Romans Pt 2: Saved From the Spiral of Sin ~ Ron Tucker

[Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so so [Music] [Music] all right well you've made it to the right place grace church online is live right now what's up davey this weekend is going to encourage us to live by faith as ron continues the series on the book of romans and the choir is here to lead us in worship as we get ready for the service go ahead and download our digital bulletin this is a resource just for you it's complete with sermon notes and all of the upcoming events you're going to want to be a part of this month and don't be shy let us know you're online with us in the comments below you can type your name uh tell us where you're watching from leave an emoji we'd love to connect with you should we get started davey yes absolutely let's worship [Music] [Music] well good evening church welcome to grace if you're joining us online we're glad you're with us let's stand together as we worship the lord tonight that has ever overcome your light there is no rival that could ever stand [Music] we've already won [Music] there is no army you've always been with us every battle you've already won we've already [Music] he's the god of the breakthrough and anything is possible [Music] show me one thing that's too hard to show [Music] is possible [Music] and there is a kingdom [Music] is [Music] oh he will revive tell me one thing he can't do show me a mountain he can't move [Music] [Music] is possible come on church let's all join together [Music] oh disappointment show me [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] praise lift him up praise his name he's so highly exalted praise lift him up praise his name he's so highly exhausted [Music] thanksgiving come let us lift up praise his name he's so highly exalted [Music] praise his name let down your guard and enter [Music] it's time [Music] [Applause] [Music] praise his name [Music] [Applause] [Music] messiah [Applause] [Music] he's so highly exalted [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] lift him up praise his name he's so highly exalted [Music] [Music] pain is gone and mercy fills the streets to look upon the one who bled to save me and walk with him for all eternity and there will be a day when all will bow before him there will be a [Music] standing face to face again holy holy is the lord [Music] in every prayer we prayed in desperation the songs of faith we sing through doubt and fear and in the end we'll see that it was worth it when he returns to wipe away our tears [Music] [Music] standing face to face [Music] and on that day we join the resurrection and stand beside the heroes of the faith and with one voice a thousand generations sing a worthy is the lamb who was slain come on let's celebrate that and on that day we join the resurrection and stand beside the heroes of the faith and with one a thousand generations [Music] will sing worthy is the lamb who was [Music] [Music] [Music] who gave us [Music] [Applause] [Music] glory to our god who gave us [Music] is [Music] [Music] yes jesus you are holy jesus ah we'll be singing that song in heaven holy is the lord god almighty well good evening go so glad to see you here those of you watching from home and wherever you are around the world we appreciate you tuning in to grace let's take a few minutes right now or at least a few seconds to greet one another and get acquainted with those seated near you [Music] there's so much going on here at grace church as you make your way back to your seat we want to highlight just a few things from your bulletin first if grace is new to you or you'd like to share a prayer request with us check out those connect cards and the seat backs in front of you fill one out and put it in the offering boxes at the back of the auditorium after the service you can fill it out on your phone too by texting the word connect to the number on the screen now for all you 18 to 30-somethings this weekend is our young adult connect in the upper atrium after the sunday 11am service connect is the place where young adults find each other begin godly friendships and they can even get connected with a small group as well it's always a good time i promise it's a good time do not miss out on the october prayer sprint this is a week of prayer where we go before god and ask him big prayers check out the details in your bulletin finally we have a special message from our friend roland ashby with strategic alliance let's take a look hi grace church my name is roland ashby my wife carolyn and i started a ministry called strategic alliance over 30 years ago we build homes for homeless families along the mexican-american border over the years we've built over 2500 homes we also have a ministry called escuela viva escuela viva finds sponsors to sponsor children to go to school these kids normally wouldn't be able to go past third or fourth grade this year we have almost 900 students in school and 102 of them are high school students now that's a miracle you really don't know the the impact that that's having on a community in reynosa you've also heard on television about migrants up at the border that are trying to get into the united states well every migrant has to pay the cartel before they can cross that river and so these people are stuck they can't go back they can't get across and so we have on our staff a minister that goes there twice a day and and does praise and worship and preaches to the migrants underneath the bridge and and he'll go to our right there at hidalgo texas and this christmas we're going to have an outreach probably 300 people will build 15 to 30 homes in three days and this church grace church is going to have a team going i hope you'll go with them so i love you and we're going to have a booth out out in the foyer or out in some part of this church and come see us okay i'd love to visit with you all right yes how many of you have gone to grinosa with us to build houses uh it's an incredible experience it's the week after christmas each year we take a team down and uh would love to have you be a part of that this year now roland you saw a roll on the screen i know you thought that was jurassic park but it's not it's uh reynosa uh mexico roland is with us here tonight so he'll be out there in the atrium after service you can go out and find out how you can sponsor a child so that they can go to high school uh there in the in the colonial there in mexico now um we're gonna we're gonna point you to the way to give there on the screen here at grace or through online if you're at home you can give online uh there are receptacles around the corridors on your way out be sure to place your offering