Good morning. I want to first thank you all who were here last week. You invited God to join us here and he came with bells on. What happened down here last week was something I’ll remember for quite some time. As my wife put it, it evolved into something that was so unstructured…but organized. And only God himself could have pulled that off.
And for those that stayed through to Sunday School and then the worship service, it just kept going on. We experienced almost 5 hours of God’s intense presence here by the time it was all said in done. A new mark was even set at Sunday School. My understanding was that it was the first time that the men outnumbered the women.
This Church has got it going on. You watch what God is going to do with this church in the upcoming years. And we may be meeting here in the basement…but this ministry is going to be a part of the foundation of a new Mt. Zion.
I get worked up even just thinking about it.
But you know, for as much as I got worked up over last week, it caused me just as much frustration this week. As much as we stepped back last week and let god take over, I was starting to do just the opposite as the week rolled on..
Ellis asked me to take over for the next couple weeks as he was going to be out of town. I started to let it all get to my head as the time approached to start studying for this message. I started to think that it was me that really got things going last week. That it was my message, my delivery…me,me me. And here I was being asked to take over and do it again.
And I was going to zing you with another one too. I felt that I had placed the bar, but that I could do it again and do it better. I showed you last week that Hell did in deed freeze over…but this week I was going to show you how we could put a little heat into heaven…I was going to be hot…on a roll.
But you know something happened along the way. I forgot to ask God for guidance. I forgot the very basic principal of being a servant of God….talk to him…pray. I spent the last two days being totally frustrated because I couldn’t replicate what happened here last week. The very thing I was telling you about getting your "Buts" out of the way, I was letting mine swallow me. But I….
Finally last night I broke down and said…But God….
And he answered….
He pointed me to Paul. The rock of faith. A man who suffered ship wrecks, persecution, and imprisonment because he was led to preach God’s message. The one man second only to Jesus that probably shaped the history Christianity more than any of his other contemporaries.
He answered by saying that I wasn’t alone. That Paul himself had been frustrated as well. Frustrated and disappointed in himself.
In a tongue-twisting torrent of words , worthy of any Pepper that Peter Piper may have picked, Paul lays out his disappointment of his present life as a Christian. He acknowledges that he daily has the opportunity to do good in the eyes of God – in fact he wants to do good in the eyes of God because he is thankful that God brought him to believe in Jesus as his Savior. However, he is ashamed of where his spiritual life is and confesses…
Romans 7
(14) We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
(15)I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
(16) And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good
Paul is confessing that many times he is confronted with circumstances where he knows exactly what the right, God-pleasing thing to say or do would be – but then he’s startled when he does something different than what he wanted to do or says something other than what he wanted to say.
John Ortberg, in his book The Life You Always Wanted, explains it quite well.
"I look in on my children as they sleep at night, [and] I think of the kind of father I want to be. I want to create moments of magic, I want them to remember laughing until the tears flow ... I want to have slow, sweet talks with them as they’re getting ready to close their eyes. I want to chase fireflies with them, teach them to play tennis, have food fights, and hold them and pray for them in a way that makes them feel cherished.
"I look in on them," he writes, "and I remember how the day really went. I remember how they were trapped in a fight over [a game] and I walked out of the room because I didn’t want to spend the energy needed to teach them how to resolve conflict. I remember how my daughter spilled cherry punch at dinner and I yelled at her as if she’d revealed some deep character flaw; I yelled at her even though I spill things all the time and no one yells at me; I yelled at her - to tell the truth - because I’m big and she’s little and I can get away with it. I remember how at nights I didn’t have slow, sweet talks, but merely rushed the children off to bed so I could have more time to myself.
"I’m disappointed," Ortberg says, "not just with my life as a father. I am disappointed with my life as a husband, friend, neighbor and human being in general
You should relate to that. How many times a day do you say something or do something that you know you shouldn’t? It just bursts from your lips before you can take it back.
Sometimes…maybe I should say a lot of times…I find myself in the middle of an argument with my wife, and I start hearing this voice….you’re wrong Dean…just apologize and back off. I’d like to say that I listen to that voice all the time, but truth be known, I could count on my fingers of my left hand not counting my thumb and pinkie of how many times I backed off. I usually just continue to fight knowing full well that I’m wrong.
There are other times when I know that the second helping is no good for me and should be reserved for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But just look at me….how many times do you think I listened?
So why do I do the things I know I shouldn’t? Because if you look in verse 17 ;
(17) As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
I want to do right, but I have a natural born tendency to wander off the correct path. There is a part in all of us that are captive in sin, destined to moral failure .
What’s worse is that this scenario plays itself over and over again in my life as it did Paul’s .
