When Sin Becomes Utterly Vile

One of the things that helps us forgive people is sometimes when we see the debt that we've been forgiven. A lot of the time we forget that one of the greatest dangers of self-righteousness and even division between brothers and families is we have one person who's right and the other person who's wrong. And you have one person who's wrong or they're right and the other person is wrong and there can never be unity and it's a factor that has played out in many churches and in Christianity for a long time. But it first starts in the home, it first starts with you individually and then it goes down to the children and it can get into the church and this is how the devil works. He justifies you in one position while the other person is wrong. And so a lot of the time we forget that we also need to ask for forgiveness too and many times we don't see the magnitude of the debt that we've been forgiven versus that. So whenever we get light on ourselves, I always have tremendous forgiveness towards people. It doesn't matter what they do to me because I know that I've been forgiven so much. It doesn't matter. But when I don't have light on myself and I'm doing very well, sometimes spiritually, when somebody does something to me, I have a really tough time letting go of that situation. And so the Lord sometimes brings us full circle and allows us to go through things and it gives us the grace to be able to forgive other people. Because a lot of the time we don't see what we have between the Lord. The Lord sometimes wants to expose that. I remember my twin brother Doug, he was addicted to crack cocaine and he was living on the street. My twin brother Doug was a big man. He's short, he was about 6'3", he's short in comparison to me, but he's short, he's the shortest in our family. But he's about 6'3", and he weighed, in a good day, about 250, 260, and he was always, he's my twin brother. He's always been the tougher twin. So whenever there was an argument, no matter what, just for the sake of peace, I was just saying, please forgive me, please forgive me, even if I was right. So anyways, long story short, you know, he would, he always had a very strong will, right? And so I remember when he was addicted to these drugs, even my dad would get into these big arguments, and it was never good. My dad would not physically abuse him, but he would, you know, there was a lot of verbal abuse there and a lot of anger because my brothers, you know, and us, we would lie to my dad and we would go and do things that weren't good. So he was living on the street, he weighed about 140 pounds, he was pretty much skull and bones. And I remember him telling me one day, I said, well, what changed in you that brought you to a point where you could do this? And he says, you know, I used to really struggle with bitterness towards dad, towards him. And I just could not forgive him for what he had done. And then I remember on the street crying out to the Lord saying, well, what do I do? And the Lord said, you need to write your dad and ask him for forgiveness. And he really struggled with that. He was like, how am I supposed to ask him for forgiveness when me and him have this situation in our life? And so he finally decided, he wrote a letter to my dad and called him. I don't know if he wrote a letter or called him, but he said the moment he humbled himself and asked for forgiveness from my dad, he said he could feel the drug addiction break on him. He literally could feel it, the moment he humbled himself. And he doesn't understand why, but he says, after that, he says, I never did drugs again. It was amazing. The moment he asked my dad for forgiveness was when the Lord set him free because he didn't see his own situation. All he could see was all the wrongs that his dad had done to him, but he couldn't see that he also owed a debt. And when he humbled himself, that was when it brought peace in his own life. And the Lord released him from the tormentors, the powers of darkness, the drug addiction. And so we don't see it a lot of the time, why we stumble, why we fall, why it's difficult. It's because in our lives, we become self-righteous and proud, and we don't see that we, too, need forgiveness. I want to share a few verses here in Matthew chapter 10. You know, one of the things when I first got born again is, I'm an evangelist, and I love to share the gospel with people. So I remember me and my buddies, we bought some blankets and said, we're going downtown Hastings. And we're going to get right down there. We're going to hand out some blankets, and we're going to just preach the gospel to these guys on Hastings. That's what we're going to do. So I remember we stood on the corner. I don't know if you guys have ever driven through downtown Hastings, but it's crazy. So you go down there, and it's at night, too, where it's there, the drug dealers all on one side, and all the addicts. So we're there, and I have received just so much forgiveness from the Lord. Like, I just want to share this with people that God can forgive them of their sins. But a lot of them don't want to hear it. They don't want to receive forgiveness of sins. You want to know why? Because they have no sin. They have no sin, and so they will not receive the gospel. This is why the gospel is so opposed throughout the world, because Jesus came to save sinners. And it's hard for people to acknowledge that they've sinned. And so why aren't we experiencing the salvation of God? It's because we haven't got light on ourselves that we're sinners and in need of God's grace