7/26/2026 Sunday morning service

The War Within, The Rescue From Above

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_00 1:19

We're going old school this morning for the first song. Um if you don't know it, you'll learn it real quick. Okay. I grew up on this one.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

There's power in the blood. Power in the blood.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Singing for us once more. Now that y'all are awake, won't you clap with us? Cause there is power in the blood. That's something we need to be excited about, right? Let's get a little bit excited. Alright, clear out your throats. Get your hands ready. Ready? We're gonna go through the forest one more time. He's still on the front, amen.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Sometimes it's good. And we stand face to face. Come in.

unknown 9:44

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Of the blood of Jesus Christ. Nothing but the blood of what can make me whole again. Nothing but the blood of dreams.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Are you glad for the blood this morning? If you notice that was kind of the theme of what we did this morning was the blood. Um we did all the blood, and we did nothing but the blood, and we did power in the blood, and we did, of course, come Jesus come, which is all about if Jesus didn't shed his blood on Calvary, then we would not have a savior that we could go to. Are you cold, honey? Oh, okay. I thought you were cold. I was like, me too. So we've come to that time where we're going to take up the offering, and as I always say, God loves a what? Cheerful giver. And if you don't want to give, that's completely up to you. You don't have to. But if you want to, if you want to worship God through your tithes and offerings, we want to give you that opportunity. So I'm going to pray this morning over our tithes and offerings. Heavenly Father God, we come to you this morning praising you, Lord, for this beautiful day that you have given to us. We thank you, God, for being you, Father, for creating us, God, and giving us the chance to worship you. As we come to this part of the service this morning, God, I ask that you might bless the offering, bless the giver, and bless those that don't give, God. I pray that we don't have a serious today. And today I'm gonna point out some hard things for some people. All right. We're gonna start out and it's gonna be kind of gloomy. All right. But we're gonna be in chapter seven and chapter eight. And I promise you, once we get through the gloom of seven, we're gonna see the victory in eight. Alright? We're gonna see the victory in eight. So if you have your Bibles this morning, turn to Romans chapter seven. Or if you have a Bible app on your phone, you can use that. Or if you just trust us, Jared back there is gonna put it on the board for us. Now, I will tell you, unexpectedly, we don't have Hoku again this week. So we're gonna have to wait for the scriptures again, okay? Hoku, I usually send my sermon early. She's popping, and I don't have to slow down to get them up on the board. But today, Jared's gonna know the scriptures as I say them, so it's going to take just a minute to get them up on the board. Now I want to ask everybody if you brought your Bibles, raise your hand. Alright? If you use a Bible app, raise your hand. Okay? Alright. I've got plenty of people in the room that do both. If you just trust me, how many? Okay. That's good too. If you want to write them down, and I have actually thought about I can make a sheet where you guys can follow along each way. You guys would like a sheet. Would anybody be interested in that? I'll make it about twenty each week that we can have it at the back door when you come in, you can get it off the table and that way you can ribble on it. You can do on it. You can do it on it instead of the offering envelopes, right? I put a question on Facebook this week. And y'all when you see those, if you're not following Lifeline Church Peter's town, please do. And when uh once in a while I'll post these little uh silly questions. And the one I posted this week said, when you were a kid, what did you used to do in church? A did you fall asleep and snore? B did you do long offering envelopes? C uh I can't rem I can't remember what all the choices were. And put it on there I do long offering envelopes now because of my ADD. And that just cracked me up. The kids are okay. All right. I hear them screaming downstairs. They're fine. If there's a problem, I'm sure they'll let us know. That's why I said that to be in. I said uh if you want to scribble, I'm gonna make a spot on those sheets just for being. That's gonna be an art section. A little art section, okay? So that you can doodle. A crossword, about a crossword. That would be a good idea. So we'll start that next week. Today we're back in Romans in chapter seven. We know that the law is spiritual. You're thinking wait a minute. This is a law. He says that the word isn't, but I am. That is how he opens it. So we're gonna stop right there. How is it a possible? He is the greatest church planter ever. He's the man that wrote most of the New Testament. He's the man that on the Damascus Road had a personal experience with Jesus. If you don't know that story, that's a wonderful story. We'll cover it a different day. Or you can look it up. He is the man that is writing everybody. It's always, always easier to point outward than it is to point within ourselves, right? It's always easier to do that. So, um, let me paint a picture for you. Let's pretend that there's a couple in the church, and y'all this isn't real, all right? This is made up. Let's pretend there's a couple in the church, and let's pretend that um maybe she is all on fire for God and she wants to serve God, so she's always volunteering and she's Always at church. She's always here. Now the husband he wants to serve God, but he's not that on fire yet. All right? He's not that on fire. So they both love God, but they're fighting the wrong battle. They're fighting the battle of who is going to be the controller of the house. So she's over here wanting to serve the