there as we uh leave today let's join together in prayer before pastor ron comes thank you lord for the praise that is in heaven that we can join in and together we worship you in this place and beyond thank you lord for this service where we can honor you and grow in our walk with you we pray your blessing on those who are giving on the gift and offerings and the givers and bless pastor on as he comes to share the word today in jesus name amen [Music] for i am not ashamed of the gospel of christ for it is the power of god unto salvation to everyone that believeth [Music] for therein is the righteousness of god revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith [Music] excuse me it's just the right moment right wow well today is uh of course 9 11 or in the morning it'll be yesterday was 9 11. how many of you remember when the eyes of the world were on those twin towers that were billowing smoke how many of you how many of you remember where you were i mean it's uncanny isn't it it was chaos confusion remember the the night we were afraid of every airplane noise you know it was just we all came together uh you know we were united as one people we were proud to be an american you know we needed each other that's something we we value we need to try to find that again at the time we were thinking you know this has changed the world forever i mean and it did it was as serious an attack on as the attack on pearl harbor and the assassination of jfk but many parents and grandparents are now saying that 9 11 is not really a significant part of the story for this rising generation those of us who are there need to keep the light on i mean about what actually happened one why national security is such a big deal it's why having a poorest southern border is so dangerous for us right now i mean we no longer even know what how many radical terrorists are in our country i mean we don't know when they just opened the border you know in the coming months we're going to be tackling this with strategic alliance you just heard roland talk about it they're with us this weekend we've you know built houses with them for uh decades now and uh for people are homeless on the other side of the mexican border and these guys are just right there on the front lines i was listening to some of the stuff yesterday this disaster is massive i mean they're trying to help people get food spiritual encouragement you just heard him say that ultimately they're trying to help them get back to their country of origin because this is a humanitarian crisis it is a tragedy they've been robbed and raped abused our church is a substantial partner with them we are we're taking taking this on that we're going to be a part of this and uh they're going to be out in the hr if you'd like to talk to them about any aspect of what they're doing and we're they're big partners of ours this is week two of our series on paul's letter to the romans if you've got a bible we're gonna cover some ground so uh we're gonna go to the second half of chapter one last week we talked about paul's dramatic conversion how he went from being a persecuting church hater to an evangelizing church starter i mean you can't get his rap any more radical and if you miss that that's on our website after a brief introduction paul is about to lay out some of the most unpopular politically incorrect truth a christian can write and i mean this is stuff church leaders like to avoid because these words are hard to say and even harder to hear but god knows we need it and and so before we begin i'm just going to ask the holy spirit for some illumination here because this is this is stuff we're going to need light to be able to see i mean it's in his light that we see light scripture says and we we need this truth these truths so desperately right now so holy spirit would you do what you love to do would you come among us touch us open the eyes of our understanding open our ears give us light to see this reality in jesus name amen last week we talked about some of the pivotal spiritual awakenings in church history that were inspired by paul's letter how martin luther was born again by just two verses in romans 1. verses 16 17. i don't think you would ever hear these enough so help me read these again all right let's let's read it together i am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of god for salvation to everyone who believes to the jew first and also to the greek for in the gospel the righteousness of god is revealed a righteousness that is by faith from first to last just as it is written the righteous will live by faith free from first to last means this is not a once and you're done thing paul exposes our human brokenness and the abundant grace that's available to us when we trust jesus in full out surrender that's what jesus said in john 15 5. he said without me you can do nothing you can't it's not just a little bit of you verse 16 says the gospel is the power of god it's got everything we need to be transformed it's not a little gospel a little self-help gospel is the whole enchilada i mean it's it's got it all it's full of life transforming mind renewing power it's the supernatural truth about god making us righteous with his own righteousness forgiving and wiping out all our sin debt freeing us from satanic enslavement by igniting our dead spirit it's about holy spirit coming to live in us adopting us into god's family empowering us to rule and reign with jesus as his eternal partners it's the whole thing the gospel draws this clear line in the sand it doesn't say that everyone's saving this because that's called universalism and that's becoming popular we become children of god by believing on jesus christ or believing in jesus christ period he said i am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except by me those were his words and terms he's the creator he gets to call the shots paul then spends several chapters emphasizing our inability to make ourselves right in god's eyes because our human tendency is to try and earn this but even if we had a thousand lifetimes i mean if we had a thousand reincarnations let's say say it was true we couldn't come close to achieving god's standard of righteousness and approach his throne without being consumed the bible says the result of the fall is that every one of us is born with a deceitful heart that's desperately wicked and the only way to be free of it is to abandon all trust in ourselves and cling to jesus so paul wants to make sure we understand the depth of our depravity he wants us to you know get away from any dependence on our humanity and so he takes the first two chapters of romans to show us the human condition so we