"Discipleship Essentials" Pt. 3

Hi, this is John Ozanting, lead pastor of Evolve Church, and this is the Evolve Church Podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We hope that you find today's message encouraging and full of hope for wherever you're at.

Grab your notebooks, grab your Bibles.

Um, in May, May, uh, I think it was May 18th, we started a new series at Evolve called Discipleship Essentials.

And we got uh about two weeks in on the 18th and the 25th, and the series is actually literally called Discipleship Essentials.

If you don't know what an essential is, I unpack it in week one.

But my point is simply this: an essential truth uh really, really matters.

If you've made a decision to say, I want to follow Jesus, if you're in the room today and you're like, I'm really curious, what does it mean to be a Christian?

You're thinking about becoming a Christian or becoming a follower of Jesus or an apprentice of Jesus or a disciple of Jesus.

There are some really important things that you need to know about following Jesus.

They're so essential that we might even call them essentials.

Yeah, there you go.

You got it.

You get the idea?

Um, and so we're in this series, and it's coming out of the book of Romans, Romans chapter 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Um, the Apostle Paul really unpacking some real core truth about what it means to be a Christian.

And so we want you to know this.

We want you to know what we're teaching as essential truths for following Jesus.

And so if you miss part one and you miss part two, can you do me a favor?

Take some time this week and just go back either on our audio podcast or YouTube channel, uh, either listen or watch, uh, because we want you to stay kind of in the loop on what we're teaching in this series.

Um, two weeks ago, Pastor Jamie, we had a guest in from Ireland.

How many of you loved Pastor Jamie Corcran from Lighthouse Church in uh in Ireland?

And the last week, Pastor Nate Puccini, what a gift that was to have our friend from Substance Church.

So we kind of had two guests, and but now we're back at it.

Discipleship Essentials part three, and uh, we're gonna be in Romans chapter six today.

And I want to begin by saying uh that this week, as I was reading Romans 6, I had a moment where I was like, Hey God, can I just not teach this on Sunday?

I would love, can I just do like a really like fun, inspirational Father's Day message?

Like just rally the dads, like a really good like Christian TED talk, just like dads are awesome, dads are cool, um change the diaper, wipe the drool.

I don't know.

Just like, you know, I just wanted to do some kind of some kind of like Father's Day message, and and the reason why is because Romans 6 is all about sin.

Yay.

And uh and and then I was like really convicted because I was I was like, we actually have to normalize conversations about sin.

Because even me saying that, I'll full stop, pause in the room.

If you have to close your eyes.

But when a pastor gets up on a platform and is about to preach a message and and drops the S word, how do you feel?

Like one of the pastors is like, I get to preach about sin.

How does that make you feel?

Uncomfortable?

Awkward.

Yeah, of course.

How does it make you feel?

What else?

Same.

Exposed.

Saved, saved by grace.

And this is important.

And here's why.

Um when our kids were younger, we lived in Winnipeg, and I was doing some yard work, and I got a I got a really bad splinter.

Like the worst splinter I've ever had.

To this date, it goes down as like Pastor John O's worst, worst splinter in all history.

It was like three-quarters of an inch just drove right kind of this way into my inside of my pinky, that soft part.

Yeah, I know, you're squirming.

It gets worse, hang in there.

That's kind of a gross story.

And and for the life of me, I could not get that splinter out.

I tried everything, like soaking it, tweezers, like I tried everything.

I called my mom, you know, I tried everything.

I couldn't get it out, and so I left it.

And over the course of weeks, my pinky finger got really, really infected.

No kidding.

And uh and it and it was it like it swelled up on the inside, and it was really sensitive to touch, and it was just really infected.

And one day I was like, I, you know, I was I was working and it was just really bothering me.

I looked down and I just touched it.

I touched this like swollen pus bubble.

Yeah, gross.

I know.

Ew, ew.

Um, and the splinter like came shooting out, like it jumped from my pinky right right to the tip.

It just and it would just it was resting right on the tip of my pinky, and I was like, cool.

And so like I kind of like massaged it, cleaned it, wrapped it up, and it healed.

If we don't normalize conversations about sin, it'll just stay on the inside.

It's gonna fester.

And this is what I've learned in 28 years of full-time vocational ministry, pastoral work, if we don't talk about sin, it corrupts on the inside and eventually squirts out all over the place.

It just creates a mess.

And the goal is to normalize it.

Actually, love, last week, if you were in the room, Pastor Nate was preaching out of James 5, and it's like confess your sins one to another so that you may be healed.

Healed.

Like normalizing conversation about sin brings healing.

Scripture says, confess your sins to the Lord, you'll be saved.

