Mapping Out the Mess

Well, just in case you are new, I've been doing this at the beginning of every message all year long, and we are almost done with it.

So this disclaimer, uh, it's about to be finished, but I gotta do it again, at least four more times, five more times.

So we started something back in February called the whole story.

We are going through the entire story of Scripture.

We've broken the whole story down into 14 different series, and we've been going through those all year long.

As you can tell, we're almost done.

Next week we begin going through Revelation.

Yay! Yay.

Be here next week.

Here's my ask.

Have low expectations.

Uh Revelation's really hard.

I I have read a lot of stuff, pulled my hair out a few times, it grows back, it's fine, but it's it's a lot.

No, I'm actually super excited about it.

What a time.

Honestly, it's very timely with what's going on in the world for us to be talking about this.

So very excited about that.

That's next week.

Today we are wrapping up our second to last series, a really short one, only two weeks long.

Uh it's called Figuring Out Freedom Again.

The reason it's called that is because we did a series really early in the year called Figuring Out Freedom, and it was talking about how the people of Israel had escaped Egypt and they were finally free.

They were free from the oppression of Egypt.

There was no Pharaoh that was breaking their backs, but they had to figure freedom out.

And God came along and he gave them tools, he gave them different things, the law that Moses gave and whatnot, all these different bits of guidance.

They had, you know, they had fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day, if you know those stories, to kind of guide them and help them figure out freedom, because freedom has to be figured out.

Freedom has to be worked out.

Freedom is always a work in progress.

Well, now we have been set free in a very different way.

Because of what Jesus did for us, we have been set free from the power of sin and from the power of death.

And we now find ourselves trying to figure out freedom, just like those people in Israel did, although in a very different manner.

And Megan spoke last week, she did an amazing job talking about the Holy Spirit and how God gave us his actual spirit on this really special day called Pentecost, where God empowered his people by giving him, by giving us him.

He gives us his spirit, his presence, active inside of us.

Romans says that whoever has put their faith in Jesus, God's spirit joins with your spirit to affirm that you belong to him.

You don't always feel it, we don't always understand it, we can't always explain how it works, but the Holy Spirit, God's actual spirit and presence, is active inside of us.

That is a major upgrade to a cloud in the sky.

Sometimes I think like, it'd be kind of cool, God, if you just, could you do that again?

Could I just see a cloud that tells me where to go?

That would be awesome.

But what a downgrade a cloud in the sky would be compared to the personal presence of the living God active in my life.

If I can learn how to discern that, if I can learn how to listen to that, that's that is so much more.

Alright, so Megan did a great job last week talking about that.

And we're going to continue today by really covering the entirety of all of the letters in the New Testament in one message.

Let me explain.

I'm not doing this because uh I'm taking all of that content lightly.

I spent two years teaching on Romans a couple years back.

Many of you were here for that.

You you stayed at his hands through two years of Romans.

You are, you deserve some type of award.

Okay, you could be an award-winning churchgoer.

I made it through Romans.

That would count.

You did that, right?

I spent about six months in Ephesians, not that long before that.

So this is stuff that I've taught on a lot.

And look, if you go to a church, you're gonna be hearing a lot on a weekly basis from the letters that we find in the New Testament.

Because these letters are helping us figure out our freedom and work out our salvation in all the different areas of life that we encounter it.

You know, we just sang a song that it's finished.

Jesus died on the cross and our sin has been paid for.

It is finished.

Now we've been given the Holy Spirit, so it's all good.

It's all good.

No problems, no issues, no struggles, temptation.

What even is that?

Like, I haven't dealt with temptation in years.

I'm a Christian, right?

Like, it's just, it's all easy.

No.

No, like, like let's look at some scripture.

Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

See if you relate to this.

Paul writes, I don't really understand myself.

For I want to do what is right, but I don't do it.

Instead, I do what I hate.

But if I know that what I'm doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.

So I'm really not the one doing wrong.

It is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.

I want to do what's right, but I can't.

I want to do what's good, but I don't.

