Overcoming Me Part 2

Preached by Jaren Singh on 1/12/25

Transcript

0:41

We've been, we've started our series on overcoming me and we made this really big claim that we said I really believe that somebody, maybe it's not yours, but maybe, you know, it could be yours, somebody's life is going to be changed through the series of these lessons and through our embracing our struggle with sin and leaning into it instead of just trying to avoid it and then coming out the other side a changed man or woman. You know, we looked at these, this scripture and this is kind of our main text. It's Romans, this is Romans 7 and it says, we know the law is spiritual, I'm unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin, I don't understand what I do, what I do not want to do or what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do, and if I do what I do not want to do, I agree the law is good as it is, it's no longer I myself who do it, it's sin living in me. And we see this struggle, it says, I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. And we said that the Bible is talking, Paul is talking, the greatest Christian, perhaps the greatest Christian who worked with me here, at least planted the most powerful churches, wrote the majority of the books or maybe not majority, he wrote a lot of the books of the New Testament. This guy said, there's sin that I've got in my life that I just can't say no to, I really want to, in the depth of my heart, I want to and yet I just can't. And it's this struggle that we all feel. And there's this tension that Alec was talking about because Jesus says that anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but if the son sets you free, then you're free indeed. And so we've got these two competing things and we've got Paul saying post Jesus's resurrection, being a saved Christian, and he's saying, I don't do the good things that I want to do, but the bad things I keep on doing them. And there's this struggle and I hate it and I'm fighting against my flesh. And then Jesus says, if the son sets you free, you are free indeed. And we are trying to make sense of this tension. We're trying to come out the other side as people who understand how to better fight this tension. Last week was talking all about that. Hey, we gotta be honest. There is this tension. There is this reality that we're living in this week. We are going to, uh, this is a series of five lessons. And so we're going to make our way, uh, begin to making our way through the other side that we know we're messed up people. We, we're not going to hide it. Let's, let's figure out then how to overcome or work to overcome. Amen. The most encouraging thing that we left with, at least in my view, is that God has no problem declaring us free from sin before we learn to live free from sin. That should provide us with some sort of encouragement that should, that should give us some pep in our step in our day to day living. Uh, what I will say before we even get any further, we talked about this on Wednesday as well. We had a church service on Wednesday. This is again, a refresher. Uh, you could, I mean, you know how you skip the intro for, uh, you know, shows or whatever. Maybe you already skipped the intro. We're going to get to the real part of the lesson in a moment. Okay. So you can skip through, uh, and then we'll, we'll get, we'll get to it. But we also said, we also said that anything that we talk about on a Sunday or a Wednesday or anything that you read about that is, uh, trying to, uh, that, that tries to be spiritual says, I, this is a spiritual thing. Listen to me, but that is leaving you further from Jesus or is trying to minimize Jesus and his majesty. Uh, that that's not spiritual. You can throw that one out the window. And so none of what we talk about, I hope this, this morning leaves you feeling like, well, okay, I can just go do my, do my day to day. I don't have to worry about living for Jesus. No, it on the contrary, what we're going to look at should give us a greater appreciation for Jesus. And it should motivate us even further to lean into and walk with our Lord and savior. Amen. So we're, we're looking at the process of overcoming sin. Uh, this, this morning it's in Romans eight. Now it says, therefore, uh, there's no, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death for what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh. God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. Uh, there's, there's some things that are talked about the first that it says, Hey, if we are following this, there's no condemnation. It says, there's no condemnation. Then the believer, uh, the believer in, in mind and spirit and entire and practice, there's no condemnation in Christ. That should give us, again, I hope you feel encouraged that there's no condemnation now because there's no condemnation. Let's go do our own thing. No, no, no, no, no. Uh, we, we worked so hard for our salvation, right? No, right. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are with me that, that the reality is that the believer brings nothing to this equation. The, the follower of Christ brings nothing into the, to this equation. Have you, uh, have you ever tried to, well, you probably did. Have you ever tried like there's somebody, maybe you had a secret Santa, or there's something in your family that you're like, you do something and you organize it in such a way that you, uh, that you pick a name and, and there's some names who you're like, this person's going to be grateful for anything I give them. And they need a lot of things. Uh, like they, they, you know, whatever, they need a new microwave, whatever. I know that I can, if I get this person's name in the hat, and this would happen to us as a, as a family, we would do this. And we had a big family, uh, in, in, you know, my mom's side, uh, in green Bay. And so we would always pick names. And there was a few names where we're like, we're excited to get these people like that. And also, you know, like we always know we can buy them a nice pair of socks. We get them a nice tie. We get them a nice shirt and they, they need all that stuff. And so there'll be excited. And then there were some other people who, when we would pull their names, we were like, Oh man, this guy, like my, my uncle was one of those guys and I'd pull his name. And the frustrating part is whatever he needed, he would just buy, right? Like there was nothing that we could, uh, take and give to him that he would, uh, perhaps he'd be grateful. Hey, thank you. That's what's really kind, but there's nothing that we can give to him. Like he really wanted it. He would just, he would just buy it. Um, do you have anybody like that in your life? Okay. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe you are that person. Um, I, I think as I was, I was trying to connect it a little bit, I think in, in terms of what we can give to God, I think he's, he's, he doesn't need anything from us. Like he, he, he has everything he needs. He, he organizes it perfectly. He has it all. And so we, we're not going to live a good life and give to him. Like we're not going to earn or bring anything into this equation. It's, it's just, there's no condemnation because of what Jesus has done. The, the one thing don't, don't jump, uh, don't jump to a different spot because this series is not intended for us to feel like, Oh, we, we, we, uh, this is how to live free from sin. Like this is how to get saved. This is how to get in God's good grace. No, this is a series. There's some in this room who are in a right relationship with God who are like, uh, have gone from loss to saved. And this is a series for you. And there, there are others who are in the process of that they're on their journey. They're not there yet. And I think this is a series for you, but perhaps it's more of a series for you to listen in and be like, wow, I really want this. Okay. Let's talk about how that, how that comes along. But this is not a series that is going to remove your struggles so that God will accept you. God has already accepted you understand that. Um, something else that that's, that's talked about, they, they use this, uh, this phrasing of, uh, they, they use the word law a lot. Um, this law of sin or this law of righteousness, a, a helpful way to view that, or maybe a redefinition would be to view it in the content instead of law to call it, uh, these powers, these impulses and these principles. And so when it says we're learning to live, uh, by, by the law of the spirit, what it's talking about is that we're learning to live by these powers, by these principles and by these impulses of what the spirit gives us, like the spirit has it, we're learning to live in it then. And we're, uh, we're running away from the law of sin and death. Uh, these powers, we're learning to live away from these powers, these principles, and these impulses of sin and death. Uh, these two things are in direct contradiction to one another, aren't they? These, these, these two that we can't, we can't mix the two part of our, it's can't say, well, there's something, there's nothing in our lives that we're going to do that fits both the law of sin and death and also the law of the spirit. Like there's nothing that you're going to be able to go in between this impulse to sin and this impulse to live in the spirit. Uh, our, our goal as we grow to be more like Christ is that we are able, and we're, we're learning to on a day-to-day basis, but we are dying every day to these impulses and these principles that we learned to live in of sin and death for so many years. We're dying to those. And soon that there's going to be a day, uh, when, when these impulses of, of salvation and of Jesus Christ, and these, these principles of the spirit are going to overtake us. That's, that's