Lord, wanting to be there every time the doors open, wanting to volunteer all the time. And he's over here saying, but you're never home. But you're always there. But you like those people better than you like me. All right? So they've got some tension going on. They've got some tension. Now, he says, I want things to change. I want things to change. And he's probably right in wanting some attention. All right. But every evening he is plopped in his recliner with his remote while she does everything. And he says, But I'm busy, but but I'm resting. All right? But I'm resting. So he he's pushing all of the reason for their problems onto her, and he's not seeing that he has problems of his own. All right. Now I'm not describing anybody in here. And we can flip it the other way around. Maybe the man does everything, all right? And the woman, she's all the time going out and getting her hair done or getting her nails done, and she's spending all the hard-earned money that he's worked hard to make. And she's fussing at him because maybe you need to work harder, brother. I need more money. But she's not seeing that the problem is her. So, either way, can you kind of see what I'm saying? Lots of times when we're having issues, we try to look at who's out there. All right. And a lot of people do this today when it comes to spirituality because what they say is, but the law is too strict. The law's too strict. Have you ever, and I used this example last week, I'm going to use it again this week. So you're late. You get in your car and you're traveling down the highway, and the speed limit's 55. But you're late. So you go 59. All right? And the cop pulls you over. Well, you go, but 55 is way too slow, sir. 55. This area should be a 65 mile an hour speed limit. It's wrong. The law's wrong. The law's the law. And it was a 55 mile an hour speed limit. The problem wasn't with the law, the problem was with the driver for exceeding the speed limit. You see what I'm saying? That's kind of how it is with God's law. His law is strict, his law is very strict. There's a lot of things in the law that we're told to obey. And as a matter of fact, it's so strict that nobody ever except for Jesus Christ has been able to keep the law. No one has ever been able to be perfect except for Jesus Christ. But when we sin today, we have a tendency to say, but but all right. The law was never meant for us to be able to follow it perfectly. What the law was meant to be was a mirror. A mirror. Have you ever gone and I don't know, some of you older ones might understand what I'm feeling. When I get up in the morning and I go to work inside, I'm still that 18-year-old that went to high school. I still think the same. I still look at myself the same. But when I look in the mirror, I see an older woman looking back at me. I see the gray hairs, I see the wrinkles, right? That mirror is giving me a true picture of who I really am, what I really look like. Even though in my head I think I can still run miles, and I think I can still jump, and I think I can still do the things that I used to do. My body just won't let me. And the mirror shows me I'm growing older. That's what the law is. The law is a mirror to show you where you're not measuring up. All right? The mirror will tell me, but the mirror can't fix me. Who has to fix me when I look in the mirror? Me. So if you're having a problem following the law, the law's not the problem. You need a fix. And what was your fix? Jesus. Jesus is your fix for the problems that you have in following the law. Jesus is your fix. Now, if you'll look at verse 15 with me, same same book. We're in 7, Romans 7. It says, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. Now that might take just a little bit to understand what he's saying. I'm going to read it again. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. Now let me ask you a question. How many of you, and I went through one of these spells this week. How many of you say, I've really been slacking? So starting Monday, that's all I had to say, and I saw people start grinning at me. Starting Monday, I am going to straighten up. I'm going to get my water in. I'm going to get my protein in. I'm going to be nice and smile at everybody that I see. I'm going to do what's right, and I'm going to tackle the world for the Lord. And then Monday morning you get up and you hit the snooze button. You look up and you say, But I don't feel so happy today. And before you know it, you're doing what you don't want to do. Right? I'm sure there's people in here that have done that. You do what you don't want to do. And even while you're in the middle of doing it, you're telling yourself, What are you doing? You said you weren't going to do this. Just today. I'll start tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow. So this is not some struggle that you're facing by yourself. Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament, the greatest church planter ever, he felt the same way. Why, God? I know what I'm supposed to do. And I know what I want to do. I want to do what you say. But for some reason, I don't do that. And that which I hate, which is the sin in his life, I do. And he's not understanding why that is. Why is there certain sins in our lives that keep rearing their ugly heads over and over and over again? Why do I struggle with some things that my neighbor doesn't struggle with? They go through life acting like that's not a problem for them. Well, it's not for them. But there's certain things that I have that you may not have that you struggle with. Paul had the same issue. He had the same issue. So he goes on in verse 16. He's still all sad and he's actually lamenting here, all right? And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. In other words, the fact that I feel bad for doing what I shouldn't do shows me that the law in and of itself is good. All right. The law, you shall not lie, all right, or bear false witness against your neighbor. But then something comes up and someone faces you, and you're right there, and the first thing to come off your lips. Well, yeah, but they moved the boundary line over. I mean, we always, and then here we go, we're drop dropping back into that sin. And we don't want to do it, but in the spur of the moment we do do it, but we hate that we do it. That's what Paul is talking about here. And let's go on to 17. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. Now don't misunderstand what Paul's saying here. Paul's not making an excuse, okay? Paul is not making an excuse. He's not saying, it's not me, God. I didn't do that. Because he knows, God knows. It's not an excuse. He's not saying it wasn't me, it was the sin. Have you ever heard people say, love the sin or hate the sin? That's kind of what you're doing when you do that. But God, it was the sin living in me. It wasn't me. All right? Yeah, it was you. All right? Yeah, it was. So he says, it wasn't me, it was the sin. He's identifying the source of the trouble when he says this. The source of the trouble is you. You still did it. There's something at work in fallen human nature that fights against what we know is right. Something against us when we know that it's wrong, it draws us to it. Have you ever noticed that? And so you stand with one foot on each side of the line. And we talked about this last week. We need to step back from the boundary so that we get closer to God. We don't need to get closer to the edge so that we might topple any moment. That is what Paul's trying to say here. We need to try to step back. We need to try to listen to God. We need to try to do what is right. But there are times when we can't. There's times because we're still in a fleshly body. There's times when that sinful nature gets to you and you go ahead and you take the plunge and you step over the boundary and you do the sin. And then you feel so guilty afterwards, I hope. If you're truly saved, you're going to feel guilty after you do it. So I want you to notice here. Let's do verse 18. And I'm going verse by verse this morning. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me. That is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Now these are all Paul guys here. Paul's not saying I don't want to do good. He's saying he wants to. And I would almost guarantee there's not a person in this room or that's listening to my voice this morning that gets up every morning and says, How much wrong can I do today? I would almost bet you don't do that. You don't get out of bed plotting to see how many times you can sin during the day. None of us do that. Yet we're sinners. Yet we're sinners. So Paul is saying, you're not facing this struggle alone. This is a struggle that everybody has. So something keeps sabotaging us. Something keeps sabotaging us. And that's the struggle right there. It's not always about our desire, because I desire to do good every day. Sometimes the desire, the right thing, I want to do it with everything in me. But I still find myself walking away from it sometimes. Walking away from it sometimes. Verse 19. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on doing. Does that sound like anybody in this room this morning? Sounds like me. There are certain things in my life I want I don't want to do them. I I promise myself time and time again I'm not going to do that again. God, I promise you I'm not going to do that again. And before I know it, there I jump right back into it. That's the human nature living in us. That is the sin nature that is still in us. And as long as you are in this fleshly body, you are going to fight that struggle for the rest of your days. I'm sorry. When you come to Christ, it's not a get out of jail free card. It just means you're going to have to work harder because the devil's going to be after you harder. The devil's now put a target on your back. Everything that can go wrong is going to start going wrong in your life. And you need to trust in God and stand up to the fact that the power within you is stronger than the devil. And that way you don't give in to those evil desires. But the fact still remains, just as it did with Paul here. I do not do the good that I want to do, but instead I trade that and I do the evil that I don't want to do. And it just keeps happening. Now you can hear the exhaustion in Paul's voice. I want to read all of those now in one straight read, starting at 15 through 19. So, Jared, if you'll bring them all up together, here's Paul's full conversation. I do not understand what I do. For 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 that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in my sinful nature, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on doing. Now can you hear the struggle in his voice? Can you hear the exhaustion? Can you hear the tone? Paul is really upset about this. And he's asking God, why is this? Why do I keep doing this? I want to do good, but I keep doing those things that I hate to do. Now, I want to get personal with you for a second. It's important to know that I'm not standing up here as a pastor thinking I have it all figured out. I think people forget that sometimes. I'm still living in that fleshly body just like everybody else in here is. And I have these same things. There's a battle that I've fought for a long, long time, and it's a temptation that just doesn't seem to let me go no matter what. Um if I'm honest about mine, some of you could raise your hand quietly on the inside about yours. Mine is that I want to stop the overeating, okay? But but I don't really overeat, it's the sugar that I eat, okay? So I'm trying. Sonia has tried to help me before. I keep going back to the sweet tea or the root beer or the sugary drinks. That's a struggle. So I've told God I've got to stop. And y'all, gluttony's a sin, all right? And I've told God I need to stop and I need to do better, and I need, but that's my Monday thing. On Monday, I promise this Monday, God, it's starting a new week. I'm gonna do better. And then by the end of the week, I'm feeling bad about myself again because here comes Monday again. I don't know what you're dealing with. It could be addiction to something, it could be alcohol, it could be pills, it could be grief. You're gonna promise yourself you're gonna get over the grief this week. It could be pride. I want to stop acting so prideful in the things that I do. It could be