Confess your sins to each other, and you'll be healed.

And in Romans 3, it's really clear that we're made right with God, not by hiding our sin, but by placing our faith in Jesus.

Because everyone has sinned.

We all fall short of God's glorious standard, every human being.

And yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.

And so if we don't normalize conversations about sin, then we'll never embrace the practice of confessing sin one to another so that we might be healed, or the core entry point of confessing our sins to the Lord that we might be saved.

Actual sin, it refers to willful disobedience.

Like, I know God's best for me.

I'm gonna do this instead.

Okay?

So we know God, God has a revealed will for us.

If you read scripture, I see the Bible as like the most kind, loving, generous love letter from a father to his kids saying, like, I love you so much.

Can you trust that because I made you, I know the best way for you to live?

I know the best way.

Will you trust me with that?

And as as God's kids, either because we've made a decision to follow Jesus, or maybe we haven't yet, and we might know about some of the ways that God's written down as his best for us, we still have to choose am I gonna trust God and walk in that, or or am I gonna disobey?

And that's that's really original sin.

It wasn't so much what Adam and Eve did in the garden, it was more who they listened to and trusted and how that caused them to respond.

God said, I've blessed you.

This life is gonna be incredible.

This garden is full.

Occupy, walk in it.

Oh, hey, there's one tree that I don't want you to eat from.

The tree of the knowledge of good and just please don't eat from that one tree, but everything else, right?

That one, and then the enemy's like, Did God really say?

And the enemy of our soul, the deceiver, always lying, always whispering, always kind of countering the truth of God, whispering in our ear, whispering.

It was that Adam and Eve in their heart and in their deception, they believed the lie of the enemy and as such disobeyed the father.

That's really the sin condition for so many of us still to this day.

I know that God said this.

Can I really trust him?

Can I really take him at his word?

I know that God says that like human flourishing regarding sexuality is gonna be the best within a covenant of marriage.

But like, what's the should we get legalistic about that?

Did God, did God, you know what I mean?

Like, somebody's like, well, this is uncomfortable, Pastor.

Yeah, but it's essential, in part two, I said this it's essential that we know, understand, and walk in our identity as children of God from a transforming place of wholeness, healing, life, and freedom by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, it's actually about paying attention to what's going on on the inside, which is why I began by saying, when I say sin, you feel uncomfortable.

Time to go, called out.

That's important to pay attention to.

That means the Holy Spirit wants to do some work in all of us today.

That when we hear the word sin, we're like, yep, confess.

Bring it out of darkness, bring it into the light.

There's work that God wants to do in me.

The day I'm perfect, it's the day I'm dead.

Until then, there's work in me, Lord.

I submit, I I'm my hand's up, I'm surrendered.

Do your best work in me.

Why?

Because sin's wage has always been death, but grace trumps sin every time.

That was week two.

Sin and grace have different results, so choose your kingdom wisely.

And and Paul's, some of the themes of that show up in again today, Romans 5, 17 talks about um, because of one man's sin, Adam, death reigned, but because of Jesus, righteousness, we get to reign in life.

We're empowered as God's kids to reign in life.

And that's something to get excited about.

And if you're like, man, I'm not reigning, but I I call myself a Christian.

How do I reign in life?

Well, guess what?

Good news.

We're gonna talk about that in the rest of this series because Romans 6, 7, and 8 is all about unpacking what it means to reign in this life.

Romans 6 is all about being dead to sin, it's how we reign.

Romans 7 is about being dead to the law, it's how we reign.

And Romans 8 is all about us being filled with the Holy Spirit for real life and real freedom.

That is how we reign.

So, what's it gonna cost you and I?

It's gonna cost us something.

It's gonna cost us, as this essential part of our discipleship, our surrender to Jesus, to become increasingly comfortable with true and gracious conversations about our sin, honesty, real vulnerability, growing trust and love for one another, carrying each other's burdens and so fulfilling the love law of Christ.

Did you know we when we confess our sins to each other, brother to brother, sister to sister, and they're like, Yeah, let's pray right now.

I'm gonna I'm gonna walk this out with you.

We're fulfilling Jesus' commandment to love, to love others as we love God and love ourselves.

The most loving thing we can do is to sit with each other and create rooms where it's like, would you would you take a look inside of me?

I want to show you what I've never shown anybody else.

And you might do that if you're married, you might do that with your spouse, but you might be better off doing that with a brother or with a sister in the Lord.

Here's what I know shame and pride always keep sin hiding in the dark.

Always.

I'm ashamed of my sin, so I don't want anybody to know about it, and so I isolate.

Some of you haven't joined a small group yet in your church community because you're ashamed of sin.