going to be heaven. Uh, but, but there's this hope that we're fighting for, and we're working towards, uh, to get there. I, I, even the word, uh, impulse, like the idea of the spirit, there being an impulse we, it, you know, prior to becoming a follower of Christ, I bet, I bet the word impulse was not one you used for some of the, what the spirit tells us to do. Like I felt the impulse to say no to sin. No, you didn't feel it. You felt the impulse to sin. And then you like fought not to. Uh, and so I, even in the phrasing, I feel, uh, I feel again, encouragement. I feel hope that there's going to be a time when these powers and these principles, they just overtake us. They, these powers to not sin, just overtake us. And we're excited for that day. Um, and so again, work with me here, then like our responsibility to God, uh, our responsibility in viewing God's perfect mercy is to offer our bodies. And a part of offering our bodies is to, to deny ourselves and to turn away from sin. And there's this transformation that's going to occur that we can't, we're not, we're not making it to be, to be, uh, without sin prior to heaven. Uh, but what can we do then? Or what's this process look like? Well, instead of this, uh, these impulses of the law of sin and death, we're trying to remove these out and we're trying to add in as much of the spirit as we possibly can. Um, you know, there is this, this helpful, uh, graphic that I'll explain in a moment. I'm going to show you that I'll explain it in a moment. And so this, this, uh, this graphic, this, the first guy, this first all black silhouette is how anybody is, how anybody's walking. They're living in darkness. There's no, uh, there's no hope. This is a hard line inside of us that, that we can't say no to sin. Like we're just living in sin. It's not a broken man. It's a man by himself. We are bound. There's no opportunity to turn away from sin. Any, any good that, that we do. And perhaps some of us were living awesome lives or on the surface, awesome lives prior to coming to Christ. Some of us certainly were not. If you were living an awesome life coming to Christ and you've really come to Christ and you'd say, well, I was, I was just self-righteous. You know, I was trying to do a bunch of good things, but I was doing it to feel good for myself. I was trying to be this moral person as opposed to being somebody who's broken by Jesus. And then we have, uh, the, the second guy there. And that's, that's what happens to anybody who, when, when they, when they go from lost to saved and their body, this body is broken. And you see some things that are like, like spewing out a little bit and there's, there's opportunity then for the spirit to come in and for the spirit to infiltrate our being. Uh, the, the third person is, uh, is who somebody, somebody then this, this, this color, these colors of the spirit, this beauty is, is entering into the man to be somebody who is, is full of God's law and God's principles. And then, uh, we, we want to, and the struggle, like we look to the guy on the far right and we say, well, let's, let's get there. Then let's, let's do it. And the reality is the only time we're making it to this, the fourth guy is in heaven. And so until, uh, uh, you know, we're going to spend our whole lives in the first three and may, if you've, if you've made a decision to go from dark to light, uh, then, then you're spending your time in the middle to them. Uh, and you're, you're fighting and there's going to be times when you are, are magnifying the spirit working in your life. And then there's going to be times when you backslide and the spirit, you're like, man, I, I, the spirit, I don't feel the spirit's impulse. Like I used to, uh, we are going to spend as, as much, as much time in our lives in these first two, the challenge is to continue to lift up the spirit and allow the spirit room to work. We're, we're learning to live subject to a different set of powers, a different set of impulses and a different set of principles. So how do we, how do we go about doing that? I want to talk about the, the, the spirit this morning. Um, Galatians five, right after Paul talks about this, this sin, uh, the, these deep, obvious sins, he says the law of the flesh, it's obvious. And he brings it up and then he, he brings up this, uh, this law as well as this fruit rather of the spirit. He says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He says against such things, there is no law. These are, these are the gifts that we're talking about. How do we, how do we add more of, how do we, how do we remove the, this, this ugly law and add in some of the beautiful, colorful, vibrant law? How do we do that? We have to grow in our, in our, uh, in our fruits of the spirit. And that's, that's, this is, uh, this is what we're going to talk about. These are supernatural things that, that are given by the Holy spirit. Uh, you