control. I'm gonna stop trying to control every single thing that happens, and you're trying to back up. But before you know it, the devil rears his ugly head and he knows it's a problem for you. So there you go. Again, doing the thing that you know that you don't want to do. That you don't want to do. Well, that's what Paul felt. That's how Paul felt. Here's the thing knowing better doesn't automatically produce better behavior. All right? Knowing better does not automatically produce better behavior. If it did, we wouldn't need Jesus. If I just decided I'm not gonna sin anymore, starting right now. And let's say I followed through with that. I wouldn't need Jesus. But the fact of the matter is, I am a human, I am in flesh, I have a sinful desire. I was born with a sinful desire. So that's never gonna happen. I will always need Jesus. So let's sit with that for just a moment. Let's go verse 21 through 23. We're gonna go through 21 through 23. Knowledge alone, people, don't solve your problem. If you know what you're doing wrong, that's good. You just gotta admit it. You have to know you're doing something wrong. But that alone is not gonna solve your problem. So verses 21 through 23. I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in me. Waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. A prisoner. That's some strong language. That's some strong language. That's not occasional, all right? It's not, oh well, occasionally, once every six months, that sin rears its ugly head, and there I go. He's saying he's a prisoner. That's a 24-7 an hour, uh 24-7 hour a day thing. Uh, it it's seven days a week. All the time you are worried that that sin's gonna rear its ugly head. So we go on to the verse uh 24. And here's where he's reaching bottom, guys. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Now you know, he said he's wretched. Wretched. Wretched. That is a strong word to use. Oh, what a wretched man I am. Have y'all ever done that? Had a pity party for yourselves? I'm horrible. They'll never like me. I'll never get out of this mess. I'll never be able to do right. I might as well just stay in my bed all the time because every time I step out, I do something wrong. That's where he was. Oh God, I am a wretched man. I'm desperate. I'm a prisoner to sin. I'm a prisoner. What can I do? I keep falling back into that same sin over and over and over again, no matter how hard I try not to. There it is. There it is right before me. I'm a wretched man because of it. What can I do? And then he says, Who will rescue me from this body? From this body. And I've already said it once or twice this morning. As long as you're in this body, you're gonna have that struggle. You're gonna have that struggle because the body is made of flesh. The body is carnal. You need to transform your mind to the spiritual. We need to learn to get closer to God so that we can walk in the spiritual and not in the carnal. I'm wretched. I need you to hear the actual word Paul chose to use here, though, because our English translation, as good as it is, it still softens this just a little bit. The Greek word he used in this verse, and y'all, I don't speak Greek. I don't pretend to. Talaeporos is how I'm guessing that you say this word. And it is a rare, violent word. It shows up only one other time in the entire New Testament, and that's in Revelation 3.17, when it describes a lukewarm church at Laodicea. A people so spiritually numb they didn't even realize how wretched that they were. It isn't a word for mild frustration or you're just having a bad day. It was used to describe the devastation of war, the wreckage left after the disaster, the exhaustion of a soldier who has been through combat and collapsed on the field, spent and broken, undone. Paul isn't whining, and he's not just being dramatic. He actually felt that way. He was being crushed underneath the sin in his life, the weight of it, wretchedness. That's how he felt. I don't know that I've ever felt that bad. But to Paul, the desire in him to do good was so strong that when he didn't, he felt wretched. He felt wretched. The weight of this verse is meant to carry that feeling. The the combat fatigue of the soul. Alright? From fighting that. Paul doesn't cry out, what rule will rescue me? What can I do? How can I be rescued from this? He's not asking that. And he doesn't say, what program can I go to that can rescue me? Alright? Lots of us tend to run run to programs. Run to the self-help aisle at the bookstore. When the Christian aisles are just usually a couple over. Right? You can read your Bible, right? What self-help book will rescue me, or what New Year's resolution can finally fix me? People do that every year. I promise when the new year comes, I'm going to lay this down or I'm going to start doing this. And we've talked about New Year's resolutions before. You don't keep them through January. The desire to change. And we are a society that wants change now. We don't want to have to work for it. We don't want to have to wait for it. We want it instantaneously. You know, when fast food restaurants first came in, that was pretty cool. You go up, you order your meal, you go around when you're at the window, they hand it to you. And everybody thought that was so neat. It was the best thing. You didn't have to cook. They cooked for you. They handed it to you in a bag and you went off and you ate it. But as a society, we have become so fixed in our mind that that fast food restaurant should be like this that the moment they say, can you pull forward for just a minute? We get angry. What do you mean, pull forward? This is a fast food restaurant. We want our answers now. Uh working in the job that I work in, I always thought that court was a all right, you go to court, everything's solved, the judge makes his order, and then you go out. When I started working in the job I'm in, I started realizing court takes a long time. They continue things, and then they continue it again. And then somebody makes a statement that something's not right and you have to refile, or you have to. Sometimes in the court process, we have had kids in our custody for over two years. Two years before they ever even think