won't trust ourselves first he tackles the world in chapter two he tackles religious people chapter three says every last one of us is in the same sinking boat we're not just people who sin we're natural born sinners i mean we inherited the sin gene from adam and depravity is still at work in us at the heart level and the rest of romans 1 paul takes this on a ride down that sin spiral to show us how the human soul devolves when we go our own way so we're you know fasten your seat belts here we go romans 1 18 ready to read your you got a bible open it up to that the wrath of god is being revealed from heaven against all the godless godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness since what they what may be known about god is plain to them because god has made it plain to them for since the creation of the world god's invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse for although they knew god they neither glorified him as god nor gave thanks to him but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened although they claimed to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal god for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles therefore god gave them over in their sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another they exchanged the truth about god for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator who was forever praised amen because of this god gave them over to shameful lust even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones in the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women were inflamed with lust for one another men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error furthermore just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of god so god gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what that what ought not to be done how often do you hear that read in script in church it's one of those passages i think we'll take a pass actually we're going to take two weeks on this because there's just so much here first half of the chapter is about the grace of god and now paul indeed introduces this the wrath of god and he lets us know that just as much as god is love he's also holy which means our sin does not go unnoticed or unpunished god created a moral order in this world and anyone who transgresses it sooner or later will suffer for it the jews understood that they knew that even those who escaped in this life would face a final day of reckoning when the wrath of god would be poured out against all wickedness isaiah 13 9 says behold the day of the lord comes cruel with wrath and fierce anger to make the earth a desolation but their prophets also warned of another kind of wrath that if they rebelled and if they served other gods they'd experience humiliation and defeat at the hands of their enemies their wives and children would be taken captive and man if you've been reading through the bible with us it's just i mean it never seemed to settle out for 10 years at a time i mean they just go right back into this bizarre pattern of behavior every time they would turn their backs on god these horrible things would happen to the sons of israel in judges 10 god said you have forsaken me and served other gods therefore i will deliver you no more go and cry out to the gods which you've chosen let them deliver you in the time of your distress now don't miss the fact that god is saying this to his chosen people it's the wrath of abandon but we also see him grieving over the destruction of jerusalem and all the horrors and starvation death and hopelessness that had swallowed him up he had his people had turned away from him yet again doing the very things he repeatedly warned them would bring judgment they worship detestable idols of enemy nations flaunted their sin and orgies and shedding the innocent blood of their own children and sacrifices to demon gods but even then lamentation 3 33 says god does not afflict from his heart i mean this is still jeremiah writing here and he's made it crystal clear god is the one afflicting him but it brings him no joy there's divine reluctance even though good will come out of their pain he recoils because judgment is not his natural heartfelt inclination he loves to show mercy it's a terrifying thought to be abandoned by god to know the opportunity for salvation is passed the day of grace is over to know he's basically let you have what you want proverbs 1 31 says they eat the fruit of their ways i think that's what's happening in america right now we are eating the fruit of our sinful choice to embrace every kind of sexual immorality imaginable and use abortion to fix the consequences all these decades of bloodshed of more than 60 million innocents that have been slaughtered on the altar of sexual freedom i mean this is the same sex god of the old testament i i sometimes i wonder are we connecting the dots are we not seeing this as the same thing in the eyes of god and we're reaping the whirlwind as god is turning us over to foolishness to exactly what paul says in our schools our kids are being taught to embrace godless marxism and believe that america which was built on a spiritual revival rooted in judeo-christian christian ethics is now somehow systemically racist and built on slavery i mean what many many of our kids now believe that gender is fluid and that truth is whatever you want it to be i mean this will not end well i listen to mark levine's book on american marxism this week if you want a reality check that will jolt you to the core and awaken you to the seriousness of where we are i would start there i mean it is hard to absorb how far down this rabbit hole we've gone and i'm talking across the board you know i think i know it all i think i can you know talk about all the parts but man when he put this all together he covers it all it's one of the most comprehensive books that i have read on what's happening in america right now and it's driving the left crazy because the thing is on the top 10 best seller list you know but it's it's waking people up so i would i'd encourage you he's a jewish guy one of the most enlightening damning inventions of my lifetime is the sonogram because now we can see babies before they're born the sonogram on the left says me and the newborn on the right says still me here's another powerful you know here's another powerful meme you know on the left is the famous photo of in 1815 of a black man with severe scarring from having been whipped as a slave in the middle of a 1945 photo of jewish men emaciated from starvation and a nazi concentration camp on the right is the sonogram of a baby and at the top it says not a person listen god's ears