You're like, if I get into a small room, people are gonna see me, people are gonna know me, they're gonna call me out.

Hey, don't wait to be called out, bring it out yourself.

That's that's a new way of thinking about it.

Like, run, run to rooms where we can confess our sins one to another and then so be healed, be like made whole from the inside out.

Pride keeps us from that.

Like, like I'm I just want to pretend that I've got it all together, and I and we live dual lives.

We're like the people closest to us, they know about our rage, they know about our addiction, but then it's like because of pride, we we put on a good show when we're in public or when we we're in church.

Shame and pride always keep sin hiding in the dark.

But love and freedom and grace allow sin to come out of darkness into light.

So how we choose to pay attention to sin, it's essential.

It really matters in our lives.

And I want to normalize conversations about sin.

I want to be quicker, you know.

I want you to know, as your pastor, I have a small group with other pastors that every month I spend two hours with.

And that room is really about confessing our sin.

And not just in that two-hour call, but then every week, phone calls one-on-ones with those pastors when we're struggling or we're having a rough day.

There's a text, a group text, we throw it in the chats, and it's always like beautiful how the guys respond in faith, and the phones start ringing.

As your pastor, I want you to know that I have regular rooms, weekly rhythms that I run to and embrace to confess my sin one to another so that I might be healed.

And so I'm learning how to do this as your pastor, but not because I'm your pastor.

I'm learning how to do this because it matters, it's an essential truth in our discipleship to Jesus.

Um, but I want you to know I'm willing to do what I'm asking you to do, what I'm asking you to become, what I'm inviting you into.

Romans 6 um talks about some beautiful things, and there's five ideas I want to share with you before we go outside and drink iced coffee.

Sound good?

So if you've got your Bible, starting in Romans 6, uh, verses 1 through 5 is the first kind of idea.

Paul says, well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?

Of course not.

I love that Paul begins this conversation with a rhetorical question.

Man, God's grace is so good.

God's grace is quick, it's right there, it's at the ready.

So can we just keep on sinning?

Can we keep up our sinful behavior, our sinful patterns, our sinful life because we know that God's grace?

And then he answers his rhetorical question with like, uh, no, of course not.

Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ in baptism, we join Jesus in his death.

We go under the water.

For we died and were buried with Christ by water baptism.

We saw that, we bore witness to that last week.

And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

There's a new life that you're asked to live as a Christian.

Following Jesus isn't about living an old kind of sinful existence, an old life, and then like, oh, I love Jesus, he loves me.

This is nice.

Yay, Jesus, and then we keep on living that old life.

No, there's a new life in Christ.

That we're meant to leave the old behind and embrace something new, since we have been united with him in his death, we'll also be raised.

So Paul starts with this rhetorical question: Should we keep on sinning?

No.

The obvious answer is no, because we've died to sin.

Never forget that by joining your life to Jesus Christ, you're actually joining Christ in this powerful dance of dying and being raised to life, and dying and being raised to life.

And I want to invite you to consider what that means every day.

Maybe tomorrow morning you wake up and say, How can I die to anger today?

How can I die to addiction today?

How can I die to the failures of my past today?

I want to, I want to daily dying, daily dealing, and daily being raised back to life in Christ Jesus.

And this means, first and foremost, NT Wright says, a change of status, status change.

We're no longer located in sin.

There's been a shift in our status.

Grace met us in our sin because of Jesus, not in order to tell us that everything's all right as we were, but in order to rescue us and take us somewhere else.

Paul uses this image of planting, as with a tree or a shrub, and once you've been planted in a particular soil, that's where you must grow.

And so we're taken out of sin like a plant, and we're replanted in grace, replanted in new life, replanted in Christ Jesus.

In baptism, we're planted into the death of Jesus in order that we may now live as renewed human beings, planted also in his resurrection life.

Sin's power is busted, it's broken.

Thank you, Jesus.

And so the question is: if there's still sin that has authority in my life, if there's still sin that's kicking my butt every day, I wonder if I've actually learned how to die.

Maybe I haven't learned how to die.

Or maybe I haven't publicly identified with the death of Christ through water baptism.

It's interesting to me that water baptism is the way to identify publicly with death and resurrection.

And yet so many Christians, because of the power of sin, refuse to be baptized.

Because they're like, I have to deal with my sin first.

No, you have to die.

You have to die to sin.

You have to die to sin today and again tomorrow and each and every day.

Maybe you haven't publicly identified with the death of Christ through water baptism yet.

I shared last week that I've been baptized twice.

I was baptized as an infant in my family's heritage, the Christian Reformed tradition.

I honor and bless the work that the Christian Reformed Church is doing.