about going back. And I learned court's not a fast fix. But yet, when you watch it on law and order, they do the they do the sin, the crime, they investigate it, they get arrested, they go to court, and within an hour, everything's fixed. At the end of the show, there's your solution. Guys, real life's not like that. Do not think that when you identify something in your life that you need to change, that you're gonna say, God, there it is, fix me. And that all of a sudden you're gonna be okay. It doesn't work that way because we're in real life. And you're always gonna fight with the carnal. You're always gonna fight with the carnal. So Paul wasn't asking what self-help book or what program can I go to or what he he wasn't asking all those things. He was asking, how God can I overcome the fact that all I want to do, I'm a prisoner 24-7 to the sin that's in my life. Even though I want to do good for you, even though I desire to do good for you, why do I keep falling back into this trap over and over and over again? And y'all, if you feel that way this morning, you're in good company. You're in good company. So let's look at verse 25 of chapter 7. We're gonna start turning things around here. Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God. You notice the shift here? One verse he's crying, I'm wretched. And in the very next breath, he says, Thanks be to God. So what happened in between there? Nothing changed about his circumstances. He's still in the same circumstances that he was in. Nothing changed about the war that's going on inside of him. What changed is that he remembered who was fighting for him. He remembered who was fighting for him. This is the turning point of the whole passage that we're going over today. Paul doesn't say, Thanks be to me, I'm finally getting a hold of this. Thanks be to me, I'm finally figuring this all out and getting my act together. But rather he says, thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ. Now, watch what happens when we cross over into chapter 8, verse 1, because we're going over right now. Chapter 8, verse 1. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's not, there's reduced condemnation. It's not saying that. It's saying there's none. It's saying that there is absolutely none. Paul just spent an entire chapter describing a war he was losing. The war over sin. He spent the whole chapter. He said he was in a prison and he couldn't escape, a misery that he couldn't shake. And now he says that the verdict over his life is still not guilty. He's not guilty. And guys, if you have accepted Jesus Christ into your heart and you are truly living for him, you are truly desiring a relationship with him, and you're wanting to build that relationship, then you're not guilty. When God looks at you, he sees the blood of Jesus Christ, and you're not guilty. You're not guilty. Verse 2. We're going to talk about how. How all of a sudden is he not guilty? Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit, who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death. You've been set free. The prisoner has been released. Not because the prisoner suddenly became strong enough to break the chains himself, but because somebody with the authority to open the cell door walked in and let him out. Somebody with the authority walked in. Now let's go to verse 3 and 4. 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. So what he's saying here is the mirror example that I gave a few minutes ago. That mirror reflects back who you really are, what you really look like. The law is a mirror, it reflects where you're falling short. And I don't know what each of you guys face, but the law just reflects back to you where you're falling short. The law can't fix you, but Jesus Christ can. The law can't say, oh, well, Sally Sue, here's what the law says you're doing. Now that we've figured that out, let me fix it for you. The law can't do that. But God can say, I know you're struggling, Susan. I know you're struggling, Jeremy, but through Jesus Christ, you're still not guilty because I know your heart. I know your desires. And you're not guilty because Jesus Christ made a way for you. The moment you accept Jesus Christ into your life, you fully commit to him and you turn your life over to him. It's different. And all of a sudden, you don't have to live under the condemnation anymore because you have become a new creature through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The shed blood of Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus is the cure that the diagnosis has been pointing to all along. He didn't come to give us a better list of rules. The rules are the same. Some people say, well, there's the old testament and then there's the new testament. There still is. Some people don't like to go back and look at the old. Jesus Christ was just the fulfillment of the old. It's still there. Jesus Christ fulfilled the old. How does he fulfill it? The old shows you. The old is by the law. The old tells you what you're doing wrong. The old tells you how wretched you really are. What does the New Testament do? It introduces your cure. It introduces Jesus Christ. He came to forgive you. He came to fulfill the law. How? By setting you free from it. By setting you free from it. And that's the part I don't want you to miss this morning. It's not just that Jesus forgives you and then he leaves you to go fight the battle all by yourself. It doesn't work that way. He doesn't like wipe your slate clean and then give you a pep talk and send you out there on the field by yourself. He stays right there with you. The Holy Spirit is living right here inside you the whole time. Not visit you on Sunday when you come through the doors, but he's with you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as well. But a lot of us forget about Jesus for the rest of the week. We come and we do our duty at church on Sunday mornings, and then we try to live on that power through the rest of the week. How good does that work out for you? How many in here drive your car and only fill up on Sunday than Sunday? Do y'all do that? How many of you come in here and you get full? Monday you do pretty