Forget a Life Coach, I Need a Heart Surgeon - September 21, 2025

Good morning. My name is Daniel.

I'm one of the lead pastors here at Resurrection Church.

Welcome. Thanks for joining us.

We're in a series called Why are Things So Bad?

And we're looking at the three reasons, the three primary

reasons in the Bible, that Scripture would tell us that

there's suffering, that there's pain, that there's problem.

And so last week, Pastor Dave looked at problem #1 which is

that we live in a fallen, broken world because of sin.

And so you can't live in a broken world and not expect

things to be broken. Amen.

OK, we're all on the same page. I'm glad you listened so well

last week. Today we're going to talk about

problem #2 and then next week we're going to look at the third

problem, which is that if you are a believer in Christ, Jesus

says there will be suffering. We're going to be persecuted for

our faith. We live in America, so that

means they're going to get your name wrong on the Starbucks cup

because there's not a lot of persecution here.

But, but, but globally and historically, it's been a lot.

So we'll look at that next week. Today, though, we're going to

look at problem #2 according to Scripture.

And that's called the consequences of my own actions.

Yeah, No, it's one of those kinds of sermons.

Now, if you get nothing else out of today, this is the big idea.

And we're not going to start here, but we are going to end

here. So write this down because we're

going to land here at some point.

Here's the big idea. Forget a life coach.

I need a heart surgeon 'cause that ain't gonna cut it.

I was scrolling through social media the other day and I, I saw

this real and I actually had to like watch it twice 'cause I was

like, is this real? And it's just this young lady

and she's sobbing into the camera and she's like, listen,

you guys need to know. Like, I didn't realize that

Apple Pay is actually real money and they charge your credit

card. She's just bawling.

And she, she thought it was like a rewards program or something.

She spent thousands of dollars thinking it was fake.

And I was like, Oh my gosh. And I kept watching.

I was like, does she really think like, I guess, I guess

this and maybe you, you've been here before.

You're like, did you really think that you could do all of

blank and it wouldn't lead to blank, right?

We've all kind of felt that way. We're watching someone live a

life in such a way that we're like, hey, you know what at the

end of that road is? This is some consequences.

No, that might be funny when we get to watch it on Instagram.

But but, but I know that there are a lot of times in my life in

which I have lived my life in such a way that it doesn't seem

like I really care about the actual consequences of what I'm

doing. And that is the biblical concept

of sowing and reaping. Sowing and reaping.

We through we see this throughout scripture.

We're going to be in Galatians 6-7 to look at it.

But but it's, you know, a lot of different places.

And it's this idea that whatever actions, choices, thoughts that

a person sows, that means plants they will inevitably reap that

they're going to you're going to get a harvest of whatever you

planted. That makes sense, right.

Yes. OK, two people, excellent.

Galatians 6-7 says do not be deceived.

God is not mocked for whatever one sows that will he also reap.

Look, it's a truth alarm. Oh, the harvest, what you get is

always determined by the planting, meaning that like

begets like, you can't plant one thing and think you're going to

harvest another thing. Right.

OK, so so Andy Stanley would say it this way.

Your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver

your current results. Let me say it again, your

current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current

results. And right now you're thinking,

oh, no. And this applies physically, but

it also applies spiritually. For instance, if I eat really

unhealthy things and, and I don't monitor my, my consumption

and then I don't do a lot for my, my fitness, I did.

So I don't manage my health at all.

At some point, right, I'm going to get out of shape.

I'm going to be mentally sluggish, I'm going to be

emotionally short tempered. Man, we know now we have a lot

of science that your sugar intake directly correlates to

all kinds of stuff, heart disease, diabetes, overall

lifespan, quality of life. And actually in 2022, we just

figured out one of the leading causes of cancer is sugar

intake. It's almost as if I know it's

going to be crazy. Oh, if it isn't the consequences

of my own actions. So, so physically that happens.

But think about two weeks ago, Pastor Vance was preaching out

of Proverbs and it was all about what what the Bible says about

work. Man, if we don't steward work

well, if we don't save well, if we don't plan well, if I if I

work half heartedly, then I'm going to end up having financial

trouble and problems later. It's consequent, this idea of

consequences, consequences. And that applies physically that

lives in our life, but it also applies spiritually.

Galatians 5 has this huge description about what what it

calls the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit.

And it's looking at these kind of spiritual things and it says

this. Now the works of the flesh are

evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,

sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,

rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness,

orgies and things like this. I warn you, as I warned you

before, that those who do such things will not inherit the

Kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

self-control. Against such things there is no

law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the

flesh with its passions and desires.