know, you can, you can do these things that you can certainly love. You can certainly have joy before, before coming to Christ. That's not, I'm not, I'm not the guy that's saying, no, there's no way there was no love before. No, you can, you can do, you can do perhaps all of these things prior to coming to Christ, but it just magnifies it. There's, there's a higher level when, when you come to Christ, like the restrictor plate of your love is totally removed. When you come to Christ, uh, the peace that you live with is, is one that transcends understanding when you come to Christ. Amen. No. And so, and so we, we had, you can find these things. The other, the other thing I want to make note of is that these things in the same way, the law, the acts of the flesh are obvious. These things, when you see them, they're pretty obvious as well. Aren't they like, you, you know, somebody in your life who is full of peace. And if, and if you, and if you don't, then, then, you know, amen. But there's people in your life, perhaps that you're like, this person is full of peace. Like you've seen the spirit working and it's not everybody. Uh, you've seen somebody who is so gentle. You know, when I think of, uh, when I think of, uh, you know, I, I'm not just saying this because they're, they're gone right now. When I think of the Stannett's or when I think of Lorene, like, I just think of goodness. Like that's from the bottom of my heart, Lorene Stannett, like, I just think, man, there's, she's a very good person. And there's people who it's easy for me to identify. Like, they're just better people than I am. Like they're like, yeah. Oh, everyone. God said, yeah, yeah. Great. But that person's, they're just, they're just a little bit better than I am. Um, and I, and Lorene is one of those people in her heart. It's like, man, she really, she, she's full of goodness. There's people again in your life. I bet you, if you looked at, and you really prayed about who are the people of love in your life, who are the people of joy in your life? When you see it, it is obvious. This is, this is the supernatural working of the Holy spirit. And so we'll go back to this image for a moment. Then I, I want to, I want to address something. Cause we look at, like we said, we sin all the time. Uh, and there's sins that there's, there's maybe you've got a lot of them. I've got a lot of them. There's a few that, that I bet you're like, you know, these are the boulders where if I removed these boulders, I'm sure there's other stuff, but I'd feel pretty free if I just removed this greed in my life. If I removed my ego, I would feel pretty free. If I removed, uh, my, my, my coarse language, if I removed this anxiety and this lack of trust in God, if I removed these things, I'd feel pretty great. Um, do you guys feel that or not? Really? I, I, I remember feeling in, uh, in, in college as I was going through it, I remember just feeling like, I know, and I remember telling people, I know I've got a lot of sin in my life. I also know that, that if I could, if I gave up, uh, like if I, if I fought through and could, if I can be drunkenness and impurity, I, I know there's other sin in my life. I just can't see past these two things. Like, these are the two that are just holding me back. And I know there's more. I even, again, I, this was a conversation. This is a prayers to God. This was, uh, talking with people that I know there's more. I'm not, I'm not even close, but I can't see, like, these are the boulders that are in my life that I just, I there's, there's pebbles, there's other rocks, there's stuff, there's a whole, there's a lot of stuff. There's some saying that I'm like, I, I don't know when I'm going to get to that, but there's going to be like, but these boulders are right here. Like if I, I cannot remove these. And when these get removed, then there's some other stuff to deal with. Perhaps in your life, uh, this morning, you've got, you've got the boulders where you're like, man, I, I really want to get rid of this stuff. These are the, these are the two, or these are the three that if you just remove them, I'm not perfect, but I'm on the way. You know what I'm saying? Like I, I I'm, I'm being filled with, uh, this, this color right here. And so this overcoming of sin, like the battle is not to just not sin. Uh, this wasn't me. This was one of my friends. Um, and he, uh, he had some great convictions. He was not, he was not awesome at conveying these great convictions. And the person he was, he sat in on a, uh, on there, there was a purity group meeting then that, um, that he sat in on and somebody, you know, the, the goal of it, you know, it's, it's young men. We're getting together. We're sharing what's going on in our lives. Uh, we're praying for one another. We're holding each other accountable. We're talking through it. Like we're doing, uh, what we hope is helpful things. We're looking to