I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.

But if I do what I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing wrong.

It is sin living in me that does it.

I've discovered this principle in life.

That when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another power within me that is at war with my mind.

Can anyone relate to that?

A few of us.

Good.

No, that's all good.

I didn't ask for a show of hands, so those of you that raise your hand, that was extra.

Many of you nodded, some of you spoke.

We can all relate to that, right?

It's not a simple matter of I put my faith in Jesus and all my problems went away, and everything is easy, and I just do the God stuff all the time automatically.

Uh, my flesh never gets the best of me.

No, it's it's not that simple.

It's messy.

Freedom is messy.

I've always been someone who's kind of drawn to paintings that are a little bit chaotic with when it comes to art.

Like Jackson Pollock style paintings where there's just all kinds of colors and stuff.

I like those.

I actually have a painting in my house, and I want to show you a couple pictures, little little close-ups of spots on this painting that are like that.

And so uh this is one of the angles.

I'll show you just a couple more.

Everywhere you look on this painting, it's just colors and lines and colors and lines, and it's just it's a mess.

And I love it because I relate to it.

Because that's how I feel.

That's I mean, it's how I feel more often than I care to admit.

You know, many of you know, because I talk about it all the time, uh, we have four kids.

And there was a day in time when that was not strange.

Four kids was the norm.

My mom was the seventh of eight.

How many of you have parents that came from a family of four children or more?

Yeah.

Okay.

How many of you have four children or more?

How many of you would never have four children?

Right?

It's amazing.

It used to be normal, but like people will find out that we have four kids, and they're like, there's faces that get made, you know?

And uh, and one of the things they'll ask is, I don't know how you do it.

And the answer is like, we just don't do it well.

It's simple.

You're assuming that it's going well.

It's not.

Like, man, I don't know how you do it.

Like, let's wait until they all leave the house and get jobs before we go ahead and say you're doing a good job.

We don't know what we're doing.

Every single day of my life feels like a mess.

Every single day.

The other day, I'm walking up the stairs, and uh, my boys live upstairs.

I've talked about their disgusting world.

And I have this very smell, and it the it hits me, and I'm like, man, my oldest burnt popcorn again.

He's always making popcorn, he leaves it in the microwave too long.

You know, like the smell of burnt popcorn, it's pretty intense.

I'm walking upstairs, I'm like, man, burnt popcorn again.

It just gonna take a whole day for that to go away.

And as I got further upstairs, I'm like, that's not the smell.

It was it was a more intense smell.

Um, and it was just to be honest, we're gonna eat later, but there's time.

Uh it was it was vomit.

Yeah, it's pretty normal with three boys.

Like, but the thing is, no one told me that they threw up.

It was from the day before.

And I'm looking at my kids like, did you throw up?

And they're like, Oh, yes, I did.

I'm like, this, how?

Oh, you're right.

So you just so I look at this painting and I see all the lines and the colors and the mess, and I'm like, this is just me.

This is my life, this is my my world, this is my house.

I relate to to the mess.

We are a mess.

That's what Paul's saying in Romans 7.

I don't want to do what I want to do, I do what's wrong.

I set out every day to do what's right.

Today, I'm gonna do it well, and then I fall short, even though I have the Holy Spirit, even though I'm saved, even though I have faith in Jesus, it's messy.

And as you read through the letters in the New Testament, you basically see Paul and John and James and the other authors doing their best to help all of us navigate the mess.

How does this whole faith in Jesus thing work itself out in everyday life, at work, or at school, or in our relationships, in our marriages, with our children, in our community, in a world that doesn't share our values?

How do we navigate?

How do we work out our freedom?

How do we figure it out?

And today, what I'd like to do is help us sort of map out the mess a little bit.

Maybe make sense of the mess.

And this is something I've taught on before.

It's actually one of the few things I've ever re-taught.

But every time, God gives like a little different layer and it's helpful.

At least it's been really helpful for me.