good. Tuesday, Wednesday, you're back to your old self and you're you're doing the sin and you're fighting the struggle and your mood starts going down. And guys, this is because you need Jesus every day. You need a relationship with him every day. This culture, as we know it, have turned things around to where we live our life during the week and we make time for Jesus on Sunday. That's not how it's supposed to work. You're supposed to live your life for Jesus all the time and make room for everything else. Have you noticed that sports usually now are on Wednesdays or Sundays for kids? Have you noticed that? They will have their soccer games or their little basketball games, and it's always Saturdays and Sundays and Wednesdays. And I don't I don't understand that. The only answer I have for that is somehow Satan has wormed his way in to people. I'm not saying it makes them Satan. I'm saying his influence has worked his way in to where church has become something we attend if we feel like getting up, if we're not going to the lake, if the kids don't have a basketball game that week. Y'all, church should be something that you come to before you do everything else. Am I saying never take a week off? No, that's not what I just said. So don't twist that. I'm saying when your habit is not church first, you will fight the devil stronger than you ever have. You have to put Jesus Christ very top in my life. Jesus comes before my husband. A lot of couples have problems with that because you want to be the number one thing for your spouse. Y'all, God's first. And I better not ever hear him say that I'm before God in his life. I wouldn't want it that way. When you have your spouse, God should be the first thing that they want. You are next. And ladies, this is a hard one. But your children need to come after your husband. Do you hear me? Next in line is that spouse. Your children come next. And lots of times the fights get started because we put the children before we put the spouse. But you know, that the marriage is is a is a court of three. God, the husband, and the wife. If you don't have it in that order, God, the husband, and the wife, everything starts falling apart. And then you have the kids. And you as a couple need to take care of those kids together. Alright? And not put them above your spouse. So if you remember the illustration I gave you earlier of the person that wanted to change the marriage, but they were looking in the wrong place, pointing fingers instead of dealing with their own heart. Paul in Romans 7 wanted to change his life too. All right? He wanted to change his life too. And for a while, he was looking in the wrong place as well. At his own effort, at his own willpower, at his own knowledge of the law. Guys, I want you to know the Bible. I want you to read the Bible. I want you to know it inside and out. Even the devil knows the Bible. He probably knows it better than anybody else. But I want you to have the knowledge so that when the devil comes against you, you know where he's telling you the truth and where he's not. Because the devil will lie to you. He will try to pull you away. Think back to Adam and Eve in the garden. God said, You can eat any tree in this whole garden, just not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well, first of all, he set a boundary. So what do you do when you get a boundary? You start wanting to ease closer to it. Right? You want to get have you ever told your kids not to do something? Well, they are now bent on doing it or else. They're gonna do it. They're gonna do it. You say don't. We use reverse psychology on ours sometimes. Well, don't. Don't do it. But mom, I want to do it. No, you said you didn't, so don't do it. And now, because I say don't do it, they're gonna do it or die. So God said, Don't eat from that tree. So the devil slithers his way in. And and he doesn't come right out and say, uh-uh, eat it. He comes out and he says, Surely he didn't say that. Surely he didn't say that. Do you think maybe the reason is because he don't want you as smart as he is? So it starts by the devil putting suggestions in your mind. Surely one more time doing that sin's not going to hurt you. You've done it 50 times last week. What's one more gonna do? That's the kind of language that he uses. You've got to learn when he's trying to come against you so that you can call on the name of Jesus Christ and push him away. You've got to know so that you can call on Jesus and forcefully push him away. Push him away. And you do that not by coming just on Sunday mornings. You do that by making church your life. Jesus Christ your one, your the top in your life. And then everything else starts falling into place. Romans 8, 5. Those who live according to the flesh have their mind set on what the flesh desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. So it says, has your mind set? Have your or their mind set. This isn't a one-time decision. I'm not going to be able to wake up on Monday and say, I have decided that this week I'm living for Jesus. My mind set on the good this week. Because by the time I get out of bed and get to work, evil is already trying to press itself in. By the time I get to work, there's this one thing, and if I find it, guys, I'll post it. You'll see it on my page. But it was Tweety Bird. I like Tweety Bird. And the prayer went something like, Lord, this day is awesome. I woke up, I hear the birds chirping, everything's fresh and new. I'm just loving this day. I have thought of nothing but you. I'm going to have the best day ever. Now, Lord, when I get out of bed this morning. Tweety Bird was saying that while he was in the bed, but he knew the second his feet hit the floor that the devil would be after him. That the devil would be after him. And that's how we need to think. We need to get ready for the battle. We need to prepare for the battle that's going to come. And how do you prepare for the Bible? You read the word, you pray, you develop the relationship so that when all of a sudden the trouble comes, it's no longer, oh gosh, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know. If you are in the habit of going to Jesus, that's your first reaction. If you know the