and His mercy. And so I'm down there, and we're down there, and I'm sharing the love of God. I'm telling them, Jesus loves you. Like, that's all I have to say, is because I know that I've experienced the love of God. And I'm serious. Like, after an hour of just meeting people individually, Jesus loves you. Like, God loves you. He wants to forgive you, man. He set you free. He set you free. Like, He loves you. I'm telling you, it was me, and we're on one side of Hastings, and on the other side of the street, it's me, him, and one other guy. There's three of us, and we're all standing there, and there literally is not one person on our side of the street. Everybody is on the other side of the street. I'm talking the drug dealers, the addicts, they are all over. There's probably 150 people on that side of the street, and there's literally just us three on this side of the street. And my buddy's like, he was like, where did everybody go? He's like, they're all over there. And you could literally see the spiritual darkness keeping them from coming to life. There was literally us three on one side of Hastings Street. If you've ever driven down it, they're usually strewed on each side of the street. There's tents. Literally every single person was on the other side of the street, and they're all standing there, and they're all looking at us. And I'm just sitting there like, man, this is amazing, Lord, like, how this happens. Why do they come to a point where they can't receive the gospel? It's because in their hearts, they themselves need forgiveness. They themselves need to acknowledge that they've sinned and fallen short. This is how you keep unity in a church. You have one camp who can sometimes say on one side, that person over there needs to ask for forgiveness, but they get no like on themselves. And it may be right. That person may need to ask for forgiveness, but at the same time, these people also need to ask for forgiveness. And this is how you sometimes can maintain unity amongst brothers. You can maintain unity amongst the fellowship. I remember one night, this brother, he had been giving me a really hard time, and I didn't say anything. Like, in my mind, I was just releasing it, and I remember the Lord, He gave me a dream one night, and I was supposed to go and talk to Him and tell Him the things that He was doing in the world. And I remember wrestling with it for a couple weeks, and I remember asking my wife, and this is the wonderful part of how God puts two people together, is because you can have two sides of the coin, because I can only see in part, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm always right. And you know what? My wife, she can see in part, and guess what? You know, she's right too, but you know what? She's able to say things to me that make me think about where my understanding is, what I'm thinking might not be accurate, and that's why the Lord puts two of them together, so you can balance each other out. If you just have one side of the coin, and you don't have the other side, you become an imbalanced body, you become an imbalanced couple, and you need that. And so there I was, and I remember seeing that, and I shared with my wife, I don't even know what to do, I just, I want to forgive this person, they're a Christian, they want to do this, and I'm wrestling with it. And my wife said, well, maybe the Lord gave you that dream, because He wants you to tell that person that what they're doing is wrong, because the Lord, He wants to get their attention. He wants to speak to that person. He wants them to know that what they're doing is wrong. Maybe they don't have light on it, and maybe they need to know. And so I went to the person, and I told them, and I said, this is what I think you've been doing wrong, and I think you need to, just so you know, it's not right, it's wrong. And then I left it at that, and after that, I had relief in my heart, I knew that what I'd said was the truth. I said it in love, and if you love a brother, what do you do? You speak the truth to them. If you see your brother or sister going astray, what do you tell them? You tell them the truth. I remember one time my wife, she even exhorted me, she said, you know, you're so focused on all of this stuff, that you're forgetting about your priorities. What's more important? The most important thing is the Lord, but your family is second, then your job. Not your job, then this, it's your family. And so we can say, okay, Lord, in this situation, you know what, I knew what she was saying was right, she was exhorting me to speak the truth to me. And so the Lord was allowing it to give me light on myself, but at the time, I didn't see that. In my mind, I'm working and providing for my own, I'm providing for my family, so I'm doing the right thing. But it wasn't necessarily the right thing. But in my mind, I thought it was right. And so we need light on ourselves to be able to understand, hey, like, maybe I don't see perfectly, and maybe I'm thankful that I have brothers and sisters in my life who can speak the truth to me. I have a boss, and I have employees, and you know what, sometimes my employees, they stand their ground with me, because I only see as a boss sees, and do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. But you don't see that they are doing this, this, this, and this, plus all this, this, this, and this, and they actually need to say something to them. And it's good for an employee to actually voice those things to their boss sometimes to say, hey, there's this situation, this needs to be dealt