slavery the holocaust and abortion all cry out for justice and that includes the horror 911 and all the things that are happening in afghanistan the torture brutality slavery and murders it's all going to be judged because god is holy and his holiness demands justice we're under judgment right now and it's chilling the damage that's already been done by this current administration i mean who could even think up a scenario where you would withdraw your troops from a war-torn enemy nation before you withdraw your own people and equipment i mean i'm i'm still reeling what happened where's the media you know they're saying move on let's move on no we can't move on i mean it was heartening this week to see the patriotism and support for the family of our fallen service member this week out here on 70. in fact as debbie and i were driving in there was a whole entourage because they're taking them to jefferson barracks right now for a private uh burial but you know it's just what is happening in our nation's capital i mean it's criminal it's it's left us wondering who in the world is in charge we're not going to stop talking about this i mean until to we get these people home safe i mean we're just we've got to talk about this somebody's got to talk about this and here's another one why is texas being villainized for taking a stand against roe v wade what what happened to our state's rights to govern themselves do we forget the constitution how do we get leaders who are this power hungry and corrupt who want to make abortion a civil right now i want you to hear me say this again because i i don't want to sound angry on this toward people who have been victimized by it we as a church are pro-women we do not condemn you if you had an abortion our hearts go out to you we've got a ministry here to help you recover if you've been keeping a secret you know and struggling with grief or shame please join uh the group that's starting this wednesday here at the church and there's more info info in the bulletin about that and last week i told you we support a ministry here called thrive that is devoted to helping women avoid abortion uh we help them on all kinds of levels family levels helping those who've been victimized by it to heal up but when the majority of people in a nation believe abortion is morally acceptable and even celebrate it which is what's happening now i mean that's how far out and crazy we've gotten that nation is thumbing its nose at the creator and all of all those unborn children that he created that's a problem the rest of this verse says the wrath of god is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress get this who suppress the truth by their wickedness long before facebook centered censored let me say that again long before facebook censored a sitting president that's hard to believe that actually happened but it did long before youtube terminated eric with taxes totally took him off the air twitter banned the my pillow guy apple d app parlor remember that long before simon and schuster canceled josh hawley's book on big tech because it exposed them hbo scrubbed gone with the win and disney put dumbo back in the vault long before anyone ever heard of d-platforming d-listing blacklisting double speak suppression misinformation or propaganda long before all this exhausting business big tech and the media engaged in that was in your bible god is against the suppression of truth verse 18 says he hates the suppression of truth with a white-hot hatred back in paul's pre-apostle days i mean he was persecuting christians with a vengeance i mean to suppress the truth about jesus and jesus knocks him to the ground and blinds him for three days to let him know how he felt about it sin was just as rampant in paul's day as it is now i mean they didn't have internet porn but their towns had brothels and there were plenty of male and female prostitutes in their pagan temples you know i hate talking about this stuff my heart goes out to people who struggle in these areas or their kids do i'm broken i'm so broken myself you know and intersections of god's word i wish i could revise so it wasn't so harsh and hard on our ears but god's standards are eternally established and are equally true for me and for you the modern day church has done people a huge disservice and trying to soften god's tone concerning sin i believe we will be held accountable for not exposing the darkness and sounding the alarm we have to declare war on this stuff because god hates what sin does to his most precious creation well paul continues by saying we can't plead ignorance because god is visible in his handiwork the whole of creation screams intelligent design now i want to get more into that next week except to say that that nature itself is where we learn that suffering follows sin break the laws of agriculture your harvest fails break the laws of architecture your building collapses break the laws of health your body suffers he's saying just look at the way the world is constructed and we know what god is like so we're without excuse he takes it further saying that instead of looking to god we look to ourselves and our thinking became useless our foolish hearts were darkened we formed our standards around our own ideas and opinions and preferences we deceived ourselves into believing that we were the center of the universe where the sun revolves around the earth we look to ourselves and like anyone who can't see where they're going we fell into the ditch of worshiping the creature rather than creator we engaged in the worship of self and that's the death spiral that people and cultures go into when they won't acknowledge god and truth it all spins out of this dark force inside us called sin that's been so horrifically destructive to the whole of god's creation he says we're all born with it it's a result of the fall back in the garden and it's constantly pulling us away from god and true and he shows us the progression he said first people reject god they want to decide what's right and what's wrong for themselves so they deny what's obvious here are the truths they suppress there is a god he is the creator of all things meaning he is not a god but the god he is powerful meaning he's more powerful than all else because he made all else he's eternal because there was nothing outside him that could bring him into being therefore we must exist to display his glory and not compete with him for glory and we must exist in absolute dependence on it we don't supply him he supplies us so we are to live in constant trust and gratitude but those who are caught in the sin spiral when things start to fall apart they make up imaginary images of what a