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

It's giving us a detailed description of both some of the

sowing and some of the reaping. Spiritually, it is simply saying

this. If I in my life create a lot of

strife, as a result, I'm going to have a lot of strife.

If I act in a lot of anger, I'm actually going to experience a

lot of anger. However, if I grow in kindness,

you know, people that really grow in kindness tend to

experience a lot of kindness in their life.

If I grow in gentleness overtime, I experience a lot of

gentleness spiritually speaking, We also tend to reap what we sow

Now here here's what the I would tell the believer kind of two

little statements just just to kind of sum up this idea.

If I seek the flesh, if I'm constantly sowing, planting

these things of the flesh, sinful internal desires, I will

constantly be impacted by the sin of myself and others.

That is just a sort of a universal law in the Bible.

And and the opposite is true too.

If I seek the Spirit, I will continue to grow in and

experience the Holy Spirit and his fruit.

OK, both sides now and then. Galatians 6-7 goes so far as to

say God is not mocked. See, we're supposed to pursue

holiness. But wouldn't it be crazy to

think that that's not how it works?

That I would just live however I wanted and then I wouldn't

actually receive the consequences of what I'm doing.

Like like, like if somehow I could like game the system.

You ever been an arcade and someone's trying to put their

hand up the little prize machine, right?

But sometimes we live our life that way.

Like I don't want to, I don't want to live out these things.

I just want the reward of them at the end.

Like, like I'm going to trick God and, and Galatians 6-7 is

saying God is not mocked. You ever had a 2 year old try to

trick you and you're just looking at him the whole time?

Like bro, I, I feel like a lot of my life has been God.

Look at me and going, bro, let me give you an example.

I've had the privilege to walk with a lot of people, different

walks of life, different backgrounds in discipleship over

the years. And one guy in particularly this

is years ago, I was walking with he had just I just met him.

He just started coming to church and he was recovering from like

really serious drug addiction and just absolutely covered in

tattoos, including some across his face that expressed his

thoughts about law enforcement and, and he couldn't drive to

church because he had multiple DU is.

And so he would come, you get a ride and he would sit with his

pregnant girlfriend on this side.

And then his friend who was female on this side, who it

turns out he was cheating on his girlfriend with this one.

And they would, they would come in together and oh, and he had

an explosive temper. And so like it's a mess.

And then he would, you know, I got to walk him a little bit and

then he'd get mad at God. He's like, I think God hates me.

And I was like, what do you mean?

He's like, why can't get a job? And my girlfriend broke up with

me. I was like, well, Juan, you

aren't you cheating on your girlfriend?

And he was like, well, yeah. And I said, you can't get a job.

He said no. I was like, what did I say?

F the police on your eyelids. Do you think that might have

something to do with it? No.

I think God hates me. What he was experiencing some.

Not even all, just some of the consequences of his own

decisions. By the way, that's normal,

right? That's just, that's normal.

It turns out that what happens in Vegas does not in fact, stay

in Vegas, right? No, no, no.

Maybe we got, we got lots of people in here from lots of

walks of life. And so maybe you grew up kind of

like I did. I had a phenomenal upbringing,

far better than I deserved. Maybe you didn't.

Maybe you grew up and, and you were brought up in a family that

was dysfunctional. Maybe there's a lot of abuse.

Maybe you, you just grew up in a, and your background is a lot

worse than you deserved as a child.

And, and if only there was a way to kind of level the playing

field regardless of your background, right?

So, so that even if you didn't have a great upbringing, we

would all be able to learn or have an understanding of what,

how to make good decisions, what good decisions were.

If only maybe, you know, those have got like a, like a guide or

maybe a maybe a manual of some sort to kind of set us all right

about, you know, every decision, every attitude, every, every

posture from physical to to thought life to to spiritual to

eternal. If only there was, if only there

was something that could address all of those things for us.

And I don't know, maybe they could, they could type it out or

put it in an app on a phone so you could easily get a hold of

it. Well, gosh, it's handy that this

is just right here. I mean, imagine having a guy

that that addressed every part of your life from physical to

spiritual, emotional, what's good, what's not good.

Maybe it could be so accessible that you could find it anywhere.

In fact, it'd be so accessible, maybe the if you couldn't read,

you can just go to your phone and hit play and it would read

it to you in hundreds of different languages so that we

would have no excuse. Well, that 'd be convenient.

We'll keep our eyes open for that, right?

Really, if we had that and we didn't have an excuse, being a

pastor would be pretty easy because you know, I would have

to do is that I go like, hey guys, here's here's the rules.

Here's the great advice. 12 minute message.

That's a new record. Make good decisions, don't make

bad ones. Read the guide.