But my parents, when I was about eight years old, said, you know what?

Water baptism, we sense it's for believers.

It's for like well-formed minds that say, no, no, I want to die to who I used to be and be raised to life.

And I'll never forget my parents getting water baptized in in Chesse Lake in Ontario.

I was on the shore.

And then as such, when I was 17, I was like, I want to go all in for Jesus.

And that moment at Granville Chapel in Vancouver, when I went under the under the water and I came up, you know, I was born again the day I received Jesus on the inside.

And there was something powerful in water baptism that unlocks a sense of freedom and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Have you publicly experienced being raised from the dead through water baptism?

Are you practicing a daily experience of the glorious power of the Father through prayer and scripture and time with other Christians where we get to remember, oh, there's some of me that was supposed to die and stay dead.

I get to pay attention to those things because I've been raised to life in Christ.

So it's essential to know that we died to sin the day that we said yes to Jesus.

That's the first idea from Romans 6.

Goes on in verse 6 to say, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified, so that sin might pay attention to this, lose its power.

Okay?

We're no longer slaves.

For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.

So not only were you saved from sin, forgiven from sin, but you were set free from its power.

It has no hold on you, it has no power over you anymore.

And since we died, we know we will also live with him.

We're sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead.

And he'll never die again.

Scripture says he's seated at the right hand of God the Father.

He who was, is, and is to come.

In this moment, in real time, all of heaven is singing the same song we just sang together.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

And when we show up at a service and participate in that worship and lend our voices to that ancient song, it reminds our hearts that we're sure that Christ was raised from the dead and he'll never die again.

Because when he died, he died once to break the power of sin.

But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God.

So you also should consider yourselves.

Underline that, highlight that word in your Bible, consider.

Do you consider yourself to be dead to the power of sin?

Anybody seen the musical Oliver?

Oliver, Oliver, never before.

Has a boy, has four more.

Come on, two people have seen Oliver?

You uncultured swine.

Let me tell you.

Kidding, kidding.

That was a joke.

That was a joke.

Don't call names.

It's not cool.

Oliver, it's a story about an orphan.

And uh in his journey, he he meets a character called the Artful Dodger.

And the artful dodger leads this ragtag group of orphan boys who are literally like they're thieves.

That's all they do.

And uh, and in their in their debauchery and in their brokenness, the artful dodger invites Oliver to join his merry band of thieves.

It's a great story.

Watch Oliver, come on, go, that's your Father's Day homework.

And there's this song in Oliver called Consider Yourself that the Artful Dodger sings to Oliver to convince him to become a part of the family.

Consider yourself at home.

Consider yourself part of the family we've taken to you so strong, it's clear we're going to get along, and uh, and I love this, it's a great song.

And as I was as I was reading, I could go on, I got more lyrics.

Consider yourself well in.

Consider yourself part of the furniture.

There isn't a lot to spare.

Who cares?

Whatever we've got, we share.

Um, and as I was reading this, this song came to my head when I was like, consider yourselves to be dead to sin and alive in Christ.

And um, I don't know why I thought I sometimes keep up with my crazy brain.

But this word consider in scripture, in the original language, this word consider requires us to pay attention because it's actually a mathematical term.

The Greek word is uh, I'm gonna butcher it.

Logizomai.

There it is.

I didn't butcher it, thank you.

Logisomai.

It's it's an accounting term.

Consider yourself to be dead to sin.

Count the cost.

Count the cost that you you're not you're not dead to sin, but you're set free from the power of sin.

To reckon, to calculate, to make sure that the math is good.

As followers of Jesus, it's essential that our math is good on this truth.

You are no longer dead to sin.

You are no longer bound by the power of sin.

Because of Christ, you've been set free.

Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase of Colossians 3 says, So if you're serious about living this new life, remember there's an old life and a new life.

If you're serious about living the new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.

That's pretty great, eh?

Thanks.

Thanks, Paul.

If you're serious about following Jesus, act like it.

Pursue things over which Christ presides.

Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with things right in front of you.

Look up.

Be alert to what's going on around Christ, because that's where the action is.

See things from Jesus' perspective.

Your old life is dead.

Your new life, which is your real life, even though invisible to spectators, is with Christ in God.

He is your life.

He's our life.

We have a new life in Christ.

How serious we are we about living this new resurrection life and remembering that there is an old and a new.

And sometimes we just wish that maybe it's easier if we can blend the two, right?

Maybe it's easier.

Like, are there pieces of old me that I can just justify and make excuses about when it comes to new me?

Because it's really hard to overcome.

It's really hard to change habits and change thought patterns and change beliefs.

It's a lot of work.