the Bible. Like we're trying to fight. And part of what we're going to talk about is promoting the spirit. Um, and he, uh, as somebody shared, like it was his first time coming and he didn't connect that, like, you know, you just shouldn't, uh, say some of these things. He said, Hey, so if you don't want to send, just don't sit. Like if you, if you don't want to look at that girl, just turn, look, look, don't do that. Like, it's not, it's not hard of you. Why are you on your phone at all, dude? And he just, he said it in such a way that I'm like, man, one I'm fired up. Like he doesn't have the same struggle that we have. Like that's encouraging. Um, on another note, uh, buddy, that's not helpful. You know, like, like I'm fighting, we're fighting, like we're trying to fight against our sin. And so the solution is not don't sin. Like if I could not sin, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here right now. Right. So, so in, in our, in our struggles though, like you think about your struggle, uh, you struggle, your struggle with gossip or your struggle, like it, it, yeah, sure. Like stop, stop talking bad about people. Great. But you've got to grow in your kindness, uh, your kindness, this fruit of the spirit of kindness. Like you have to grow, you have to grow in that. Um, you think about your, your pride or, uh, your greed. If you're struggling with, with greed, you have to grow in your peace and joy. Like you, like you're greedy. You're worried about money. You don't have, you don't have joy in your heart. There's no peace. You're worried about the next step and the next step and the next step. There's no, there's no peace there. Right. If you're, if you're, if you're angry, man, I'm mad. It's not just because somebody did something or somebody said something. You're, you're acting out of your anger. You're yelling. It's, it's, you need to, you need to grow in your gentleness. Like you need to be a more gentle person. Um, you need to promote the spirit in that way. And this, these are areas, uh, you look at your sin and there's a redefinition that I want to challenge us. It's certainly, these are things that we do that we, we've, yeah, fight it. We've got to stop. We've got to work. We got to work for it. Not because, uh, to get saved, but because, because we're living a life of saved, uh, saved Christians. Um, but I want to reframe it. Maybe you view, uh, your sin right now. Like this is stuff I got to stop doing. I want to change that. And I, I think the Bible wants to as well to say, okay, this is an area where the spirit's fruit has not taken root in your life. Um, and so you can pursue something instead of just trying to remove something, you know, removing stuff's a bit more difficult. If you, if you're pursuing kindness, you're going to find that you, you say better things about people. You think less evil thoughts about people. Uh, if you're just worried about, Oh, I can't, I can't say that thing. Uh, then you're going to struggle with it. Or, or you think about anxiety might be a great example. I don't be anxious. Don't be anxious. Don't be anxious. That's not going to work. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, uh, no, no. We're saying, let's let me, God, please let me feel this peace. I want to feel the peace that transcends understanding that you promise to your Christians. I want to feel that God, I don't feel that yet. How can I promote peace then in my life? Yeah. Can't frame sin like these do's and do nots. Uh, we're lacking what the spirit is trying to do. And so my question this morning is what areas has the spirit not yet made the impact that he needs to make in your life? What areas has the Holy spirit not yet made the impact that he needs to make in your life? And so we, we ask them like, what, what is our role in the spirit working? Like the spirit, we it's, this is a tough, another tough question. Like what's our role. We looked at, this is the problem with sin. This is like, we're trying to remove stuff, but also we're trying to add. Then if we add enough, it's going to throw off the bad stuff. And then we're like, so what, what do we do then? How I want to promote the spirit. How do I do that? Uh, well, it's a, it's a good question. Um, this is the continual striving that we're going to be on though from now until Jesus comes back. It says for by one sacrifice, listen to this phrasing. He has made perfect forever. Those who are being made Holy, this is going to be a striving, uh, for the rest of our lives. We want to get to the spot where we're number four, where we, man, I don't got any struggles anymore. Like I overcame at all. I'm there. And we're in the Bible says, we're, we're not going to be there. Why? The phrasing is incredible. It says, uh, by one sacrifice, this is Jesus dying on the cross. He has made perfect forever. So this is the absolute, this is not changing. He's made perfect forever. Those