I'll see you next week. We're going to be early to

brunch, right? How come it doesn't work that

way? It seems like this should be

really easy. I mean, you know, I'll be

honest, my pastoral job would be a whole lot easier if it did

work that way. 12 minutes sermon.

This is great. I had a friend named Forrest

years ago. Super great guy, loved his wife,

loved his family, just just love the Lord.

And I'm, I distinctly remember a really, really interesting

conversation I had with him one day.

We're just sitting together and he just said Daniel, so

frustrated, man, like I, I'll go to like a marriage retreat or a

men's retreat, right? And I'll be so fired up to like

pursue holiness and, and serve my wife and disciple my kids.

And I'll come back and I'll do like really good for like a week

or 10 days, maybe even 2 weeks. And then it seems like it like

it like it fades and I and I can't, I can't do it.

And I, and I am so frustrated because I want to do it, but I

can't keep it up. And I don't understand, like,

what is it that I'm actually supposed to do?

Have you ever felt that way? Anybody?

Oh, got some honest people in church.

That's cool. I would say I felt that way so

many times in my life. Like that might have actually

been the norm. I gave my life to Christ.

I surrendered my life to Jesus. I believe everything in the

Bible is true and perfect and I want to live this thing out.

And yet for like these huge portions of my life, I feel like

no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to consistently be

selfless, be humble, be gentle, make sacrificial decisions.

I know I'm supposed to love my wife like Jesus loves the

church, so how come I lash out in anger at her?

I, I, I listen most of the time. I know I'm supposed to keep my

mouth shut. I do not keep my mouth shut.

Why? How come I know I'm supposed to

grow impatience and yet I'm, I'm just so off and I refuse to wait

on the Lord in in relationships with my kids.

I, I rush in and I demand I get my own way.

I want to make something happen and I just mess it all up.

Can you feel me? It's like, oh wretched man that

I am, who will save me from this life of sin, this body of death?

That's Romans 724. So we're going to look at 2

questions today. 2 questions. Here's the first one.

What do I do when I cannot seem to make good decisions?

I feel like it's just such a big question.

If you're anyone here feel this in their bones, Like I feel this

question in my bones. OK, so I want to talk about this

like, like, and I think that in order to answer this question,

we're going to have to cover some distortions, some, some,

some areas where we're looking at something the wrong way and

it's sending us down the wrong path.

And, and, and the truth is this, forget a life coach.

I need a heart surgeon. See, the problem isn't not

knowing what to do. It's right here.

The problem is wanting to do it. Amen.

Like, hey, doctor, it's not my head, it's my heart.

It's it's not a lack of knowledge that's hurting me

right now. It's a lack of want to and so I

I want to explain the first distortion.

I think that we, we we run across all the time and it's

this idea. It's righteousness as a list,

righteousness as a list. And I like whiteboards.

Anyone else like a, like a good whiteboard session?

I love a nice big whiteboard, right?

And I could, and I, I imagine this list is like this giant

checklist on this whiteboard. And, and I think what happens is

it, you know, listen, if you're reading the Bible, if you, if

you're familiar with the Bible at all, you know that a lot of

the Bible is about right living, about moral living, about

guidelines, about things that are good and things that are

bad, right? But but the Bible was never

intended to be this giant set of rules that someone, maybe God

would sit there and he would grade you on.

Went to church today. That's a Gold Star.

But most of us have come to an education system where we're

used to grades, right. And so, so like we, we a lot of

us imagine that somewhere, somewhere, maybe in heaven,

there's this giant checklist and God is grading our performance.

What's the problem with that? Well, let me tell you what the

problem is for me and maybe you can relate to this.

The problem for me is it's not very long of me trying to follow

the check boxes before I begin to realize I'm missing a lot of

check boxes. Like a lot like, OK, I'm going

to church and I gave some tithe and I was nice to my neighbor.

I'm trying to read my Bible like I want to do good.

And then all of a sudden I snap at my wife and I lose my temper

at my Co worker. And I don't think the best of

somebody that I'm interacting with.

I think the worst of them all. Things that have happened to me

in the last two weeks. But I'm not talking about

ancient history. And I'm going why man?

How many, how many of these check boxes can I even?

I can't even keep up for I do not understand my own actions

for I do not do the thing that I want.

I do the very thing that I hate. That's Romans 715 private, the

desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Amen. That's Romans 718.

Can you relate to this struggle, man?

I this is the heart of the human problem, right?