So if you're with me for the next few minutes, I want us to try our best to map out the mess and make sense of what is happening within us so that we can understand maybe a little bit more how to live out of the spirit that God has given us and do well with the freedom that we have.

Sound good?

Let's start with a word.

Simple word, birth.

Raise your hand if you were born.

All right, we have agreement.

We're all born.

We don't need to spend a lot of time on this.

That's how it all got started.

And when you were born, you were born with a nature.

Like who you are.

Your nature, it's your personality, it's your inclinations, it's your imagination, it's your desires.

All of that's our nature.

And our nature is a little bit interesting.

Because we'd like to believe that we're all born with a really sweet nature.

Like we're just born good.

A lot of the world likes to talk about that.

Like, oh, people are born good, and if they just live in a good environment, they'll be good.

No.

No, no, no.

Those people have never had children.

Uh no, we are born selfish.

We're none of you ever taught your children how to lie.

They figured that out themselves, right?

You never had to pull one of your children aside and say, hey, when you think you're gonna get in trouble, just make up a story.

Like kids figure that out.

Why?

It's our nature.

And scripture actually speaks very bluntly about human nature.

So, for example, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14 says, A natural person, in other words, who we are naturally with our nature, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.

1 Corinthians 2:14

For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

James 1 14, temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.

Translation, can't blame everything on the devil.

It's not always the devil.

Sometimes the devil's very hands-off, and we're doing a great job ourselves of making a mess of things.

Because temptation comes from within.

It's a natural part of who we are.

Genesis chapter 5, or rather Galatians chapter 5, very different books.

Genesis 5 · chapter mention Galatians 5 · chapter mention

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature.

Oh, that's big.

This nature that we're born with naturally, it is it is sinful.

The results are very clear: sexual morality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.

Those all just come out of our nature.

Romans chapter 6 says, Thank God, once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching that we have given you.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

Now you are free from your slavery to sin and you become slaves to righteous living because of the weakness of your human nature.

I'm using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this.

Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin.

Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right.

And what was the result?

You're now ashamed of the things that you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.

Now, this uses very strong language.

It says that we are slaves to our sinful nature.

And I think deep down inside we all understand that and we agree with it.

Even if it sounds a little offensive, even if it wouldn't track with our world, how often do we hear people say that they cannot help the way they feel?

That they cannot change some way that they're living because this is just me, this is just who I am naturally.

I have to.

I have to satisfy these desires.

Yeah, okay.

So, in other words, you're a slave to your nature.

Scripture teaches us that.

And we see that in our world all the time.

That's something that most people would agree with.

Yeah, you you gotta you gotta go with your heart.

If you feel something, if you want it really bad, you gotta do it.

You can't say no to yourself.

Like that's what our world teaches us.

And scripture actually lines up with that.

We're slaves to our nature.

Now, I'm gonna give you another word.

This is a word we see a lot in the New Testament.

It really becomes synonymous with our natural sin nature apart from God.

It's the word flesh.

We see this word pop up a lot in the New Testament.

Uh, if you read flesh, it is almost always just an absolute synonym for all of that stuff.

Your sin nature, apart from God, apart from his transformative work in your life, this is who you are.

And the problem with flesh is that it dies.

Right?

It's our last word in this column that flesh leads to death.

Anything that is flesh will die.

And so we see in Romans chapter 6, verse 23, that the wages of sin is death.

Romans 6:23

But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8, 6 says, letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death.

And again, harsh words, but I think we all understand and agree with this, because sin always kills.

Like sin will lead to the death of, gosh, just in my life, it's led to the death of self-respect.

When I've done things that I know are wrong, I lose a lot of respect for myself and my dignity has died.

Sometimes it leads to the death of a reputation.

Someone has a really good reputation, and then stuff comes out, and that that reputation is dead.

Sin leads to the death of trust.

You can have a relationship that's close, but one person goes way off and does things that are absolutely wrong, and now that trust is gone.

In fact, it is dead.

Sin is a destructive force.

Now, thanks to Jesus and his forgiveness, sin no longer divides us from the love of God in any way or a relationship with God.