Yeah.

But guess what?

It's not work you have to do on your own.

It's work you're empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish in Christ Jesus because of Christ Jesus.

There's been a status change, old you, new you.

You know, I used to be a single guy.

I haven't always been married.

Like I didn't pop out of the womb married.

That might surprise some of you, but as we approach our 25th wedding anniversary, we were with we were with a young couple this week who are getting married in two weeks and just kind of finalizing some premarriage counseling.

It was great.

And we were actually talking about status change.

There's a status change.

When I was a single dude, before I met Nicole, even when we were dating, man, I'd be I'd be up till like three, four in the morning playing video games with the boys.

Let's go.

Can I get an amen?

Let's go.

And uh and and Matt, I'm telling you, I'd I'd I'd fall into bed like 4 a.m., get up at 5:30, hop in my uh Ford Focus, and go deliver bagels for three hours before I went to my real job.

Because we deliver bagels when we're saving up for diamond rings, right?

Let's go, boys.

Um, you do whatever you do whatever it takes to buy that ring.

If you like it, you better put a ring on it.

Do whatever it takes.

I I had a car that reeked of bagels for an entire year.

It was the worst and the best.

Anyways, and and then I just work all day, and then you know, I'd go, if it was Wednesday, I'd go to worship practice.

If it was Friday, I go serve at youth, and then I stay up till four in the morning again with my buddy Danny playing a video game.

Like I had a PC computer with dial up internet.

Who remembers that?

Praise the Lord for dial up internet, and we play an online computer game called Heroes, and and sometimes we get together in person and play some some PS2, I think it was back in that day.

It was old PlayStation.

But you know, that single behavior playing video games, that that kind of like single status behavioral thing, it didn't work too good when I got married.

Hey, you I'm you don't have the mic.

It didn't work too well because there's a status change.

I'm not single anymore, I'm married.

And so I, you know, we're in our apartment, and uh and and I'm like, you know, she's getting ready for bed, and I'm I'm just itching to log on to that dial up internet and play video games till four in the morning.

And then like I I think I'm the man, like I think I can live off of you know an hour and a half of sleep.

But apparently I'm I'm hey, mucho, takarisi, eh?

Calling me out in front of the church.

I, you know, I'm edgy, I'm I'm less patient, I'm less kind, and it's showing up in the first year of our marriage.

And finally, my wife says, Look, we got to talk about this.

This old behavior from an old status, there's been a status change, but the the behavior hasn't hasn't shifted with the status.

Now, I'm not saying video games are a bad thing, I'm just saying, boys, if you're 25 and single and playing video games to four in the morning and wondering when you're gonna find a wife, turn off the Xbox.

Get out of your parents' basement.

If you want a status change, there's gonna have to be a behavioral change, all the women said.

Let's go, all the moms said, right?

Here's what NT Wright says about status.

Living in accordance with a change of status requires that we recognize it and take steps to bring your actual life into line with the person you've become.

There's a status change.

This isn't about feeling guilty about sin.

This isn't about feeling called out about sin.

This doesn't about feeling ashamed about sin.

This doesn't about feeling exposed about sin.

This is saying, oh, I've had a change in status.

It requires me to bring my actual life into line with the person I've become.

I'm no longer single, I'm married to Jesus.

That language tracks.

It's right there in scripture.

It might be a little weird if you're like, I'm a dude.

Uh but like our we've had a chat, we've had a status change.

We're surrendered to Christ.

And T Ray goes on to say when someone gets married, they may well not feel very different, but a change has occurred to which they must now conform.

The promises have been made.

Those promises can be broken, but they can't be unmade.

In many cultures, when a father of a family dies, the oldest son must assume responsibility as the head of the family.

Whether or not he wants to do it or feels up to the tasks, that becomes his new status.

And he must live it as best he can.

So then he goes on to say, once you're baptized, of course, you can try to shirk or shrug off your new responsibilities.

You can pretend you don't, after all, have a new status.

Paul addresses that in 1 Corinthians 10.

But what you can't do is become unbaptized.

Don't even think of trying to go back to Egypt.

Better think carefully about who you are now and set off for the promised land.

There's been a status change, and we need to consider it mathematically, strategically, count the cost of what it means.

I am dead to sin and I'm alive in Christ.

And that's gonna make all the difference when it comes to how I reign in this life.

Consider that you're dead to sin and alive.

Consider that you're dead to sin and made new.

So it's essential that we take necessary steps to bring our actual life into line with this truth.

I'm dead to sin, alive in God.

Dead to sin, alive in God.

So that's the second idea.

Here's the third, and it's in verse 12 and on.