Like you don't come to church because we're all nailing the

checklist. I stumble into church going dear

Lord help me. So I find it to be a law that

when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

Romans 721. It's almost like, it's almost

like, and just just just walk with me here that this, this is

the default state of a Christian after they give their life to

Jesus, that, that, that Christ has saved me and, and in the

moment that he saves me, I actually see how terrible I

really am. You come to Christ and for a

moment there you almost feel worse because all the lights

came on and all the sin I was hiding in the corners.

I can see it. All of a sudden I go, Oh, I look

in the mirror when I wake up like whoa, I did not know it was

that bad. And I want to do right.

And I begin to realize, my goodness, this is freaking hard.

It's almost like that's so normal that the Bible wrote an

entire chapter about it. Romans 7.

So, so I just want to tell you this, if you're here today,

you're watching online, you're watching this on YouTube later,

whatever. Before we go any further in

here, like like if, if, if this is your struggle, if you're

feeling this, if you walked in today feeling discouraged

because yet again, you have failed in some some checklist in

your life. Don't you hang your head because

listen, the very fact that sin is convicting you, that your

poor choices are actually showing you and highlighting you

that you are weak, that should actually encourage you.

Here's why. That conviction means that you

are spiritually alive because spiritually dead people don't

feel conviction because spiritually dead people don't

feel anything at all. So, so that very conviction is a

sign that God loves you. He's pursuing you, He's chasing

you, He's correcting you, He's pulling you toward holiness and

righteousness. So, so if so, if this is you

today, like let's let's get into the first person.

Say me OK, listen, three things. 3 encouragements.

I just want to give you 3 encouragements if you, if you

really feel this too. Here's the first.

It's actually not a list, It's learning a new lifestyle.

It's not a list, it's learning a new lifestyle.

Here's what I mean by that. For the believer, there's this

thing called the law of Christ and, and the Bible says in the

New Testament that if you and I have been saved by Christ, that

we're actually under the law of Christ.

So, so it's not some list of the 10 commandments because it's

both 1000 times harder than the 10 commandments and

simultaneously 1000 times more liberating.

Pastor Dave talked about this last week in his sermon.

Like, like about, you know, we want to learn how to hate sin

because God hates sin, but you don't learn how to hate sin.

That's just wrong decisions for choices by staring at the sin

you learn to hate sin by staring at Jesus when?

So when we get saved, the Bible says that we were given a heart

transplant, a new heart, a heart of flesh that can feel Man, a

heart transplant is a pretty major surgery.

Amen. But the amount of rehab, if you

actually go and got a heart transplant, the amount of

rehabilitation that you would need, the physical therapy that

you would need to learn how to do life with this new heart is

pretty significant. We got a guy in our church right

now named Dennis Harvey earlier this year.

He had a lung transplant. I'll be honest, I didn't even

know you could transplant a lung, but apparently you can.

And he had one. You got a new lung.

And, and, and I was thinking about, he's been down at Cedars

Sinai for like 6 months in recovery.

And I was thinking kind of about his situation because we've been

praying for him a lot and his family.

And the first is this, it's so similar to what we go through

when we come to Christ because the first admission that that

Dennis had to make is that he couldn't give himself a new

lung. He needed somebody to do it for

him. And it's the first admission

that you and I make when we come to Christ is that we can't fix

ourselves because we have a bad heart and we need someone that

has the power to actually give us a new heart.

And the secondly, the hardest part for Dennis was not that the

surgeon gave him a new, a new lung.

He, he was, he was passed out for that.

He was under anaesthesia. That wasn't hard.

The hardest part was waking up and learning how to live with

the new lung. His, his rehab over the last six

months has been brutal. It has been intense, man.

It has been so hard that over and over again, he's actually

he, he, he's, he's been really tempted to give up.

And what I, what I want you to hear is that after God saves us,

sometimes we stare at the mess that our life has become because

of our own choices. We, we, we, we stare at some of

the sin and the poor choices. We get a better realization of

how bad and terrible we really are.

And we look at that amount of work and, and we almost want to

get discouraged and give up because man, following Christ,

that life is going to be so much different than our life before.

You might even convince yourself that it's going to be impossible

to get all that work done. And so I want to encourage you

the same way I want to encourage Dennis.

Hey, it's worth it. That new life is worth it.

You see, you had no chance with the old heart.

He had no chance with the old lung.

But now there's a new life ahead.

And it may start in every one of our lives.

It may start with some really difficult moments, a difficult

path, a difficult journey of walking out what it looks like

to live. But the man, the end of that

path is beautiful. So, so don't lose heart if

you're struggling right now, don't give up.

Don't become exhausted. We're learning a new lifestyle.

You're learning how to live with a new heart.

Secondly, the one of the things that we have to do move away

from this idea of a list is this.

We're learning the difference between emotions and the Holy

Spirit. And so that means as you begin

to realize that, that means that that my default state after I

come to Christ is I'm probably wrong.