god should be and do they create god's substitutes with their relationships and their stuff jesus said wherever you invest your treasure is where your heart goes your heart will follow it becomes your idol becomes your god and the result is they fall into all kinds of self-destructive weirdness their wicked behavior just gets more and more pronounced this week i watched a video on youtube of blocks and blocks of people in philadelphia that look like zombies because of their drug addiction in fact you're gonna you're gonna see it here and i want you to notice this is this is just tragic these people are all bent over because they're taking a drug uh a track tranq dope heroine is what they're taking it's it's been cut with tranquilizer for large animals it's also called the zombie drug and i mean it's just horrific i mean you're just seeing unbelievable numbers of people that are just breaks your heart doesn't it these are god's image bearers that are being destroyed and this is america it's being duplicated in san francisco and los angeles too many other cities rural areas to even talk about we got a plague of opioid overdoses and homelessness despairs rampant suicides and violence is up last week in chicago in chicago 58 people were shot including eight children a four-year-old boy was killed by stray bullets and you all know crimes up throughout the st louis area every day it seems like there's a headline you know somebody's invented an even more bizarre form of wickedness you know you watch a little tv and oh man you know it created a whole new level of dysfunction where people are insanely miserable yet glamorizing their debauchery you know nobody's looking up everybody's in relational pain addictive torture god's not even a consideration all his warnings all this offers to help go completely unnoticed our friend dr michael brown says you know i see a lot of strange stuff but ever so often the accumulation of crazy stories strikes the nerve making me ask myself have we totally lost our minds a couple of weeks ago i hope i don't know if you saw this when this was a video california teacher posted a video bragging that she'd instructed her students to pledge allegiance to the gay pride flag she took the american flag down in her tick tock profile she lists they as her preferred pronoun we're being forced to upset to accept absurdity and our kids are being schooled in it the sexual revolution activist agenda is getting mainstreamed into their curriculum right now down to the earliest years and their goal is to tear down all the guardrails that have kept civilization civil insane for millennia the strategy is to saturate our culture with the idea that how we feel determines what's real and what's true and it's unleashing bedlam we're in a psalm 2 moment that says why did the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the lord and against his anointed that's jesus and they're saying let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us hang on a minute our leaders want to cast off any restraint of god's law and truth and it always ends in depravity and sin of every sort it's why socialism want and can't work if we won't govern ourselves we will be governed by tyrants i mean and and that's the plan the left wants to control every aspect of our lives this week our president ordered the department of labor to require every business of over a hundred people to mandate a vaccine that is totally unconstitutional he said he has the right to impose this to work around governors and use the defense part department to do it that's called tyranny that is a total coup of the american system of government and most news work uh networks are complicit or crickets about the whole thing we're at a crossroads right now i mean i i know this is tough to hear tough to stand up and speak out about this stuff but we cannot afford not to right now i mean if we cave to the pressure the american experiment's over guys i mean we're done people say why are you getting so worked up about a vaccine because it's a controlled thing it's not about the vaccine it's about the control we're going down a rabbit hole it's a sin spiral paul says it and when we hit bottom here's what happens the entire culture will hate god and try to get you to hate him too which makes god very angry this is why he detests and he knows where it leads he hates watching his beautiful humans get degraded and wounded by you don't you don't need to look far to see that our culture and our country and our world are in big trouble right now it's a way bigger mess than we can even see i mean please read levin's book about what's happening don't just close your eyes you know you're saying well i don't have time if you turned off tick tock for an hour you do you know you would not believe how much time you're spending on social media and on so many of these crazy platforms that are meaningless i mean you would free up hours of time and i say that because i did and it shocked me how many i've read i'm in the middle of the third book this week it's just incredible how much you can get through and how much you learn if you just turn things off so here's the question what can one person possibly do about this well i'll tell you where it starts we need to turn ourselves in as the sinners we are and agree with god's definition letting him tell us what's right and what's wrong because if i ask you to define sin i know a lot of you say oh it's doing bad things and lying and stealing and lusting and being greedy and if it's just a matter of that if it's a matter of avoiding you know bad behavior most of us probably feel okay about ourselves i mean we mess up a few times a day but we're mostly good but god views been sinned very differently he sees as his deeply rooted human tendency to live with self as the center of our lives jesus gave us god's standard in mark 12. he said love the lord your god read this with me love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength any time we love anything including ourselves more than god it's sin it's the unyielding desire to be the center of the universe i want to be noticed affirmed valued worship to be in control to be comfortable to be successful that's the brokenness that permeates our entire being it influences our every action our every attitude sin is doing even doing good things with a self-centered motivation it's subtle here's what it looks like i i can leave here you know sometimes feeling pretty good about myself the message i just thought you know i think i put it over the plate and happens occasionally and i get a couple emails about how helpful it was and i'm encouraged until i started to think about all the people that