know, aren't Jewish in a sense, right?

They're gonna, they're gonna put you to shame.

It's like the person who grows up in church and then they, they end

up living this, this horrible life.

He's saying that it's actually, it'd be better if you were a drug addict

and you went to prison and then you got saved at 25 and came back to, and

started coming to church and got saved.

That person's putting you to shame if you grew up in the church and you just

have dead faith the whole time, even though you're sitting front row and

listening to the sermons, if there's no spiritual heartbeat in your life.

That person's putting you shame 'cause they actually have the real thing.

And that is exactly where Paul goes here for.

No one is a Jew who is merely one out, uh, outwardly nor is

circumcision outward and physical.

But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart

by the spirit, not by the letter.

So what Paul is saying here is that a, a true Jew right, want someone

who's really part of God's people.

Is not ethnically a Jew.

They are spiritually a Jew.

So a true Jew is the person who has a heart, right?

A heart that's been changed by God, by his spirit.

And this is what the Old Testament talks about, the Old Testament, when it talks

about who's really part of God's people.

It talks a lot about how the, it's not the people who visibly

maybe have this marker from God.

It's the people who have a changed heart.

Those are the people who are really part of God's people, right?

Real Christians have a new heart.

That's what we talked about.

So the heart is what matters, not your external religion.

Right?

So this this true Jew idea.

You got me thinking about, um, you guys ever see this thing at like school?

Yes.

So I made this just for fun.

Um.

I'm really proud of this.

Um, there you go.

See, and it's, it's really, it's got bible verse on it, not about the label.

You get that?

'cause it's like a milk carton, not about appearances.

Genuine faith flows from the inside.

Anyway, sorry.

I thought that was really good.

I had fun with that.

I so be, be a true Jew.

Not, anyway.

There you go.

So what Paul's point is who, who's really part of God's people.

Right, are the people who are really part of God's people, the people who

maybe look like it on the outside or the people who have a new heart

by God's spirit, those are the people who are really God's people.

God's people are those who have a changed heart.

So our second point tonight depend on God for heart transformation, depend

on God for heart transformation.

So outward change doesn't make you part of God's people.

That's Paul's point.

Outward change doesn't make you part of God's people.

What makes you part of God's people is actually when God does something for you,

God does something to you, and that's what makes you part of God's people,

not something that you do for yourself.

That's why it's depend on God, right?

You can't do this to yourself.

God has to do this to you.

The only way that you can become a Christian is if God does a miracle to you.

The only way that someone can get saved and become a part of God's people is

if God intervenes miraculously and fundamentally changes who you are.

Maybe you've never thought about it that way before.

That's how someone becomes a Christian.

You can't become a Christian apart from God.

God has to do it to you.

Kind of like how a couple weeks ago we talked about how my car was broken

and I needed a new engine, right?

I couldn't just fix the old engine.

I couldn't just add some things on and say, oh, great.

Now, now my car's good.

I needed an entirely new engine.

I needed a different engine.

And hopefully that's what you, you're gonna see from all of these sermons

about how much of a sinner we are.

Is that we're so sinful.

We don't just need some fixing, right?

We don't just need to, to start changing some habits and maybe start doing

things a little better or maybe start believing some, some more right things

and maybe, oh, I, once I start doing those like church things, then great.

Now I'm right with God.

You need a, you need a heart transplant, right?

You, you need to, you need God to do something to you to get saved.

That's how sinful we are our hearts.

Are so messed up, no matter how much we try to make them look nice on the outside,

that we need God to do a miracle to us, to save us the defining mark of God's people.

In the Old Testament, it was circumcision, but now, and it really has always

been the Holy Spirit, creating a transformed heart, that's the defining

mark of God's people is a new heart.

By God's spirit.

So you don't become a Christian any other way.

That's the only way you can do this.

God has to do it to you.

And so that's why when we talk about, oh, if you're not sure if you're

a Christian, what should you do?

Right?

We, we don't wanna say, well, just some.

'cause some of you, you, you've done all the right church things your whole life.

So some of you, you become a Christian, it doesn't look that different on

the outside necessarily because maybe you already did read your Bible,

you already did memorize verses.

You already did know the gospel.

Your heart changed, and you should know that it should be obvious to you, right?