I know, I know Americans hate to say this.

Say it with me. I'm probably wrong.

I'm probably wrong. See, now you've said it once, at

least in the last 10 years, I'm probably wrong.

Look, I should be really good at apologies because I'm probably

wrong. When I came to Christ, which was

an admission that I couldn't fix the problem, that Jesus had to

do it, that God had to give me a new heart, then all of a sudden

everything changes. And so with that, what should

come for you and I is a full confession and a full admission

that everything we learned about how to do life before Christ was

being, was based on being spiritually dead in a

spiritually broken and fallen world.

And so, like logically, it should make sense to us that we

probably learned a lot about habits.

We learned a lot of bad reasoning, a lot of bad logic,

and we probably relied on our emotions a lot too much.

And so it should come as absolutely no shock to any of us

that again and again and again in our in my life, I'm going to

start to lean on my old rationale, my old heart, my old

reasoning, and head down the wrong path.

Like I, I'll try to do things like I did them before I was a

believer and I'm going to need to be corrected.

So it's almost like my default state is like I'm probably wrong

and I got to learn how to do it the right way.

Now. You know, the problem with that

is we all hate being wrong. Amen.

That we hate being we hate admitting wrong.

We hate being wrong. We hate being called out,

corrected about being wrong. At least I do.

You OK, All right. It might sometimes for some of

us, like the hardest thing to do in our entire life would be to

admit that we're wrong and apologize.

Hey, can you forgive me? I messed up.

But that also means that I I went from living a life based on

emotions, how I feel, to a realization that the moment

Christ saved me, I should not be trusting my emotions.

I tell you this all the time, the Christian life is not a

Disney movie. Don't follow your heart, it will

get you in trouble. The Bible says the heart is

deceitful above all else. Who can know it?

So I can't trust my emotions. The Bible says that to follow

Christ, I must die to myself. That means over and over and

over and over again. I'm going to be tempted to

follow the old way of life and not Jesus.

So we got to get really quick at realizing, hey, that that thing

I just thought about that thing I just started to do the way I

spoke to that person that's taking me off the rails, that's

taking me off the you ever been driving on the freeway and you

drift a little bit and you hit the rumble strip.

Yes. What are they there for?

They're a warning, right? They're a warning.

Well, they might wake you up too if you're tired.

They're a warning. You're going off the road.

And because our emotions and the way we thought before Christ

often do this, the list isn't going to help us.

We need some rumble strips. And a lot of times the advice in

the Bible is a rumble strip. It's trying to tell you, hey, if

you keep down this path, you're going to end up off the road.

Let me give you 5 real quick rumble strips in my life and

maybe you'll find one that you can relate to.

Here's the first one. In my mind, it's a thought that

starts this way. It is so unfair that that's a

rumble strip. I'm about to think something in

which I have lost gratitude for the mercy and grace of Christ

because I've decided what is unjust and unfair in my life and

I'm not that judge. Second one, I just can't believe

that they would rumble strip. The moment you catch yourself

thinking it, hey, you're headed out of the lane.

You didn't even put on a turn signal #3 I don't deserve that

kind of. Let me be really clear, I

deserve death, hell, and damnation for my rebellion

toward God. But God, that's what I deserve.

So the moment you decide that you don't deserve blank brother,

you are on the rumble strip. 4th 1.

I just have to get this off my chest.

No, you do not. For the love of Jesus, keep it

on your chest. That is the precursor to an

excuse to say something simple or in a sinful way.

You want to get it off your chest.

It's a there's this thing called prayer.

You can yell at God, you can argue with God, you can get it

off your chest all you want that way.

Stop using that as an excuse to say uncharitable things. 5th I

know what the Bible says, but I feel y'all, y'all, y'all don't

trust your feelings. They're liars.

Those are rumble strips. OK, just for later, there's a

little nugget. You wrap that up in a napkin and

put in your pocket for, for afterwards.

Just a little little treat. All these types of thoughts.

OK, These are all every one of these things I've thought like

150,000 times, right? Every one of these things I've

thought, and it's a precursor to something that takes me off of

this path of pursuing Christ. And, and So what I'm trying to

tell you is all of these are based on emotion feelings in my

life. And what I have learned over

time in pursuing Christ is every one of those is a rumble strip

that will lead me off the path of pursuing Christ.

So I want to be really careful when when anything starts kind

of like that. Here's the third thing.

All the measurements have changed.

OK? This is actually an

encouragement for you because often times the reason you're so

discouraged is you're measuring the wrong thing.

All the measurements have changed.