Don't let sin control the way you live.

Don't give in to sinful desires.

Don't let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin.

Instead, give yourself completely to God.

For you were dead, but now you have new life.

So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

Sin's no longer your master.

You no longer live under the requirements of the law.

Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace.

And so this word master gets introduced into this conversation.

And I love it because he talks about your whole body as an instrument for the glory of God, that there's something that like I'm I'm in my body, I'm not my body, I'm a spirit, but I have a body and it houses my brain and my emotions and my will and who I am in Christ.

And when I say yes to Jesus, there's something transformative that happens on a spiritual level.

I'm instantly called a son of God, no longer a slave, set free.

But in my body, I might still be addicted to nicotine or uh alcohol, or I might still look at pornography, or I might still be a compulsive anger addict.

Like there's still stuff in my habits and in my body that that I have to pay attention to, right?

And and I can't say I'm I'm spiritually whole and that's enough.

We're invited to like consider ourselves dead to sin and remember that we have a new master.

Sin's not our master anymore.

Oh, right, Jesus is.

And I got thinking about have you seen the the jungle book?

Um, like the old cartoon, like the good one with Baloo the Bear.

Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities.

Forget about your worries and your strife.

Oh man.

I mean those.

Bear.

I could go on.

Um, great movie.

Great Disney's, like when Disney was awesome back in the day, before they got all weird and woke.

But um uh let's go.

Um Mowgli, right?

This little boy, uh, he's like he grows up in the jungle and like he's raised by a bear, and like he eats prickly pears and scratches his back with a tree trunk, and it's awesome.

He's Mowgli and he's like running wild out in the wild.

And then and all of a sudden, one day he sees a girl.

And first of all, he sees a girl, and uh let's go.

And um, and but he's like, wait a sec, she looks like me, uh, but she's different than me.

Um, and he's intrigued, and so he has to make a decision like, is he gonna stay in that kind of wild, like being raised by a bear, eating prickly pear, or or is he gonna embrace who he really is as like a human being?

And it's actually a really cool picture of our struggle with this new nature, dead to sin.

Because it's the same, it's the same thing for you and me.

When when we suddenly encounter Christ one day, when we suddenly come face to face with the person of Jesus and have an experience where we're like, man, God is real and he sent his son and I'm redeemed and I'm saved and I'm set free and I'm made whole.

It's as though we come alive to this possibility of who we really are, who we've really been all along, even though we've been mired in sin and raised by a bear.

Like, does an analogy track?

It's essential that we draw a line in the sand and we refuse to allow our old self to control and master our new self.

And this is the picture.

It's essential that we give ourselves completely over to God.

The other thing, I got when I was 17 living in Vancouver, I worked as a barista at a coffee bar called Big News.

And the owner was a baseball fanatic and loved like the world kind of global news thing.

And so he created this cafe in Vancouver on the corner of Granville Street and Broadway called Big News Coffee Bar.

And we wore like baseball jerseys.

I remember they were like sage green buttons.

Big News Coffee Bar.

And uh, and he had this floor-to-ceiling wall of magazines and newspapers from all over the world.

And you could go and like grab a newspaper from Poland that had been translated and sit and have some of you like, what's a newspaper?

It's the internet printed on paper.

Um, okay, so um just in case you're wondering.

But uh, and people will come in and it was like low-key, like super chill, and they'd sit for hours and read and discuss world events and drink great coffee, and it was so chill, and I'm in my baseball shirt.

But then in the evenings, I had a part-time job at the Avenue Grill.

And the Avenue Grill was like Vancouver, whoop, uppity, and uh, and like most of the clientele were like really wealthy women who like to eat crab cakes and drink tea.

And and I was a server, so it was like white shirt, button-up, necktie, apron, proper manners, like like really different atmosphere.

And if I showed up at the Avenue Grill with big news vibes, I'm getting fired.

Like I'm getting written up, I'm getting talked to, and if it persists, I'm getting fired.

And so we can't have an expectation to show up in our new life in Christ, surrender to Jesus with with like old life behavior.

There has to be a line in the sand.

It's essential for us to know this.

We serve God as our master, not sin anymore.

And that's the third big idea here.

Two more and I'm done.

Verse 15.

God's grace has set us free.

Does that mean we can go on sinning?

Of course not.

No, he asks the same rhetorical question one more time.

That means that it must really matter to us as Christians.

Can I go on sinning when I've said yes to following Jesus?

No.

So I was expecting somebody to be like, no, we got work to do.

Let me tell you.

Um, of course not.

Don't you realize?

And then Paul's tone shifts.

He gets actually a little bit urgent.

Don't you realize?