weren't here and didn't hear it cause of covid and so i started to feel disappointed and even a little angry righteous anger of course you know they needed to hear this come on the holy spirit says ryan do you really want people to go spiritually and trust me more is this all about you are you bummed out that your ratings are down you know full building doesn't mean anything's happening i mean coldplay could pack this place out look at this cross-section of an iceberg it shows what's above and below the water line 7 8 of that thing is invisible that's what sin is like we're consciously aware so little a few shortcomings here and there minor stuff god's definition of sin includes all that stuff underwater all that stuff we don't see and his whole motivation for wanting us to see it is so we know just how desperately we need saving how helpless we are here's a little experiment you know just to try to get you familiar with what i'm talking about it's called the tongue assignment for one week don't gossip or say anything bad about anybody or complain or criticize boast or blame others or defend yourself or deceive anybody trey for a week anybody think you can get out of here without messing up off the parking lot maybe until you get on your cell phone until i stop talking i don't think he's doing a very good job some of you already already messed up see how you do in luke 6 jesus in matthew two different places luke 6 and matthew 15 jesus said out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks for out of the heart look at this list come evil thoughts murder adultery sexual immorality theft false testimony slander our words are a real good indicator of just how massive a sin iceberg we got let's read the rest of romans 1 here they have become filled with every kind of wickedness evil greed and depravity they they are full of envy murder strife deceit and malice they're gossip slanders god haters insolent arrogant boastful they invent ways of doing evil they disobey their parents they have no understanding no fidelity no love no mercy although they know god's righteous decree that those who do such things that deserves death they not only continue to do these things but also approve of those who practice and notice the pronoun paul's using it they do this they do that and i can imagine you know his audience there in rome feeling very very self-righteous and then dignity yeah paul those people are bad that's tell them you know it's horrible having to live in a world of murderers and terrorists and adulterers the next verse paul says you therefore have no excuse you who pass judgment on someone else for at whatever point you judge others you are condemning yourself because you pass judgment do the same things paul's exposing self-righteousness he said it's so easy to look down on the sins of others without examining ourselves when you when you look at a photo of a group of people are several photos and you're in them who do you look for first you right i mean come on what did i look like was that was my hair out of place you know who did you think about most today i'll give you a little hypothetical what i'm talking about all right this is just you know let's just say this uh you know happened you know that the person that i i thought about most today was me now we're just pretending i focus on what i needed to get done you know and don't interrupt me please when i talk to others i gave them my opinion my answers my experiences when i did listen i'm thinking would you please hurry up and finish so i can tell you what i think about what you just said i felt jealous and angry hearing a friend praise another pastor's leadership ability i'm thinking what am i top liver i criticized somebody and then i realized they were standing behind me and then i worried more about what they thought of how of me than how my words might have hurt them i grumbled about a situation and then went back to working on a sermon what i'd be telling you how grumbling is a big sin and i won't bother to mention i was also defensive impatient driven and a little bit greedy and i got into an argument with debbie on the way to church because she tried to give me suggestions on how to say something better that's me and this is us our sin is not little periodic or insignificant and it permeates our whole being our motives are self-centered our agendas are self-driven our lives are self-absorbed we're a lot more broken than we think years ago a london times editorial ended with the question what's wrong with the world a well-known christian author and philosopher replied with this response dear editor what's wrong with the world i am faithful to yours g.k chesterton so maybe you're thinking well i thought you said when i got saved and baptized i was a new creation you are the moment you say yes to jesus you are spiritually reborn ezekiel says you get a new heart and holy spirit comes to live and you're born against spirit i could give you references scripture references for that at the core of your being you're brand new but there's another reality at work in your soul and body and it's what the bible refers to as your flesh or your sinful nature and it's the part of you that's still self-absorbed in romans 7 18 paul describes his own experience he said i know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature for i have the desire to do what's good but i cannot carry it out and we'll get into this at some point because he really goes into that it's a personal battle the desire to do good you know it's it's actually the evidence that i have a new heart but you know he's still hugely influenced by this overpowering pull of his flesh to rebel know he's not calling us spiritual worms incapable of good because we long for god's will in our hearts we're just painfully aware of this other force at work in our bodies constantly pulling us towards self-absorption and self-centeredness sin is a very real part of our lives as christians but our brokenness becomes a beautiful thing when we see it like paul in romans 7 because he was suddenly free to look beyond himself for hell he stopped i mean he became so aware of his brokenness that he stopped looking to himself altogether and that's where all of our problems lie this is where all my problems lie it's a little bit of self in a little bit of god and we have to see what paul saw and here's what he saw he what a wretched man i am who will rescue me from this body of death thanks be to god through jesus christ our lord i heard somebody say it this way hearing the melody of brokenness enable paul to hear the melody of faith he discovered a savior who was more than able to meet him in his weakness and brokenness