who are perfect. No, it says those who are being made Holy that's you and I. And so we are in the process then of being made Holy. Think about sit with that for a moment and think that God declares us perfect. But on this earth, we are in the process of being made Holy. This, this is something that we shouldn't run away from. This is something we just have to embrace and live in. And like, how do we promote the spirit? Then is the question. This is going to be something we're going to look at this. And then there's going to be one, uh, one, one final charge and then we'll, we'll close up. These are some ways that I think we can allow the spirits fruit to grow in our lives. Some of these are, you can view them as spiritual disciplines. Maybe these are things that you're already doing in your life, but I'll talk about them just for talking about each of them just for a moment. And the first is rest. If you look at your schedule and there's no white space or there's no empty space, um, you need to create rest. You're doing too much. Um, there's, uh, there, you know, I feel there's always more to do. I was talking to Richard and I was like, man, I was so excited. Uh, Richard and David too. I think I was like, man, I'm so, I was so excited to get done with school because then there was going to be a time when I could be done with, with work. Like I can, you know, like I'm, I'm, I'm done then, you know, like I, in school there's always more to do. There's always, I was hoping that I would get a job where I'm like, I clock in, I clock out and I'm, I'm good to go. And, uh, and I just said, ministries ministry is like school, but it's with people's salvation. Um, it's like even, it's even more than that. Like there's, there's always more to do. Uh, and, and it's even difficult because there's, uh, there's sometimes it's, it's pretty like at least school they're like, do this, uh, study for this. This is what the test is going to be on. I don't know what the test is going to be on sometimes with, with, with ministry stuff. Like, I don't know what call I'm going to get tomorrow. I don't know if I'm going to get a call. I don't know what's going to happen. Uh, I gotta create this rest. Like I'm, I'm, uh, I just, I, you have to do the same though. There has to be a time in our life of, of confession. This is, this is in, uh, you know, first John, it talks about if you, uh, if you claim to be without sin, um, you're a liar that says the spirit's not in you. Uh, the God of love is not in you. If you confess your sins, he's faithful to you. This has to be a normal part of, of your day is this daily confession. And this is, uh, since I heard this lesson, it's been something that I've incorporated even way more than probably in all of probably in all of 2024 or maybe, maybe after I heard the lesson, but the beginning part of 2024, I, I didn't just, I didn't incorporate it. Like what is confession? What's it's prayer, but it's talking about, this is my sin. God, this is what I see. This is what I did today. This was the specific thing. Not just forgive me of my sin of pride. No, no, this is, this is where I was prideful. Like, God, I just spoke up and I, I felt like a dope when I, when I, when I said that, God, just please forgive me. It's that confession. It's confession to one another. Like there should be people in our lives who know what's going on in our lives. This council is like, are you seeking input from other people? This is how we promote the, the spirit's ability to move in our lives that we, you know, a man's way seems right to him. Until someone comes and cross-examines or until someone comes and is able to tell us what the, what the spirit is actually saying. We are too close to the situation. It said, the Bible says the heart's deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it. I really believe I should do this. Well, I don't know. Have you sought any counsel about that service? Like this is, this is all, you know, this is giving to the poor. This is serving the needy. This is, this doesn't have to be something that we're like, Hey, as a church, we have, we don't have, we should, we should really organize something as a church. Okay, good. But you should, you can organize it or you can just do it and tell us, and Hey, I'm going here. You guys want to come as well? Like, of course, perhaps the church should, and I think the church should organize stuff, but, but don't wait for the church to organize stuff. If it's something that's really on your heart, like don't, man, I really believe we should do this. Okay. Maybe you do it first and then let's, let's do it together. Then after that meeting together, like we can't, I can't overstate the impact of us meeting together and being a part of something that is bigger than ourselves, giving, giving sacrificially, listening. Like we need to read the Bible. You need to listen to the Bible read. If you're, I'm not, I'm