But sin is still destructive.

It leads to death.

And so this is kind of gloomy.

This doesn't seem to go along with Sunday Fun Day, I'm sorry.

But but if not for Jesus, this is our lot in life.

If not for Jesus, this is what would happen.

We're all born, we have a nature, no matter how hard we try, our nature gets the best of us.

It's a sin nature, we're slaves to that nature, and then that being our flesh, that's what we call it, it leads to death, and that's just it.

The Old Testament tries to mitigate this with law.

Hey, you've got this sin nature, your flesh.

Well, here's how we're gonna curb that.

Follow these laws, do these things, and for centuries, people tried.

Some people tried way harder than others, some people didn't try at all.

But even those who tried the hardest could never do it, and they still had sin, their flesh got the best of them, and death prevails.

And if not for Jesus, that's where the story ends.

But Jesus gives us another way.

Jesus came and he lived and he died and he rose again and he offers us a new path.

And that new path actually starts with birth.

Just like the first path started with.

John chapter 3 says, There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee.

John 3 · chapter mention

And after dark one evening he came to speak with Jesus.

Rabbi, he said, We all know that God has sent you to teach us.

Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.

And Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

What do you mean?

exclaimed Nicodemus.

How can an old man get back into his mother's womb and be born again?

Jesus replied, I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit.

Humans can reproduce only human life.

But the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.

So don't be surprised when I say, you must be born again.

The wind blows wherever it wants, just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it's going.

So you cannot explain how people are born of the Spirit.

Jesus says we must be born again.

A new birth has to occur.

And when you put your faith in Jesus, when you surrender your life to Him, you are reborn.

Not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.

There's a new life.

And because of that new birth and that new life, we get a new nature.

So now we have a new nature.

Our new birth leads to a new nature.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says, this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.

The old life is gone, a new life has begun.

Now sometimes we read scriptures like this and they discourage us because we think it's going to be some like automatic thing, but notice it says a new life has begun.

It's a process.

It takes time.

There are things we can do that maybe speed it up a little bit, and there are definitely things we can do that can slow it down, but it is a process.

But it's a real process.

There is new life inside of you.

There is a new you that has been born and is growing if you've given your life to Jesus and you've truly surrendered your life to Him.

You're reborn, you're born again, and you get a new nature.

And we have a word that becomes synonymous in the New Testament with that new nature.

And it's the word spirit.

It's the opposite of flesh.

We see in Romans chapter 8 that now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus, and because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature.

So God did what the law could not do.

And he sent his own son in a body like the bodies we sinners have, and in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins.

He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us who no longer follow our sinful nature, but instead follow the Spirit.

So we have the Spirit, this new life, new birth, new nature.

It's called Spirit.

And the Spirit desires very different things than the flesh.

Galatians 5, earlier, we read what the flesh desires, and he goes on in verses 22 through 26 to say the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There is no law against these things.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

And since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives.

Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another.

The Spirit brings out different things in our life than the flesh brings out.

And the beauty is that the Spirit leads to life.

The flesh leads to death, but the Spirit leads to life.

John 3.6, Jesus said, Humans can reproduce only human life.

But the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.

Romans chapter 8, verses 11 through 14, the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you.

Romans 8:11–14

And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by the same Spirit living within you.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

For if you live by its dictates, you will die.

But if, through the power of the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

So, if you read through all of the letters of the New Testament, which wouldn't take that long, most of them are pretty short, you're gonna see just everything you can imagine, every situation in life, really practical situations, things that are still relevant to our lives today, and it's really all trying to describe how we live out of the spirit and not out of the flesh, because we have this whole spirit-flesh dynamic, and when you look at it right there, it looks really simple and easy.

You know, hey, just live out of that side, not the other.

Oh, okay.

Thanks.

Right?

Like it in some ways, guys, let's be honest though, in some ways it is that easy.

Every time we make a decision, we appeal to one of these two columns.

Every time we make a decision in our lives, we are we are appealing to one of our natures.