Here's what I mean by that. One of our biggest frustrations,

I I know for me and probably for for many of you because I got to

talk to you, one of our biggest frustrations as a Christian is

we thought that it would get easier, faster.

Amen. Come on.

Like, like, OK, everything changed, but not everything's

fixed, Amen. So, so we thought like I came to

Christ and now it's like, I don't know, fairies and unicorns

and rainbows. And it's like, no, this is hard.

I mean, the Bible talks about a spiritual warfare and a trench

warfare. So I don't know where you got

unicorns from. Not me.

But it turns out that it's actually pretty hard, Amen?

Spiritual change takes real time, like real time.

And we live in a culture that expects instant results.

So you've been trained by living in this culture that everything

was just supposed to be fixed. Like you went through the drive

through it in and out, that it might have actually taken a

while. But but you know what I'm saying

right now, here's the thing. I just want you to think about

this and this. I want this to encourage you.

Thank God that it takes time. OK, If him changing one small

thing in my life feels this disruptive, Can you imagine if

he changed everything at once? He corrects you on one little

thing and you're like, right, if he had corrected everything, I

don't think I'd survive. My pride couldn't handle it.

So that's, that's the first measurement that needs to

change, right? We, we measure in years, not in

days. So stop measuring like, oh, it

hasn't changed. It's been three whole days.

Here's the second thing. We don't measure from a list.

We measure from the fruit that is produced.

That's what Galatians 522 and 23 was telling us.

We're measuring it. Are we increasing in love,

increasing in joy, increasing in peace, increasing in

self-control, increasing in kindness and goodness and

faithfulness? Not a check box.

It's are these things happening in my life and beginning to

spill over into other people's lives now?

Three things I want to encourage you.

There's a small group of people and it's not really a type of

person. It's just a season because I've

because I've been both of these people at different seasons in

my life. So there's a small group in

here. And maybe you're in this season

right now where you don't feel like this at all.

And so like this hasn't really resonated for you.

You're like maybe for someone else because you actually feel a

little bit differently than this.

You also have turned righteousness into the list, but

instead of feeling like you're failing your distortion is this.

I don't know what the problem is.

I don't know why everyone else can't live like me.

Now, you don't say it that way because you're really good at

false humility. I know I'm a false humility

expert, but but your real issue is you're like, look, I am

crushing this thing. If people would just watch me,

they'd figure it out. And you think I'm exaggerating,

but you turn in the Bible and Jesus talked to this guy.

He's called the rich young ruler and he comes to Jesus and he's

got everything going for him. And he says, Jesus, what must I

do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus says, you know the

law, like there's a whole checklist of stuff, right?

You know the law. And he goes, oh, yeah, I've kept

every single one of those since birth.

Does anyone in here believe that guy never broke a single rule in

Judaic law since broke up? Come on, man.

Man, there have been seasons in my life where I've been this guy

where I look at the list and I go, Yep, killing it, killing it.

And then it's like gossip and I'm like skip over killing it,

killing it. And it's like, think the best of

someone. I'm like skip over and and then

I just, you know, I just kind of erase.

We put it on a whiteboard for a reason, right?

So I can. And then all that's left on my

checklist is the boxes that I've checked.

So I'm pretty much perfect. I mean, I'm not perfect, but I'm

better than, you know, Gary and, and we play the comparison game

where we're not actually looking at righteousness anymore.

We're just look, as long as I can find somebody that's

struggling more than I am, then I'm good, then I'm good.

And so any area that we fall short, we just, we conveniently

build a blind spot and we and we act like that that isn't really,

but very important. We find some justification, some

excuse for why we're, we're, we're not really sinning and we

just live in denial. It's not just a river in Egypt.

That one takes a while. But here's the reality of living

that way. OK.

And I'm just from from from experience.

I was to tell you from my life, the reality of living that way

is there's very little joy in your life.

And the reason there's not a lot of joy when we begin to live

like that, we have this, this, this, this self righteousness

that cut when we cover it up with this false humility is that

I haven't repented of my sin in years.

Because what is there to repent of when you're crushing it like

I am? And we call that legalism.

But The thing is that even after coming to Christ, when you begin

to live that way, it it never produces joy because to feel

self justified to to feel like, like I'm actually doing right

even though I'm not pursuing holiness, it requires me to

constantly excuse or turn a blind eye to the sin and listen,

sin is poison whether you close your eyes while you eat it or

not Amen. Hear me, sin is just as

dangerous whether you acknowledge that it's sin while

you do it or not. It doesn't become less sinful or

less poisonous or less dangerous if you live in a self justifying

little bubble where you act like it's OK.