not good at reading. I lose focus, throw it on, throw it on. You can listen to a number of podcasts, but you can, you can just listen to the Bible then. Oh man, I didn't catch something the first time. Put it on 0.75 speed, listen to it three times. You're going to, you're going to know the phrases pretty quickly there. This is stuff I know in my life right now, where I just feel like my, my capacity to like understand things is not super high. And you know, I don't know if it's the kid or if it's like just life, I'm not sure. But me listening is like, let me, I'm throwing on the Bible and I'm listening to a red and I'll follow it along. But sometimes I lose focus, but I know I'm listening to it three times. Then I'll, I'll get it by the third. I hope we got to worship. This is, this is a life of worship, but this is, this is, you know, listen to worship music, like putting as much of God's stuff as you can in your day to day life. And then prayer as well. This corporate prayer for sure. And then, and then your time with God, like, are you spending good time connecting with the father and the son, the spirit through prayer? These are our ways to allow the spirit then to project and to grow. And we were going to be doing this until we die. Like we'd love to go again, guys. I, I, I wish, right. I wish we could, uh, when we went into the waters of baptism, we were the ugly, gross, fully like the, the, the silhouette in all black. And then when we came out of the water, we were just this majestic being like, like we just floated. I would love that. You would love that. Like, I hope you weren't promised that, uh, you promised the wrong thing. If you were in, in our, in our lives though, we're going to be, we're going to be, we're going to be going in the entire, the entirety of our lives is from the second guy. Who's like broken and the spirit can move in now to the third guy who the spirit's like infiltrating. We're never going to get to the fourth until we get to heaven. Uh, there's this, uh, I hope you feel encouragement that you're not alone because there's no retirement in God's kingdom. The amazing thing about, uh, about Jesus and the Holy spirit is that we can change. It gives us the ability to change it. The Romans, uh, Romans eight later on, we won't look at it. Romans eight later on. It says like you, if you, if you don't, if you're not in Christ, like you can't change, like you can, you can change your character a little bit, but, but it's not lasting change. It's not, it's not going to work for us. We have the ability to change. It's a known thing. And like the coaching community, you take players and you're like, I just know he's just, he just kind of does the same thing. Like he's just, he's just who he is. And there's, there's a lack of dynamism. Like you're not moving and changing. Let it not be said of us that we, we are the same person at 30 that we are at 40. Right. Let it not be said that we're the same. We, when we walked through, got through the waters, we're the same person. Like we struggle with the exact same stuff in the exact same way. Let it not be said of us. There's no retirement in God's kingdom. Uh, I don't know where you're at in your, uh, in your, in your, uh, in your journey. If you're on the back nine, maybe you're in the back. Maybe you got three holes left. I don't know. There's, there's no retirement. Like you can, you can be done with, uh, you can be done with work, but there's no retirement in God's kingdom. You're going to continue to work on yourself to, uh, for the spirit to infiltrate your life. Amen. Why don't we, uh, we'll pray. And, um, next week we're going to look at, uh, we're gonna look at like the, the mind's work that in overcoming, uh, the struggle against sin. Let's pray. Dear God, Lord, I, uh, God, we come, come to you and I thank you for your word. I thank you for your clarity. I pray that we will, uh, we'll lean into your Holy spirit moving in our lives. Lord, I pray that this week you, you give us opportunities to rest. You give us opportunities to pray, to confess Lord, you give us opportunities to meet and to, uh, seek counsel and to serve Lord. I pray that you will open up many opportunities for us. I pray that we'll see them when you do that. Lord, I, I, God, we, we want to be, we want to be more like your son. Um, Jesus, we want to be more like you. We want to, we, we're, we're grateful for you, Lord. It's a daunting task by ourselves. We know that it's impossible by ourselves. We know that it's just behavior change by ourselves. Lord, we want our minds to be totally transformed, uh, into who you are, into, uh, into your death and then also into your resurrection. Lord, please, uh, please continue to move in our life. Lord, please, uh, promote your spirit and promote the spirit's work in our life. Uh, this is in your name that we pray. Amen. Awesome. You guys are dismissed. Please pick up your children.