Don't you realize you become the slave of whatever you obey?

Pay attention to what you obey.

You're like carnal nature, your old desires.

If you're obeying that, pay attention to that, because you're going to become a slave of that.

Thank God.

Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey the teachings we've given you.

And that's a prayer that we could pray every day, Lord.

Today I pray that I would wholeheartedly obey the teachings that you've offered up from me.

Because you're free from the slavery of sin and you've become slaves to righteous living.

What's it gonna cost you to become a slave to righteous living?

I unpacked this in January in a series we did called New Nature, and Paul talks about like being being a sinner, making mistakes, um, being a part of like a community that fails.

And then as he matures, he says, of all the leaders in the church, I'm the worst.

And then as he matures, he says, of all the people on planet earth, I'm the worst.

And as he matures, he's like, I'm a slave to Jesus.

So it's not that Paul got more sinful as he matured in his faith, it's that he got more aware that he has to deal with sin in his life.

And he uses imagery of being a slave to Christ to unpack this.

Do you do you know anybody that's like so disciplined that it drives you bonkers?

Is anybody married to somebody like that?

My hands up.

I mean nuts.

It's just not even fair.

You know, I set the alarm for 5 45 a.m.

We both wake up, but she gets out of bed.

Because like somebody invented the snooze button for a reason, right?

Like that's kind of like I'm like, I'm like, I'll get up, I'll set it a little earlier, even so that I can send any deer outside, same thing.

Every day, every day.

Is there any deer outside?

Brushes her teeth, the toilet flushes.

Come on, Sadie, downstairs.

Every morning, same thing, every morning, downstairs.

She makes a cup of tea, parks herself on the ottoman with the couch, the blanket, journal, pen, bible, phone, the largest cup of tea known to humankind.

But every day, same thing, same thing, same routine, just disciplined.

Like, just like bounces out of bed, runs to the Lord.

Just drives me nuts.

Because I'm like, can I can I sleep in today?

I'm always like, four days out of seven, it's good to read the Bible.

How many days?

One, two, three.

I don't know.

You know, I don't know.

This morning I was like, why my quads are on fire from working out.

And she looks up at me like kind of like annoyed, like, it's good pain.

I'm like, don't say that to me.

It's good pain.

And uh, you know, but do you know people that are so disciplined that it drives you bonkers?

Why why does it drive me bonkers?

Because I want to be disciplined for like holy righteous living.

So when I'm confronted with a reminder, I have one of two options.

Either push back against it or let it encourage me.

And in the 25 years I've been married to this beautiful, disciplined woman, it encourages me to be more disciplined.

It encourages me, and that's the whole point of righteous, to choose righteous living each and every day.

And that's the whole point of Paul's writing in Romans 6.

It's essential that we give ourselves every day to being a slave to righteousness.

I am enslaved, not enslaved to sin, set free.

But that means sin's not my master anymore.

I'm enslaved to Christ, to righteousness, set apart, made new, transformed.

And let it be so today that I wholeheartedly obey your commands.

Let it be so today, Father, the clean hands, the pure heart, made holy for your name's sake, set apart for your name's sake.

That's the fourth idea.

And the last one in these last three verses um when you're slaves to sin, you were free from an obligation to do right.

Okay?

So when you were before Jesus, you didn't have any obligation to honor Jesus.

You were you were free from any obligation, and this is where we get icky as Christians, because we're like, am I obliged to do what's right?

Do I have to?

Is it law, is it the law?

Is there boxes to check?

Is there rules to follow?

No.

The rules were when you didn't know Jesus, you were obliged to not do right, but you're not obliged to anything anymore.

You're now ashamed of the things you used to do, and you're free from the power of sin, and now you do things that lead you to holiness and that result in eternal life.

Because the wages of sin is death, but the free gift, you're not obliged, you've received a gift.

Free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

And he says, His answer is that in becoming a Christian, you move from one type of humanity to another.

And you should never think of yourself in that original mode ever again.

I'm new, not old.

And when you feel like behaving old, you're like, I'm not, I'm not that anymore.

I'm not that mode.

There's there's a new mode, right?

It's like Mario Kart when you get that turtle shell, do, do, do, do, there's a new mode.

You found a new gear.

Uh there's an old mode, and now there's a new mode.

And you're never meant to think of yourself in that old mode ever again.

More particularly in becoming a Christian, you die and rise again with the Messiah.

And then he says, and here in Romans 6, we meet for the first time one of Paul's central beliefs that since the Messiah represents his people, what's true of Jesus is true of you and I.

What's true of Christ is true of her and is true of him.

Never think of yourself in that old mode ever again.

On Tuesday night, we graduated, 23 new leaders in leadership 101.