It's just as harmful to our relationship with God who wants

us to walk in freedom, where we make honest mistakes and we

repent. And it's a common practice to

confess sin and repent that I'm wrong and turn from it and enjoy

the mercy and forgiveness that God extends.

And listen, it is hard to enjoy that when you think you don't

need it. Legalism is a lonely affair, I

will tell you, because I can't ever bring anyone real close

when I'm living this way because they might see all the eraser

marks on my checklist. And so it gets real lonely.

In fact, it's it's cold, windy and lonely up on the moral high

ground at night. Tough place to live.

Now here's the interesting thing for both groups of people, the

answer is actually the same. The solution is the same.

Even though those seem like such opposites.

We are not looking at and enjoying God enough.

So, so so here's what I mean. When I'm down on myself for

missing the mark and I'm and I'm kind of in this self

condemnation and I'm discouraged because I can't seem to check

all the boxes. It's because I'm staring at the

list, not the one who authored the list.

And when I think I'm crushing it because, like, you know,

everyone else is falling short and I'm kind of doing well, it's

because I'm still looking at the list and I'm looking at others,

but I'm not looking at Jesus because I would realize if I

did, how far from him I really was.

So. So whenever I'm falling into one

of these distortions, even though they seem like they're on

the opposite ends of the spectrum, the solution to both

is actually the same. I need to invest more time and

energy and affection and attention into knowing Christ.

And I know that that sounds like a Sunday school answer.

Like if you don't know what I mean, back back when they had

Sunday school for kids, you go into Sunday school and if you

didn't know the answer, you just go Jesus.

I'm like, you were right like 75% of the time.

So I know that sounds like that. But listen, hear me because this

is like the most important thing that you're going to hear about

the gospel, probably about about the sermon today.

If I desire to be transformed into Christ likeness like if I

desire to make better choices. And I have at least the logical

understanding that I don't seem to be able to do it.

Here's what I want you to know. God has a plan for you to do it,

like He has a plan for my inability to rise above my

emotions. And I want to show you that He

actually wrote that out in Scripture so that when you got

discouraged, you would see it and realize He did not leave you

where you're at. If you turn to 2nd Corinthians 3

verse 18, God is going to describe for you the process by

which to begin to improve, making better choices even when

you feel like you can't. Here's what it says and we all

he's talking to believers. So if you put your faith in

Jesus and we all with unveiled face, that's a weird phrase.

He's using some symbolism that simply means this.

It means that unveiled face, before Jesus came, we could not

see what the solution for man's depravity, for all this

brokenness was. We didn't know we were, it was

veiled from us. But now if Jesus has woken you

up from spiritual death to spiritual life, you can see it.

So you have an unveiled face. And we all with unveiled face,

beholding the glory of the Lord, the goodness of God, the beauty,

the character, the faithfulness, like the reverence in awe of who

God is, are being transformed. Current tents.

It's happening right now into the same image, into Christ

likeness from 1° of glory to another, not 30° at a time, not

giant leaps, 1° of glory to another.

The way to become like Jesus is to focus on Jesus and it takes a

lot of time. I want you to think crock pots,

not microwaves. You ain't getting, you ain't

getting the microwaves, Christian.

It's a mess. By the way, they explode.

For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Now how do we do this? How do we focus on the glory of

God? Well, all you have to do is skip

down 1 chapter, second Corinthians chapter 4, and he

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

tells us. Here's what it says for God, who

said let light shine out of darkness?

That's a quote of of God from the creation story when he made

light out of dark, right? For God, who said let light

shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light

of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Like, whoa, whoa, what does that mean?

OK, first of all, I don't know if you catch this, but he just

said that our hearts were so dark that it was the equivalent

of when light didn't exist. That's a pretty dark.

If you're wondering on the scale of darkness, light not existing,

it's pretty dark. He just said before Christ, your

heart was so dark, so evil, so depraved that there was no

light. And God not only at the

beginning of creation, said let there be light.

When he saved you, He went into your dark heart and said, let

there be light. And then he says God's glory.

So the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

What what, what does that mean? God's glory is expressed to us

in the face of Jesus Christ. OK, It's it doesn't mean like

you have to actually know specifically what Jesus face

physically looked like. That would be tough because we

don't have Google Photos from back then, right?

Nobody went back that far. Mine go like 11 years,

definitely not making it 2000. So it's not physically the face

of Christ. What is it saying?

Listen, if you want to understand what the physical

manifestation of all of the glory of God is, all of His

character, all of His perfection, all of His goodness,

all of His power, all of His mercy, all of everything that is

good about this universe and creation, He took all of it and

put it into a physical man, a baby born of a woman, wrapped in

flesh. And He walked amongst us.