it's a revelation of our depravity that opens the door for the power to the power of jesus now maybe you think well paul struggled in romans 7 couldn't have reflected his whole life i mean he's the mighty apostle to the gentiles i mean surely he grew out of that but we talked about it last week paul reassures us that was not the case near the end of his life in 1st timothy 1 15 he writes here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance christ jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom i am the worst didn't say i was i used to be he said i am the worst over the course of his life paul experienced a growing awareness of his sinfulness along with a deepening conviction that it was far worse than he imagined and that enabled him to experience the sufficiency of christ you know when i come back to this truth every single time it blows me away every single time i'm just made to realize i don't lay into this enough we don't go after this hard enough because this is what moved paul to write this verse that we read in our bible reading today second corinthians 12 9 therefore i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that christ's power may rest on me that is why for christ's sake i delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties for when i'm weak read with me then i am strong what's made that's what makes brokenness so powerful can potentially leader lead us to a greater dependence on jesus which is how we experience grace until we see the depth of our sinfulness we we never really understand the power and wonder of the gospel so a good prayer to pray is god show me how broken and weak i am so i won't trust myself today so i won't look to myself today so i won't monitor my emotions today so that i will fix my eyes on you and keep my eyes on you i'm telling you this could totally change our lives if we understood this we are such in such a vortex of self-centeredness and self-focus right now and it has robbed the church of power it has robbed us of supernatural power because we're looking at ourselves all the time in fact some of you've had facebook open looking at your latest picture and how many likes you got you know this is our problem here's how david prayed this prayer in psalm 139 before he had an internet and we even knew what it was let's read it together all right search me oh god and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous or wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting lord we're needing help because we are caught in this i mean this has permeated so much of our lives i don't even begin to understand and see how much i'm being disassembled you know just spiritually because of these very things because of looking to myself and looking at myself and thinking about myself only you can show us only you can reveal truth and awaken our hearts only you can pull us out of this ooze and darkness that our country and culture is caught in right now our children are caught in this right now it's why teen suicide is up right now and even children are doing it because there's no hope there's no light there's no life help us lord help us lord let us see the gravity of this iceberg of this darkness that is in us so we will put no confidence in our flesh no confidence in ourselves we will look to you jesus every step of the way knowing you will be faithful to lead us and guide us and direct us and embrace us and speak to us show us more lord give us more now if you're listening to this and you don't have a relationship with jesus here here this is where eternal life begins for you the bible says that all of us one day will stand before the judgment seat of god and we will be eternally judged and sentenced at that in that moment we're all guilty but on that day the verdict will go one or two ways those who have trusted and what jesus did for them on the cross will hear the words not guilty your sins were paid from full enter into the joy of my kingdom and for those of us who trusted in ourselves will hear depart from me i never knew you you will now have what you wanted eternal separation for me and you will pay for every one of your many sins those are the only two options the bible says today is the day of salvation and if you're hearing this this is your day this is your invitation all who call on the name of the lord scripture says will be saved jesus said whoever comes to me i will never cast you out you'll be born again spiritually you'll never die you'll live with me forever but you've got to come you've got to come and if this is making sense that means the holy spirit is illumining your mind he's inviting you into god's family it starts with repentance let's all stand together if you want to know if you want to leave here knowing that your sins are forgiven and that you're a member of christ's family this is your opportunity this is it this is your moment this will be a time that you will remember the rest of your life your eternal life we're going to pray and get this settled if you want out of a lifestyle you've been living in you know is wrong you want to experience freedom this is your moment if you want to get free of a drug addiction or porn addiction or a sex edition or what a food addiction or whatever it's causing you you know just to be a captive god wants to set your heart free tonight he's inviting you to escape the judgment that's coming get this settled you have this moment don't put it off all right i want our prayer team to come down now and if you want any of those things i mentioned or maybe maybe you're just here and you have a physical need or you have some other need come during this time as we're we're just kind of doing a uh unaltered service here at the end of our services right now and this song i think just really this is one we sang years ago but boy it really just expresses what we've been talking about here lord would you meet us now would you come among us would you do what you love to do save us help us heal us touch us in jesus name [Music] so take my heart [Music] take my heart and [Music] oh [Music] heal bodies touch sick people set captives free do what you love to do lord set us [Music] free us with your spirit touch us now lord here we are here we are we are before you now lord [Music] purity in our inner man [Music] is [Music] is [Music] take [Music] to yourself [Music] foreign [Music] yeah jesus thank you right now thank you right now touching lies [Music] listen if you just want to touch from god and you want god to open your eyes in this area just come down let them pray for you presence of the lord is here [Music] heal us now for your spirit [Music] is [Music] transform it take my [Music] my dress [Music] [Applause] to [Music] god do heart surgery on us do heart surgery on us and i touch us we want more we want to walk in the light as you're in the light we want to see things the way you see things we want to believe what you say and not what seems to be or appears to be oh pull us out of the deception that's all around us that's swirling god give us vibrant clear hearts that are alive full of life and light that vibrate with joy and peace come and touch us holy spirit come and touch us holy spirit come and touch us holy spirit come and free us holy spirit some of you here are just tormented by fear right now just overwhelmed with it just right now i speak to the spirit of fear in this room that is trying to just literally lock up and destroy the lives of precious saints in the name of jesus i command this stuff to go right now let peace peace peace right now settle over us god settle over this room right now with your presence let the peace of jesus that passes all understanding let it come right now and just settle down over us i rebuke the spirit of fear the spirit of darkness the spirit of hopelessness the spirit of depression in the name of jesus i command you go be gone right now speak to panic speak to panic specifically in the name of the lord jesus christ cease and desist i come in right now the storm the panic storm to just settle down and stop right now right now in the name of jesus the racing emotions the heat the sweat go in jesus name be gone just like the storm jesus calmed on the lake let it now go in jesus name healing healing freedom right now god we speak it right now we speak it into the atmosphere of this room you can't exist in this place you cannot exist in this place spirit of fear you have to go jesus name you're not going to torture and torment the children of god break your power right now we break the power of this thing off the minds and lives of your kids in jesus name in jesus name i'm not even going to ask how many of you are dealing with this because it's overwhelming there's so many of you that are dealing with this right now right now right now we want it gone we demand that it go now in the name of jesus we're not driving home with this demon we're not taking it any further it's not it's not going to control our lives and our minds and our bodies this is not going to regulate our behavior and keep us on the leash and and not even allow us to be out in public in the name of jesus i come against fear and i command it to stop right now commanded to cease and desist in the name of jesus break this power lord we stand in agreement with you greater is he that is in us that he that is in the world we come against this force of darkness that has just been [Music] has tyrannized your people lord [Music] in jesus name let peace let peace but peace peace come to the hearts and minds of your people [Music] still a storm still a storm still a storm still the stone come holy spirit come holy spirit come the holy spirit just invite him invite him come holy spirit come you're free to go anytime you want but we're just gonna wait on the lord in just a few more minutes come holy spirit come come oh won't you come touch us come free our minds touch our minds touch our hearts oh yeah if you're struggling just come down and get somebody to lay hands on you break this thing just ensure that you walk out of here without in freedom oh come holy spirit come holy spirit come holy spirit oh we welcome you we welcome you we welcome you touch us touch us now touch us now aluminum our hearts open our eyes strengthen us with might loom in us with light show us great and mighty things here we are here we are [Music] thank you lord [Music] now lord i just ask you to help us overcome this brainwashing that we've undergone of fear over this disease i know it's bad i know it's awful but you have not called us to this kind of fear and panic and so i'm asking you god give us [Music] confidence to lay down at night to say the words of psalm 91 that no evil will befall me or no plague will come near my dwelling no plague no plague no play we're trusting you we're resting in you [Music] let me just quote it over us he that dwelleth in secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the almighty i will say of the lord he is my refuge my fortress my god and him will i trust surely he will cover thee with his feathers and under his wings will thou trust his truth will be thy shield and buckler thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night or the arrow that flieth by day nor for the pestilence to walketh in darkness nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday a thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand but it will not come nighty only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked because thou hast made the lord which is my refuge even the most high thy habitation there shall no evil befall thee neither shall any plague come near your dwelling cove it included and coveted included for he will give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways they'll bear you up in their hands unless i dash thy foot against a stone thou shall tread upon the lion the adder the young lion a dragon without trampled under feet and here's god talking he says because he has set his love upon me therefore will i deliver him i will set him on high because he has known my name he shall call upon me and i will answer him i'll be with him in trouble i'll deliver him and honor him with long life will i satisfy him and show him my salvation now this is your truth this is your promise this is your word over us we declare it we confess it we believe it in jesus name let your peace that passes all our understanding guard our hearts and our minds this night in jesus name amen i just pronounced a pretty powerful blessing over you and your family tonight so i mean take that to bed with you take it i mean literally i confess that over debbie and i in the bed you know just confess it over yourself tonight that's a great chapter to memorize god bless you guys and uh we're going to continue to just pray and worship here [Music] you know i may have to go back and watch this service again it's always great to have the choir with us thank you ron and the entire team for leading us you know if this message encouraged you at all please let us know send us a direct message or email us and do not miss next weekend as ron takes us into part three of the roman series bless you grace church [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Grace Church St. Louis

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Length: 85min 15sec (5115 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 11 2021