Series: Follow the Signs
Title: It is time to Yield
Being in Brazil gave me the basis for todays sermon
If you have ever driven in Brazil you know how “exciting” it can be.
Tell the story about Greg:
As we were driving through downtown brazil I was continually amazed at how often cars would cut in front of us or dart out of side streets. We were making a right turn merging with a round about lane. As we started the turn a car darted out of the lane beside us and Greg hit his brakes. Greg had a choice, he could yield or he could continue his current path. He chose to yield and because he did, we avoided what probably would have been really bad accident.
Today we are going to talk about yielding our lives to Christ
YIELD sign
Similar to the story in Brazil, when we chose not to yield, we open ourselves up to trouble in our lives.
It is our option to yield, it is our decision.
Let’s look at the scripture.
This scripture is talking about the old nature and the new nature of a christian
Romans 7:15-25
7:15
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
7:16
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
7:17
As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
7:18
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
7:19
For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.
7:20
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
7:21
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
7:22
For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
7:23
but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
7:24
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
7:25
Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
The new nature doesn’t understand what the old nature is doing.
Have you ever felt like Paul?
I know I have.
Have you ever struggled with a sin or something in your life that you give into and then you just hate yourself afterwards?
Isn’t it frustrating when you do something that you don’t want to do? It obviously was frustrating to Paul
There are three stages in Pauls life and this is one of them.
As you probably know, the first stage was that Paul was a devout, proud Pharisee under the Mosaic system of Law.
Then He met Christ on the Damascus road. A second stage in his life was to follow Christ.
He feels He can live the Christian life and the new nature says I’m going to live for God and that was where he failed.
The third stage. Then there comes a time when he has victory and He realizes he cannot do it but only God and He must yield.
These are the same stages that most Christians today experience. The question we should look at is what stage are we in in our walk today.
Paul learned three things that are vitally important in His life and in our lives.
First, in verse 18, 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh.
Have you learned this about yourself?
Do we really get it that there is no good thing living in my flesh.
So many times we want to or try to live the Christian life in the flesh and not in the spirit.
We have great plans
We get on committees or teams because of what we can do and where we want to take the church
We move into leadership or other areas in the church and we try to do all of this through our own power and not through the power of the holy spirit
We think that through our flesh we can please God. That our works will somehow be pleasing.
There must be a connection to Christ through the Holy Spirit.
We must live out in our lives the life of Christ and that cannot be done in the flesh, it must come out of our walk with Christ.
If it is done in the flesh it is displeasing to god.
Does it mean that if it is done in the flesh, it won’t work? No, but it does not please God!
Our new nature does not commit sin. Our old nature does and our new nature (the nature of Christ) hates it.
Our new nature is what convicts us and causes us to struggle when our old nature does sin.
This is what Paul is talking about here. His new nature is struggling with the sin of his old nature.
Second in verse 18, For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.
There is no power in the new nature.
The new nature wants to serve God but the carnal man fights against it.
This is where many of us make our mistakes of Christians, think we can do it ourself.
I’m going to live for God… I can’t do it myself.
We all want to walk with God, we all want to live for Christ but there is no power.
Evangelist can get anyone come forward because all of us want to walk closer to God.
Some of us have been coming forward for years saying how much we want to follow God but we just don’t go anywhere. We never arrive!!
Why is it that we don’t have the power that we see in the Bible?
Why does the new nature have no power in our lives?
The new nature gives us the desire to follow God’s commands and to be all the He created us to be but it is powerless
Verse 24
Oh wretched man…Paul is a believer, not a lost man.
He is helpless;
How in the world is a child of God to live for God?
The third thing He learned
The Holy Spirit empowers us
It is through Jesus Christ!!!
Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (v. 25)
The new nature could not break the shackles of the old self, only the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit makes Jesus real.
God gets the glory, not us.
when we give up, Christ sets us free.
The Living Bible says, Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.
He is the deliverer. Only Christ can set you free.
Christ is not only your Savior, Christ is your LIFE.
He did not come simply to forgive your sins
He came to inhabit your mortal body with His indwelling presence through the Holy Spirit and to live His life through yours in order to make you an instrument of His life.
You are a container of God.
Only Christ living in us can give us the power to struggle victoriously against the old sinful nature.
And as we surrender to Him, we will find His power to be real, and His word to be true.
We can learn that we cannot struggle victoriously in our own strength and that it is futile to try.
We can learn that we are not very different from any other Christian when we struggle with sin.
Everybody struggles.
God wants to take charge of your life through the presence of the Holy Spirit but we must YIELD to Him.