Which one is it gonna be?

We are no longer obligated to do what our sinful nature desires.

We don't have to.

Sometimes we really want to.

We don't have to, even though it feels that way.

And we do have the ability through Jesus and the freedom that He gives us to choose day in and day out.

And in every situation, what would the Spirit have me do?

What's going to lead to love and joy and peace?

What's patient?

What's kind?

What's good?

What's faithful?

Am I practicing self-control?

Am I being gentle?

We have that decision to make.

In fact, even more than a decision, it's about identity half the time.

Like which one of these do I actually relate to the most?

My flesh or my spirit?

It's amazing how often I hear people, when they use the phrase, um, I was born this way.

Which birth are you referring to?

It's amazing how often we justify our behavior or our actions with our birth.

And I don't think it's wrong to do that.

I actually think it's accurate.

It's honest.

Why are you behaving this way?

Look, I was born this way.

This is just who I am.

I would say if anyone said that to justify any behavior, oftentimes we're saying that to justify behavior that does not line up with what God has said is good or true.

Well, this is how I was born.

Which birth are you talking about?

And if it's your first birth, cool.

Don't live out of that.

Because you were born again.

You were born again.

You have new life, you have a new nature, you have the spirit, which leads to life.

Live out of that birth.

Appeal to that birth.

See, flesh dies, spirit lives.

This is who we are.

But we very often see ourselves much more accurately in our flesh than in the spirit.

We feel like the flesh, that's the real us.

No, no, no, no.

If you've given your life to Jesus, that flesh you will expire.

But that spirit you lives eternally with God.

That is the real you.

But we have to learn to see ourselves that way.

To think of ourselves in those terms.

Even to the point where we can say something like, oh man, um, instead of saying, like, maybe you have an addiction, let's let's use this as an example.

It's an easy one.

You have an addiction.

And very be it'd be very easy to say, well, I this is just who I am.

I have an addictive personality, therefore, I am an addict.

Well, hold on.

Your flesh is an addict.

Right?

Your flesh can be an alcoholic, your flesh can be addicted to pornography, your flesh can be addicted to drugs, your flesh can be addicted to gambling, your flesh can be addicted to Instagram, your flesh can be addicted to anything.

But the spirit that lives inside of you is not an addict.

The spirit that lives inside of you does not need any type of crutch to cope with life.

The spirit inside of you produces life.

And so, how amazing would it be if we could actually see ourselves that way, if we could actually have those kind of filters where we say, oh man, flesh, stop.

That's not who I really am.

I'm gonna live out of my spirit.

And so maybe you're here and maybe you feel like a failure in life, maybe there's some issue, there's some behavior, and it gets the best of you over and over again, and you're tempted to believe that this is who you are.

No, that's who your flesh is.

And man, it'd be great if it went away.

But no matter what, it will one day.

See yourself through the lens of your new birth.

You've been born again.

Like, in some ways, we should stop celebrating our birthday in terms of our like flesh birthday.

We should start celebrating the other birthday.

We should change it.

Because that new birth is actually more important than the first one.

But but we have to train ourselves to think in these terms.

Because the world will not teach us to.

The world, guys, the world wants you to see yourself through the lens of your first birth.

The world wants you to believe that you are a slave to that nature, that you cannot help yourself.

The world wants you to have a weak, small view of yourself because if you think you're weak and small and you're powerless, then you're just at the mercy of whatever comes your way.

And that's true of your flesh, but that is not true of your spirit.

So you, when you start saying things like, This is who I am, check yourself and ask, which me am I talking about?

The flesh me or the real me?

The spirit.

Now, when we see this all mapped out like this, we're tempted to believe that it's really simple.

Like, oh, you know, just do left side bad, right side good.

It's easy.

Let's let's move along.

The problem is it doesn't always feel that way.

Life doesn't always go that way.

And scripture speaks to this, it's so honest.

Galatians chapter 5, verse 17 says that the sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants, and the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires.

Galatians 5:17

These two forces are constantly fighting each other.