word, you know how to fight back with Scripture. You know what the Word says about you. Here's one thing that I do. And I've been working on this. God and I have been talking a lot the past couple weeks over this. I like my phone. Do y'all like your phones? Yeah? So I always keep my phone with me. My husband even says sometimes, if you'd stop looking at the phone and look up once in a while, okay? I like to scroll through Facebook and see what everybody's doing. Y'all ever creep Facebook just to see what people are doing? But I like the games. And I had downloaded like 10 games to my phone. And I found myself starting to crave those games. When I was at work and I took a break, gosh, I have a couple minutes to play Candy Crush. All right? And it got to the point where at nighttime I was staying up till two and three in the morning, not getting the rest I needed to go to work because wait, just one more level. One more level. Let me beat one more level and I'll put it down. I'd beat it one more and then I'll put it down. Guys, I finally had to make the decision and cut it off. I deleted every game off my phone. Now you say, well, isn't that a little drastic? Now what are you going to do? The first night was hard because I looked at the TV and thought, this is dumb. I didn't want to watch the TV. I didn't want to try to go to sleep. But it my mind kept going back, I can just play it just one time. Just one time. If you think that drugs and alcohol is the only thing you can get addicted to, think again. Think again because that was hard. Have you ever gone to the bathroom and forgot your phone? And wondered what you're going to do when you get there? Because you don't have your phone with you? What'd they do before phones? And that's just being real. That's just being real. How many of you do not take your phone to the restroom? I had one hand raise. Two. Yeah, you do too. He don't anymore. I got on to him once in youth group. He he went to the restroom, and here I'm telling, I'm sorry, but he went to the restroom and he's gone and he's gone and he's gone. I thought, well, is Travis okay? So I went to the door and he's watching some video. I could hear it blaring through the door. I said, Travis! And I said, I'm gonna count you absent for youth if you don't get out here. So now, and it is so funny. When he goes to the bathroom, he hands me his phone first and he says, Well, you watch this while I go to the bathroom. Yeah, I'll watch it. But but you see what I'm saying? We can become so addicted to something that before we know it, it's taken the place of those things we should be doing. And number one on our list is serving God, and it was getting in the way. So I had to take the drastic step. But do you think I thought of that all on my own? No, I prayed, God, what can I do? And I was led. I was led. Get rid of the games. It's really kind of simple, Carla. But Jesus Christ is the one who pointed out that that had become the idol that I was currently focusing all of my attention on. Now I'm one of the worst offenders because I like to pick it up. And I do this all the time too. I'll say, Brian, I need to text Allison and ask her something. So I'll pick up my phone. And 45 minutes later, he goes, What did she say? I was going, I go, what? He'll say, What'd she say? And I went, I was supposed to text Allison. I completely forgot. Somehow I've gotten to a video of a possum washing cotton candy on the Facebook. Then I'm thinking, how did I get to this? What did I do? What rabbit hole did I fall in? Right? Worst offender, but guys, I've been doing better. I've been doing better by the power of Jesus Christ. When I want it, I pray or I read. And that's what's replacing it. And that makes it stronger. That makes the relationship stronger with God. I'm not saying that you have to pray theological prayers. I got tickled at Madison when she was up here singing. And downstairs, they didn't know yet that they were coming up to sing. And Madison said, I'll lead the prayer today. And Madison probably leads prayer down there sometimes. And Caseon does sometimes, Hudson does sometimes. But once she got up here in Big People Church, she was like, Oh, no, I don't want to. Because that's just a natural reaction. When we think other people are going to hear us do what we're doing, all of a sudden we clam up, don't we? When you pray, it's just you and Jesus. It don't have to be theological. Pray continually all day long. And you say, Well, how can I do that? I'll get nothing else done. Here's how you do it. I'm at work. I'm asked an important question by one of the people that I supervise. Maybe it's a controversial question. What do I do before I ever answer? God, give me wisdom. That was a prayer. That's all I said. That was a prayer. The way you pray continually is in every circumstance you face, it could just be three words. Jesus, help me. That's a prayer. Start building that relationship. Start practicing. And you say, well, if you truly love God, you shouldn't have to practice. Guys, you have to practice everything. And once you do it for about 21 days, it'll become a habit for you. So you're saying, get in a habit? Yes. Set you aside some time. Read at that time every day. Get in a habit of doing it. Then if you ever have to miss it, you'll see. You'll really miss it if you miss it. You'll have to go and do it. You've got to get in the habit. But in closing this morning, I've said all of that to say. Do not think that there's something wrong with you if you struggle with sin. There's nothing wrong with you. Paul struggled with sin. Do not think there is anything wrong with you if you say, but I'm going to have a good day. Peter promised he'd never leave Jesus. And then that night when he was standing there and they said, Are you with this man? No, not me. So even the strongest, most influential people in the Bible, they understood what you're going through. You're not facing anything any different than what they went through. And we look at them as stand-up heroes, right? Abraham, when they went into a new city and the people came up, and who is this woman with you? And he was afraid to say it's my wife because he was afraid they'd kill him so that they