In fact Paul says he’s even more confused when the situations arise where he can see the harmful effects that wrong actions would bring on his life but he does them anyway. It’s like a drug addict who knows that another hit will only further destroy him – but he gets high regardless. Because Paul recognizes that these sinful actions will be harmful he in fact affirms the truth that God’s law is good and right because it is put in place to keep him from hurt and pain. Since these sinful actions run contrary to his true desire he pinpoints the cause of the problem when he says,
Romans 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.
(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.
(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.
You can see that frustration and disappointment that Paul is dealing with here. Just because you become a Christian doesn’t mean you won’t sin. Far from it. In fact you will be tempted to sin probably more than you ever were in your pre-Christian days. If you have not made that step of faith….Satan doesn’t have to worry about you. You were already his. But when you cross the line to God’s team…he’s going to do some poking around to see how he can get you back. How he can beat you. Don’t ever think that Satan doesn’t know his stuff when it comes to Gods word. Quite the contrary, he knows this stuff better than any Bible scholar ever will.
Look at it this way. If a football team wants to beat another team. What is the most important thing they can do?…..Find out as much as they can about the other team. Study the tapes. Know how each player on the other team thinks and plays. Know their plays themselves.
“Since it is his sin that is causing him all these problems even as a Christian then it also follows that Paul is in need of forgiveness even as a Christian. Since sin is first and foremost a crime against God then it follows that Paul is in desperate need of forgiveness that only God can offer.
Who of us is any different? We too must admit that we are daily guilty of sin – even when we know better, even when we want to do better. That’s an important reminder for us, especially as Christians, because it keeps us from becoming self-righteous, filled with arrogant pride about our goodness. Since as Christians we are still sinners we are still in need of the forgiveness that only God can offer us.
Kay Arthur, a Christian author, put it this way.
If you tolerate sin in your life, that sin will not only take you farther than you wanted to go, it will keep you longer than you wanted to stay and it will cost you more than you thought you’d pay.
If we tolerate sin…let it become a habit, it will destroy us.
2 Peter 2:19 For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
Rest assured, I’m not just talking about drug or alcohol here. It’s whatever controls your life. It might be work, food, gossip, jealousy or any other negative thing in your life that controls you.
How do you identify a negative habit? Ask yourself…do I find my self doing it even though it is something that I know is physically, emotionally, or spiritually destructive?. Or do I consistently do something that I wish I wouldn’t do, but find I do anyway?
Bad habits are like comfortable beds---easy to get into, but hard to get out of. Unknown.
Do you know when the best time is to break a habit?
As soon as they start. Once they get hold, it’s harder and harder to break.
Let me demonstrate…
Say this thread is part of a pattern that we have gotten into. Whether it be a smoke, a drink, a hit…maybe even a jelly donut. Pretty unnoticeable by itself. Easy to break by itself.
But what if we added threads each day. More and more. And then they started to intertwine around each other until what do we end up having?….a cable that will prove too hard to break…by yourself anyway.
Or look how this guy describes it:
On a road not far from my home are some trees that are slowly being destroyed by huge coils of ivy. The vines wind themselves like snakes around the trunk. At this point it is impossible to untwist these runners because they are so firmly embedded into the trees. They are literally strangling the life out of those helpless giants. But there was a day when the ivy was a small plant just seeking a little support in climbing. Had the trees resisted these tiny tendrils, they would not be in the state they are today.
(Paul Van Gorder.)
So what do we do now? Let’s go back in time to get a little clue….
After the lord told Moses to tell the Israelites
Numbers 33: 52
drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places.
He went on to tell them in verse 55:
’But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live.
So we need to replace the old bad habits with new good ones. Look at what happens with dietary habits when you replace bad eating habits with better ones.
According to a recent Self Magazine article, losing just one dietary bad habit can result in significant weight loss over a period of one year. If you just substitute high calorie offenders for similar tasting, lower calorie choices, the weight loss can still be significant. Give up one teaspoon of cream in your coffee and lose 6 pounds a year, or switch to a similar amount of skim milk and lose 5 pounds. Give up a glazed donut a day and lose 25 pounds a year, or switch to a medium sized bran muffin and lose 11 pounds in a year. Skipping a teaspoon of butter on a daily bagel will leave you 11 pounds lighter at year’s end, or change to a similar amount of cream cheese and drop 5 pounds. Some other items you can drop and save on are a 12 ounce can of soda a day and forget 17 pounds in a year; a 1.2 ounce chocolate bar a day saves you 12 pounds in 18 months. There’s nothing to it but to do it.
It can be done. Just remember in God’s race, it’s a marathon not a sprint. In a marathon, runners have good stretches and some bad. It’s all part of the game. However, the runners don’t just quit when they hit that bad stretch. They just keep running.
This is what Paul did. He was having a bad period in his life and he did what most of us fail to do. He confessed it and turned to the one person who could help.
(21) So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. (22) For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
(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.
(24) What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
(25) Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!
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Frustration and disappointments are going to happen. But we can’t quit. We have to keep running. God will help us through it. He helped me this week…but only when I finally turned to him.