So you are not free to carry out your good intentions.

There's a battle.

There's a fight.

There's a fight for loyalty, there's a fight for obedience that is happening inside of each of us.

It is our spirit and it is our flesh.

Which one is going to win?

Well, ultimately, that's already been decided.

Your spirit will win.

But in the day-to-day, your flesh can win some battles.

And when the flesh wins, it does not go well for us.

But it's hard and it's complicated because it's a real fight.

It's a real battle.

That's why if we go back into Romans 7 with a little bit more context, we'll go back a few verses.

Paul wrote that the trouble is not with the law, the law is spiritual and good.

The trouble is with me, for I am all too human a slave to sin.

I don't really understand myself.

For I want to do what's right, but I don't do it.

Instead, I do what I hate.

But if I know that I am doing what is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.

So I'm not the one doing wrong.

It is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature.

That line is huge.

It feels like a throwaway, but I want you to hear that.

Because he calls- he says it's him, right?

He says, like, nothing good lives in me, but then he qualifies that.

He says, no, no, no.

By me I mean my sinful nature.

So he lets us know right now I'm talking about my flesh, not my spirit.

So when he's saying me and I, he's specifically talking about the version of him that is flesh, not his spirit.

That's important to see that distinction.

He continues by saying, I want to do what is right, but I can't.

I want to do what is good, but I don't.

I don't want to do what's wrong, but I do it anyway.

But if I do what I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing wrong.

It is sin living in me that does it.

I have discovered this principle in life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another power within me that is at war with my mind.

And this power makes me, meaning the flesh, a slave to the sin that is still within me.

Oh, what a miserable person I am.

Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

Thank God the answer is Jesus Christ our Lord.

So you see how it is.

In my mind, I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin.

And I actually feel like that last line is a little misleading in the translation.

Um, there's different translations of Scripture, they have different strengths.

Some put it in more everyday language, some are more technical.

And so when you read that, you can be like, whoa, I'm a slave to sin.

I thought I was told that I'm no longer a slave to sin, which is it.

The New American Standard Version is a more technical translation.

And that last line, here's what it says.

More accurate, helps us, I think, kind of discern this a little bit better.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So then, on the one hand, I myself, with my mind, am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin.

He's admitting that there's there's kind of this duality within us.

There's two there's the there's the spirit and there's the flesh, and they're at war with each other.

It's hard.

It's hard.

And we can all be honest and vulnerable enough to say that we all struggle with this.

Every single one of us has at least some area of life where the flesh, the flesh has some major, major influence.

We might even say where we tend to be dominated by our flesh.

And sometimes it can be areas of life that unfortunately are obvious for everyone to see.

Sometimes the flesh dominates us in areas of life that are exposed.

And it leads to major consequences.

Sometimes it leads to humiliation.

You look like a failure because everyone can see your flesh.

My wife actually has a phrase that she uses at home with me.

Um I've never heard her say it to anyone else, but it's okay.

Um it's kind of like the equivalent of saying that your fly is unzipped.

She just goes, hey, your flesh is showing.

I'm like, yeah.

But it actually really helps me.

She knows me very well.

She'll just say, Hey, Justin, your flesh is showing.

Cool.

Um, but seriously, like sometimes your flesh is showing.

It's very obvious.

People see it.

And some of us have had areas of life where our flesh got the best of it, of us, and it led to major circumstantial uh issues.

We lost a job, we we had a marriage that didn't work, we don't have a healthy relationship with family because our flesh created all this misery and drama.

And sometimes our flesh, it has the best of us, but in areas of life that nobody sees.

And sometimes those of us in that category are the most miserable people in a room.

Because on one hand, we keep up a facade where everything is good, and I've got it all figured out, but deep down inside I feel like a hypocrite and a failure because I know that my flesh has me, and I I can hide it.

I can't hide anything from God, which is actually really nice.

But we we can hide our flesh from other people.

That flesh and the spirit, it's a battle, and it's hard, and it's messy.

It's messy.