could have her. He said, It's my sister. Even the greatest people in the Bible, they were people just like you and I. They struggled with sin just like you and I. You're going to struggle, church, and you're going to struggle every day. I'm sorry it is a 24-7 prison. Sometimes it feels like it feels like you're wretched, but know that Jesus Christ is the answer. And if you have truly accepted him into your heart, if you have truly accepted him into your life, the Bible says that nothing can take you from his hand. Nothing can. But yourself. You can choose to walk away. But you are safe and you are secure in the palm of Jesus Christ. If you've given your life to him, pray and ask him for help. Pray and ask him for help. Because you're safe and secure there. As long as that's where you want to be. So this morning, if you will, stand for me. If you'll bow your heads for just a minute, close your eyes. I'm going to say something pretty harsh here. And I want every one of you to know I love you. When we do praise and worship, sometimes I'll look out into the people standing, and instead of praising God, it looks like you're standing in a DMV line. And you're just kind of standing there. No smiles, no excitement, no hands raised. No. Guys, we're talking about the God that saves you, the God that's going to take you to heaven, the God that split the Red Sea. And you're just standing there. There's no praise in you. Guys, you will get out of it. What you put into it, he's not going to come in and force his way into you. He's not going to make you enjoy praise and worship. You have to put forth the effort. And I open up these altars all the time. And I'll say, if you have any issues in your life, come forward. And guys, I know that everyone in here's life is not so perfect that nobody ever has an issue they need to bring before God. That's just unreasonable. But you stand there like I've asked you to go skydiving. All I'm asking you to do is to come and let people pray with you to help you through the week. I want you to think on those things this week. When I open this altar, it should be full of people. And if you have no issues this week, go ahead and start praying for next because they're coming. But before you can enjoy any of that, you have to be saved. So the first thing I'm going to ask is if you've never given your life to Jesus and you want that kind of power in your life to help you make it through life, to help you through your each and every day activities, I want you to raise your hand and put it right back down. Okay, I see those hands. You can put them down. Now, let's say that you have accepted Jesus into your life. You've accepted Jesus into your heart, but you haven't exactly put him first. There's issues that you have, there's things that you're dealing with, and you want this morning to get rid of all that, give it to Jesus. Raise your hand. Yes, all over the room. All over the room. And I see it. I'm going to pray for you now. Heavenly Father, God, I come before you this morning. And I bring all of these hands that were raised. And not just them, God, but people that probably should have risen their hand, but they didn't. God, I pray for everybody. Help us, Lord, to have a desire to put you first. Help us to know, God, that we're not any different, that we don't face any sins that other people don't face, that nothing is harder for us than it was for other people. Let us know that even with Paul and with Peter, with Abraham, God, we're in good company when we say that sometimes we feel wretched because we do what we don't want to do. God, today I'm asking you for strength for each and every person in this room. That they will be able, God, to face this week with the boldness that they have of being a son or a daughter of the living God. That their sins are washed away by Jesus Christ. And help us, God, to pray continually and call on you for all things. We love you. Help us, Father, and give us a renewing in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, if you will sit down for just a second. And y'all, I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to get my drink, my mouse dry. This evening, six o'clock youth. This evening, six o'clock is youth. Y'all invite all the youth, you know, to come, okay? They have a good time on Sunday nights. Um, it usually runs though for two hours about ish. About two hours, six to eight-ish. Um they run over sometimes. I don't know if you're ever under that. I think you're pretty much right at that every time. Um, so youth tonight at six. Um I will not be in town this week. I'll be going out of town, so nothing on Tuesday night. Um, Wednesday night will be kids and youth at six o'clock and women's and men. Now, I was going to cancel women's because nobody was really coming. It's summer, but we had three show up last week for women's after I'd canceled it. So I'm gonna go ahead and be prepared in case we have women on Wednesday. Women will do a Bible study. Not this Wednesday, women, I won't be here, but starting next Wednesday, we'll start women's back. And if you guys want to come Wednesday night while the kids are playing and doing their thing and having youth, we'll be up here doing some Bible study. Um nothing Thursday, Friday night, celebrate recovery. 5 30 is a hot meal, 6 30 is the um is the group. Now we've got the back to school bash coming up, August the 8th. All right. I need helpers, and I need helpers that will be here with bells on, ready to help us set up, work, and take down. If you can help at all during that day, raise your hand for me. Okay, we've had about 15 raise their hand. Um I will be getting in touch with you this week at some point to see what it is you would like to do to help invite people. This is gonna be a great day. It's a good outreach for the community. Uh, we're gonna have fun. We're it's gonna start at 5 and we'll have it until 8, and then we're gonna move back here and we're gonna set up a movie screen and we're gonna watch Soul Surfer when it gets dark, okay? Uh pray for good weather. If it's not, we'll just move the movie in here. So, any questions before we go? Everything good? All right. Um, Brian, will you dismiss us this morning?