And that is the glory of God. And if you would get infatuated

with that, it'll change your life.

You can get infatuated with fantasy football won't change

your life. You can get infatuated with a

new hobby or a relationship won't change your life, but man,

if you will begin to be devoted to that, you'll begin to

experience the glory of God. What the Bible says is if you

will begin to experience the glory of God, you will start

getting changed 1° at a time. That's how transformation works.

That if we would get, if we would fall more deeply in love

with Him, it would change us. Hey, guess what, that's good

news. Amen.

Because that means there's hope for knuckleheads like me who

can't seem to make the right decisions.

What I have to do in my life is now architect a way to focus on

Christ more and on lists less, focus on Christ more and

comparing myself to other people less.

So I wanted you to consider two things today, Two ways to do

that. One thing you start doing, one

thing you stop doing. We'll make this really easy.

I put a list in your bulletin. Here's the first.

I want you to make a list of this.

What are things I can do to grow in Christ?

Man, there's so many ways to grow, right?

The Bible talks about all these different ways we get better at

prayer or pray more, build a good Christian community around

us or or learn how to serve other people, build generosity,

work on our on confession, reading our Bible, building

gratitude and thankfulness, all reverence and on and on and on.

There's lots of good things, say me, you could put yourself in

environments and communities, in moments and disciplines to help

in the rehab process of what it looks like to live with this new

heart. And that's what this is.

We're doing rehab. We are all doing rehab from our

addiction to sin. Church is a recovery center.

You're an addict. I'm an addict, addicted to sin,

but God, now I can make a list of, of these things that I want

to do, right? And, and, and how do I, how do I

make a list and it not become legalism?

If I make a list of stuff to do and I get back to the check

boxes, didn't I get back to the place I started?

Oh my gosh, here's here's how I can help you with that list.

OK, whatever you're going to write down to your list, I just

want you to think there's one thing, OK?

Every time you look at a doing a thing, I want you to think, how

does this stir up my affection for God?

How does this stir up my passion for God?

OK. And this is the difference.

So if you put read my Bible daily and then you read your

Bible for 15 minutes, then you check the box and you walked

off, we've missed the mark. But then if I open the scripture

and I get one verse in, but it begins to stir in me an

affection for Christ. Now we're getting somewhere.

So it's a it's not just a what I'm doing, it's a how and why I

do it. I'm trying to meet someone and

know him better. OK, So what will stir me up?

What will help with my humility? What will strip away my pride?

What will grow my generosity and gratitude?

It's a relationship, not a robot.

So one thing to start doing, right?

You're going to make a list. One thing to stop doing.

How do I strip self from every part of my life and replace it

with Jesus? AW Tozer says that the primary

thing that holds you and I back from truly experiencing the

goodness and presence of God in our lives is self life.

So, so where in my life have I been relying on my own feelings,

my own emotions, my own sufficiency?

And let us confess that and repent and instead be desperate

for God in that area of our life.

Because if you will start to to answer these questions, right,

if you will, you'll begin to add some things to your life to stir

up your affection and strip away those areas that where you're

focused just entirely on yourself.

You'll do that Monday through Saturday.

Let me tell you something, your life is going to change.

Maybe you, you've been listening online or you've been hanging

out with us today and, and you've never heard most of this

stuff, right? This is kind of foreign to you

or, or you're just skeptical of, been skeptical about it.

And maybe you've never realized that it's not a life coach you

need, it's a heart surgeon. Maybe maybe you've been looking

for advice, therapy, comfort, knowledge, gimmicks, lots of

things, and none of them seem to work.

And so it's just for the last moment or two as we wrap this

up. I just want to, I just want to

ask you if God has grabbed a hold of your attention today,

it's because he wants to save you.

And He is at this very moment awakening your soul to the

things of heaven. He is replacing your heart of

stone with the heart of flesh. So I want to give you a chance

to respond to the call that God has on your life today.

The Bible says in Romans 10/9 and 10 Because if we confess

with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart

that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.

For with the heart 1 believes and is justified, and with the

mouth 1 confesses and is saved. And so if you would like to

surrender to God today, I want to give you that chance.

Will you bow your heads with me? Close your eyes if you're

willing to ask God for forgiveness for salvation.

I just want you to repeat this prayer after me.

You do it silently. You do quietly, however,

whoever's comfortable. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner who

can't save myself and I want you to save me and adopt me into

your family. Be my Lord, Please.

Jesus, have you said that prayer for the very first time?

Will you be brave and raise your hand for me to see?

Thank you, thank you. You put your hands down in Jesus

name. Amen.

Amen. Real quick, if you just gave

your life to Christ, welcome to the family.