But we should never allow ourselves to be disheartened by the mess.

God is very comfortable with messes.

I'll go back to that painting.

You know, I showed you guys a zoomed-in shot of this painting that I love.

It's in my house.

We can bring up another one of those, the messy painting.

Um, so here, this is what it actually looks like.

Zoomed out.

Now, earlier I showed you different zoomed-in pieces of it, okay, but this is the actual painting.

It's a painting that Marlon, who does all the paintings here at the building, love Marlon.

Um, it's a painting that he did years ago, and I saw it.

He was working on it in the little art studio that we have here at the building.

Um, some of you are part of the art group that meets on Wednesday nights.

If you didn't know we have an art group, we do.

If you're an artist, come join, paint, do your thing, be surrounded by great people.

Um I saw that painting, and it's like, I'm not like an art guy, in the sense that if if you said, hey, it's Saturday, we got nothing to do.

You want to go to an art museum?

No, I don't.

In fact, I can think of like, I can think of 75 things I would rather do than go to an art museum.

But my wife, that would probably be the number one thing for her.

Like, she loves art.

And so I've I've gone to a lot of art stuff, and and it's it's tough.

I have to just sit there.

Some of you might be able to relate to this if you have a spouse or a friend that's really into something that you just don't know or really even care about.

And she'll be like, Isn't that amazing?

And I'll just be like, Yes.

I mean, it's cool.

I can look at art and be like, wow.

But she sees things I don't see.

Art speaks to her.

It speaks to her.

So she'll sit in front of a painting like it's a TV show for whole minutes.

Like I'll go through an art, I can go through an art museum in 20 minutes.

And I'm just like walking down, like, yep, yep, that's weird.

No.

Why is everybody naked?

And I just keep walking, you know, like that's me.

I can get I can get through an art museum efficiently.

I'm like, boom.

Like it's a race.

I saw everything.

Megan like stands there, takes it in, lets the art speak to her.

That's not me.

But this painting was different.

Like I walked into the building one day and it was just there, and I just stared at it for a while.

Because I felt like it feels like me.

I hope.

Like it's it's messy, it's chaotic.

I'm a I'm a mess.

If you knew me better, I'm a mess.

But I think, and I'm confident in this, not by my own strength, but by the goodness of God that we sang about this morning, that I'm a mess that's being shaped into something useful and good.

By a really good, loving and patient God.

Right?

And what I love about that painting, can you guys bring it back up?

I know it was up for a while, but I just want us to I want it to speak to all of us, like it spoke to me.

Um I love about this painting is that the mess doesn't go away.

You know, like the it's all still just this chaotic and messy, but it's being formed into something.

And what I want us to understand is when we give our lives to Jesus, the flesh doesn't go away.

Man, I wish it would, but it just doesn't.

I've even met people that sort of make you feel like they got saved and their flesh went away.

I've had experiences with people where they have this story and you're like, man, it's like God zapped them and they just became a whole new person.

And you know what's funny?

It's not funny, actually, it's just true.

In all of those examples, their flesh has popped up again later.

And often it's caught them by surprise because they're like, I thought this was over, and then boom.

The flesh just doesn't go away until it dies.

Like the flesh has to die.

That's why we still experience death, because our flesh has to die.

I love in this penny that the mess doesn't go away, it's just transformed into something really beautiful.

And that's every single one of us.

Your flesh doesn't go away when you give your life to Jesus.

You will still struggle, you will still fail.

Big deal.

Welcome to the club.

There's no one here, there's no one here that is more spiritual than anyone else.

Some of you might be more spiritually knowledgeable, some of you might have more spiritual experience, but there's not one person in this room that is more spiritual or less messy than anybody else.

Some of us spend all of our time so hyper-focused, so zoomed in on our mess and our flesh that we miss the bigger picture.

You know, you go up to this painting in my house, if you stare at one tiny part of it, you're like, it's just ugly.

It's just colors and lines, but you pull back a little bit and you see what the artist intended, you're like, wow, that's beautiful.