The, the, the metaphors that the Bible uses for getting saved, being

raised from the dead, getting a new heart, those aren't like, oh, maybe

that did happen to me 10 years ago and I just haven't really noticed it.

Right?

Like, it should be fairly obvious, at least over, maybe, at least

over a couple years, right?

If you're saying, oh, I got saved at.

At 10 years old and, and I've been the same ever since.

And even, and maybe you should think about that and say, okay, well if God gave

me a new heart, what did, what changed?

What happened?

And so you wanna look at things like your desires, right?

What did what I like changed?

Did what I want changed?

You wanna look at things like your motives.

Why did I do the things I do?

Maybe you already did serve.

At church and you get saved, and now the reason you serve is totally different.

Maybe you used to serve because you wanted to fit in, or you wanted to be

good enough, or you wanted to impress people, and now maybe you serve

because you love God, you love his people, you want to do good for them.

You wanna look for change in your attitude, right?

Maybe you always did your chores because you get in trouble if you

didn't, but you became a Christian and then suddenly, oh, now it's, I do

my chores because I love my parents.

I wanna honor them.

I love God.

God calls me to, to do all things for his glory, and I'm gonna

do the dishes for his glory.

That's the kind of thing we're looking for when, when we're talking about

getting a new heart, because you might do a lot of the same things.

Maybe instead of reading your Bible just because you had to, now you read

your Bible because it's, it's God.

It's God's word.

I wanna know him.

I love him.

That's the kind of thing that you should look for when you have a new heart.

And I think also right for Christians.

Sometimes we can forget that God is the one who does the heavy

lifting in our growth, right?

God is the one who, who changes our hearts.

The only way that a Christian grows is by the Holy Spirit, right?

Jesus says that if you abide in me, then you'll grow and bear much fruit.

He doesn't say, try really hard and then come to me when you,

when you've, when you've done enough, and then I'll help you.

He says, no, you have to stay connected to me.

And that's how you grow, right?

You as a Christian, you grow with God.

You stay connected to God, and that's how you grow.

You can't grow apart from God.

You also can't grow apart from the means that God gives you to grow, right?

God gives you pathways to grow.

He gives you places where you can, you can access his changing power.

So if you're, if you're saying, oh, I'm a Christian, but I don't want to

go to church, the church is a place that God uses to grow Christians.

So you're cutting yourself off from God's God's lifeline to help you grow.

Right?

Or, uh, well, I, I love God, but I don't wanna read the Bible, right?

You're cutting yourself off from God's lifeline for your growth.

So.

Even as a Christian, we need to depend on God for transformation,

for real growth, for real change.

We don't just wanna stick things on and say, okay, now I did this better.

Now I did this better.

Right?

Like, think about this.

If you were a tree, if you're a, if you're a lemon tree, the way you grow

lemons is not my getting other lemons and sticking them onto your tree, right?

If you want the lemon tree to grow lemons, real lemons, you

focus on the roots and the soil.

All that and the health of the tree, and then the, the fruit happens.

You don't just stick fruit on it and say, oh, great.

Look, look at my tree.

It's so, it's so healthy.

It's so awesome, right?

So if we don't change from outside in, we change from inside out.

So none of this spiritual growth will save you.

It comes from being safe, right?

It comes from a heart transformation.

Let's pray and we'll go to small groups.

God, thank you that you change us.

We are so sinful.

We are the worst.

We deserve your wrath.

But because of Jesus, we can be forgiven because he took our punishment and

because he gives us righteousness.

If we trust him and we turn from our sin, we can be saved.

And so I pray for students here who haven't done that, that they

would recognize that they are lost, helpless, wicked evil, and that.

They would turn from their sin and trust Jesus for forgiveness.

I pray for those of us who are saved, that we would remember

that we are still in our flesh.

Even though we are not slaves to sin, we are still not very good at following you.

And so I pray that you help us have the humility to depend on you for growth.

That we wouldn't try to impress you by doing stuff on our

own, but we would come to you.

Connect ourselves to you through your word, through other Christians, through

prayer, and that we would learn to love you more through those things.

Help us to grow a lot from small groups.

Help us to talk about good things and be honest.

We pray all this in Jesus name.

Amen.

Alright, have a good small group.