Just incredible like sons and daughters of this house who are like, we want to we want to shepherd here, we want to lead here.

And as we were before, we just laid hands, and it was such a powerful night of prayer and ministry, and and and God just showing up with like real specific things that He wanted to say for people.

It was just profound.

But one of our leaders said to me, through this process of of seven weeks of leadership 101, he said, Pastor, I've just learned that it's my my being in Jesus.

That sustains any doing for Jesus.

That is good.

I wrote it down.

I'm quoting him today.

Because it isn't about what we do for Jesus.

Original sin wasn't about what Adam and Eve did or didn't do, it was about who they were in, who they trusted, who they listened to.

And so I want to give you permission to take God at His Word.

I want to give you permission to remember the one who made you, the one who created you, has a best plan for your life.

And he doesn't even want to keep you guessing.

He's written it down in the most like kind, benevolent love letter that we call the Bible.

Basic instructions before leaving earth.

Scripture that's meant to empower us and remind us that we're called righteous and we're set apart, we're made holy because of Christ.

We've been raised to life in Jesus because we died in the waters of baptism and the old self died when we said yes to Jesus.

Right behavior will never correct a corrupt heart.

Never.

But a dedicated and sanctified inner life will certainly overflow and impact how we live.

And that's Paul's point.

There's a difference between wrestling to not sin and choosing behavior that's in line with our new, made holy, righteous, set apart selves.

Surround yourself with crazy disciplined people because they'll help you know the path to stay on, that narrow road that Christ invites us to live to.

It's the same difference between tearing something down and building something up.

And too many Christians avoid conversations about sin because they're like, I don't want to be torn down.

I don't want to be exposed.

I don't want anybody to know.

Listen, confess one to another, you'll be healed, you'll be made whole, you'll be built up from the inside out.

Don't let that splinter fester because one day it's gonna pop, and when it does, it's gonna get gonna get messy.

Right?

So, like, deal with it now.

Deal with it now.

Can I challenge us as a people of faith, as a family on mission?

I'll close with 1 Peter 2.

You are free.

Of course, in Christ you're free, yet you are God's slaves.

So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.

So when the inside gets right, when the inside shifts, when it clicks on the inside, well, I'm dead to sin.

God's my master.

I'm gonna give myself every day to being a slave to righteousness.

Well, guess what?

We consistently find ourselves doing those things that lead to holiness that result in eternal life.

Don't get caught up on what you're doing wrong.

Get fixated and fascinated with who you're invited to become as a son of God, as a daughter of God.

Stand to your feet as we close today.

We started this conversation by just an honest assessment of our hearts.

Lord, we we looked inward and we said, Man, when Pastor gets up and says, Let's talk about sin.

How did that make us feel?

And the room was honest, and so here now, eyes closed, arms lifted high, hearts exposed in your presence.

I want to just challenge you right now.

What do you what are you sensing right now?

What are you sensing the Lord saying to you right now?

What are you feeling right now?

For some of you, there's like something's been unlocked.

You're like, oh, I feel free.

I'm not I'm not ashamed anymore.

I've never thought about it that way.

Some of you right now already can feel the lie of the enemy saying, Yeah, but this doesn't apply to you.

You're still a slave to sin.

We just bind that lie, we rebuke that lie in Jesus' name.

Come, come, Holy Spirit, come with authority, come with grace and mercy and truth, come with majesty and dominion.

Our Master, our Savior, Jesus, come.

Be filled with the Holy Spirit, be filled again and again with the Spirit of Christ whom you have received.

Holy Spirit, would you empower us for righteous, holy, disciplined living in Jesus' name?

No longer captive, no longer bound, no longer enslaved to the power of sin, but set free because of Christ Jesus.

Made new, new, new status, new mode.

We're not single anymore.

We're family.

Would you take a deep breath and say, Come, Holy Spirit?

That's simple prayer.

Would you pay attention to what the Lord's speaking to your heart?

Maybe, maybe there's a secret sin that you've like with shame or with pride that you've held captive to and you've kept in the dark.

Maybe after service, you're gonna just come forward and receive prayer.

Just bring that from darkness into light.

Would you bring that out?

Confess your sin one to another.

Why?

Because there's healing for you today.

There's wholeness for you today.

Grab a sister or a brother in the faith.

Grab a great friend and just say, hey, I gotta, I gotta say this out loud.

I struggle with pornography or I struggle.

I'm addicted to alcohol and nobody knows it.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Thank you so much for listening to today's message.

If you're ever in the Edmonton area, pop by for a visit.

And if you need any more information, visit Evolvechurch.com.

We hope to see you soon.