You are a messy masterpiece in the hands of God, and he is not done with you.

He is shaping you, he is making you, he's transforming you, and you will one day be able to see what you're meant to be.

It just might take a while.

So, how do we figure out freedom?

Well, we acknowledge the mess.

We own it.

I'm a huge mess.

You're you're a mess.

We're all messes.

Like, this is not a church for people who are who are uh perfect.

Like, if if that's if that's you, I mean you're lying.

And uh, you know, the cool thing about his hands is you just don't have to lie.

Like, this is a church where you can try less hard.

I like that.

But you are, well, scripture tells us this, for we are God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus to do the good works that he planned for us long ago.

So, we've been set free from the power of sin and death.

That is true.

There is a spirit alive inside of you.

It is the very spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

That is true, whether you feel it or not.

And you do have the power and the choice to day by day live out of the spirit, not in the flesh.

Try to see it that way.

Try to see those categories and recognize that when you make any decision, you're appealing to one of those.

Choose to appeal to the spirit rather than the flesh.

Never let yourself be identified by your flesh.

Never say, I was born this way, and refer to the other one, because that birth will end in death, but your new birth will end in life.

But in the meantime, as you're going through all of that, recognize that the flesh is at war with the spirit and your life is gonna get messy and hard, and you will fail and fall short.

And when you do, it doesn't mean that you're broken, it doesn't mean that God's not real, it doesn't mean that he's not with you, it doesn't mean that you're not really a Christian, it just means that your flesh is fighting.

So fight.

So fight and fight the way that Jesus fought.

Surrender to the power of God.

Don't fight in your own strength.

Don't try to fight flesh with flesh, it doesn't work.

Surrender to get on your knees, pray, thank God for his goodness, thank God for the fact that he's okay with all of your mess and he's working it and he's shaping it into something new.

Embrace that.

Be patient with yourself.

Be really patient with others, and let God finish what he starts.

Let's take Lord's Supper together.

If you uh are new, by the way, we have these in the back.

There's tables as you walked in.

It's a little meal that we take together every week because Jesus asked us to.

He got his disciples together before he was crucified, and he said, This is my body, referring to the bread.

And referring to the juice, he said, This is my blood.

And he said, When you get together, do this to remember me.

And so that's what we do every week.

We do this to remember Jesus.

I want to go back to one scripture, and we're gonna do this fairly quickly today.

I want to go back to one scripture that I read a moment ago, Romans chapter 7, verses 24, the beginning of 25.

Romans 7:24

Paul says, Oh, what a miserable person I am.

Can anyone relate to that?

Anyone feel miserable every once in a while?

Like, I'm a mess, right?

What a mess I am, we might say in our vernacular.

Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

Is it you that's gonna free yourself?

No.

Is it the person sitting next to you?

No.

Is it is it your partner in life, your your wife, is it your fiance, your girlfriend, your boy?

No.

They're not gonna do it.

Is it that new job?

No.

Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?

Thank God.

The answer is in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

It's what he did for us that gives us new life, that allows us to be born again.

And when you find yourself broken and messing up and failing, and you're going, What a miserable person I am! Who can for me?

Thank God because Jesus died for us.

The Spirit became flesh and it died.

And the Spirit rose Jesus from the dead, showing us that the life that God gives, death does not have any power over it whatsoever.

That is the life that is inside of us now.

So, with that said, let's take out the bread and let's thank him for it.

Father, we thank you for this bread.

We thank you for what it represents.

This is your body.

Broken on our behalf.

You did for us what we could never do.

You saved us.

You give us new life.

We love you, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

Let's take the juice.

Thank you, Lord, for this juice.

Thank you for what it means.

Precious blood of your child, your son.

This is precious.

This is holy.

This is sacred.

It's poured out on our behalf.

We love you, Jesus, as we take this.

We ask that you give us the courage and the patience and the trust to allow you to continue shaping us and molding us and making us into the masterpiece that you intend us to be.

It's messy, but it's real.

We thank you, Jesus.

Let's take the juice.