with. And when I understood that, I actually respected it, because they stood their ground, they didn't do it in a wrong way, they did it in the right way. So it's okay to speak the truth in love in situations. And in fact, sometimes the Lord wants you to do that, to be able to release the bitterness and the frustration in your heart. If you don't do that, you will wrestle with it for weeks, months, years, you will. And if you never say anything about it, it will still be a wrestle in your heart. It's okay to voice what you are struggling with. It's okay to do that. And the Lord can work in those situations. I'm not speaking maybe all, I'm speaking very much in a natural sense here, so you guys can understand it's okay when you're struggling with something to speak that to your brother. It's as if your brother sins, what do you do? You go and you tell your brother, and if your brother listens to you, you have won your brother. So that's an interesting thing. He may not agree with it, but at least he understands that this was the thing that hurt you. There was times where people would tell me that what you said, Dan, hurt me. There was a time where people would say that, and it made me question, you know what, maybe I did say that in a wrong way. You know what, maybe I was wrong. And you know what, it humbled me, but it gave me light on myself, and I'm grateful for that. Because what would you do without brothers who can help you, to help you to understand that maybe you are going in the wrong direction, maybe you are thinking in a wrong way, maybe you are not acting in a right way. Guys, you should be grateful if a brother calls you to tell you something, an exhortation, so that you can be kept safe, so that you can realize that maybe I do need to question the direction that I'm going. There's a purpose that God puts a body together. There's a purpose that God puts a husband and wife together for that. There's a purpose that God puts even church eldership, or people who are in leadership together. Why? Why does he do it? So you can have every perspective, because God desires that we would be balanced. He desires that we would grow together in truth, and that we would become mature. It says that we are supposed to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit until when? Until we become a mature man. Some of us are struggling with being mature. We are young in the faith. Maybe we're learning to walk, maybe like a baby. My son Cameron, I mean, he walks, he falls down, he hits his head, and he gets back up, and he's learning to walk. And you know, he cries, and we just pick him up, and in the same way, we too are learning to walk, you guys. We're learning to walk. We're learning to grow as a body. We're learning to grow as Christians. We're learning to grow as husbands. We're learning to grow as wives. We're learning to grow as brothers. This is literally what the Lord is trying to teach us, so that we can be a good testimony, and so we need each other to be able to grow and move forward as a body. We do. And we need to be thankful for those brothers who sometimes maybe speak something that are a little bit challenging for us, that's offended us, but maybe we're so strong in what we believe that we need that strong word so we will actually stop and think about what we're doing. Sometimes the Lord puts those people in your path for a reason, because it's for your safeguard. I heard recently a guy told me, he says, you know what, a brother, some of the brothers are, you know, they're saying, you know, that when a certain brother preaches that, you know, that it makes them question their salvation, and they're feeling very uncomfortable about their salvation. And I said, well, I think it's a very good thing if you question your salvation. The Bible says that we're supposed to test ourselves to see if we are the faith. We're supposed to examine ourselves. I mean, there is a security in Christ when you're walking with Him, but if we're not walking with Christ and we're doing our own thing, we should be questioning which path we're going on. In fact, the devil's job is that he would get us to go down a path that's lukewarm. He would get us to go down a path where we have division. He would get us to go down a path that doesn't help us become effective for the Lord so that we can't be useful to Him. He gets us to go down a path where we love the world and all the things that are in the world. He gets us to go down a path where we love money, or even gets us to go down a path where we become self-righteous. This is what he wants to do. He wants to get us off-track lies so that we could not be effective for the Kingdom of God. We will become useless. And I would rather have somebody challenge me through the Gospel, through their message, and make me question how I'm doing spiritually in the Lord. Because I don't know about you, but it says in Christ, He is the life. And if we're missing the life of Jesus in our life, then we should be questioning where our relationship is at with Jesus. Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. And I don't know about you guys, but I want the life. I want the life of Jesus. I don't want to be a dead Christian. I don't want to be useless in His Kingdom. I want to be somebody who's walking with Him daily and has the presence of God in His life. Look at what it says here in Matthew chapter 10. Actually, before we turn to Matthew chapter 10, let's turn to John chapter 20. These disciples had, Jesus had just died, John chapter 20 verse 19, and they had gone and they were hiding in the upper room because they were fearful of the Jews. They didn't want to, it was a difficult situation. Their Savior had just died. It almost had seemed like He was gone out of their life. And they had just heard from Him that He is the resurrection and the life. They had walked with Him for so many years. They had seen the power of God and the miracles. They'd seen all these wonderful things happen, and now He's dead. And now they're afraid that they too might die, that they too might be suffering. It says right here in verse 19, when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, peace be with you. I don't know about you guys, but I want Jesus to stand in our midst and let Him say, peace be to you. You know, sometimes a lot of us are struggling with unrest. We're struggling with unrest. We're struggling with fear. We're struggling with anxiety. God is bigger than all our problems. He's bigger than all our fears, brothers. He is. Sisters, we can come to Him with those things and He can give us peace. He can give us peace. And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands in His side, and the disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. And Jesus therefore said to them again, peace be with you. First it was peace be with you, and the second one, He says it again, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. You know, the Lord, He's the minister of peace. He's called the Prince of Peace. If you don't have peace in your heart, then you need to search your heart. You need to get right with the Lord. You need to find out why there's no peace and rest in your heart. Maybe your eyes have gotten off of Him on every other thing. You need to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, because the mindset on the Spirit is what? Life and peace. But the mindset on the flesh is death. And every single one of us has tasks, we have goals, we have ambitions, but if they are not surrendered to Christ, you will not have peace. You will not have rest. You need to surrender your will, your life, your ambitions, your desires to His will. And when you're in His will, you will have peace. The disciples here were scared for the Jews. They were fearful, and they were locked in their upper room, and they were hiding. Some of us here would say, well, those brothers aren't very bold. They need to go out there. Well, no, they weren't. They were afraid, and it's okay. In this situation, they were afraid. And what does Jesus do? Instead of coming to them and maybe rebuking them, what does He say? He says, my peace be with you. Peace be with you. Have rest. And when He said this to me, breathed on them, and He said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. And it says right here, if you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them. But if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained. It's amazing that in this situation, He says, if you forgive the sins of any, they're forgiven. But if you retain them, they're going to be retained. They're not going to be forgiven. And I thought about this, and I said, well, what does that mean, Lord? I thought you desired that all men would be forgiven. And you know what? I think the Lord can see the hearts of men. When a man is truly repentant and sorrowful over the things that they've done, and they see that they're sinful, and they have need of a Savior, guess what? Their sins will be forgiven. Because they know that what they've done is wrong. And that's where we need to have that attitude. This will produce unity amongst us sometimes, is when in our hearts, hey, there's something that I did wrong there. Forgive me. You know, Brother Allen shared, and I love it, what he shared. He says, the devil will always remind you of something that somebody did to you 15 years ago. He even goes so far as to say that, you know what? He'll even remember you, what they were wearing, where you were, what time of day it was, what season it was. And it's so true. You always remember it, and it's always the devil reminding you of it. But the Holy Spirit will come. Sometimes with me, when I do those things, he'll come and he'll say, Dan, but what about this, Dan? What did you do in that situation that may have caused that offense? Is there anything that you did wrong there? Sometimes I will say, no, there isn't. You know what? The Lord will keep pressing me, and he will show me that what I've done is wrong. But it says here that he says, if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained. You know, it's interesting that the Lord desires that all men will be saved, but the devil does such a good job of producing self-justification and self-righteousness in their own eyes that they will never have humility and have need of a Savior. That's why there's so many religions in the world. It's in their hearts to become spiritual. And why are there so many religions? Because those religions are based off, if you do all these bad things, if you do good works, it will outdo the bad things. In fact, most religions, except for Christianity, all of them say, if you do more good things than bad things, your sins will be undone, you will be forgiven. But Christianity is the only religion that says it does not matter how many good works you do, you will not be acceptable for God. You need to humble yourself and acknowledge that you've sinned. And you know what you do when you do that? It takes away all self-righteousness. And I'm telling you, everyone will appear better than you at that point. You will be called the chief of sinners in their own eyes. You will say, I'm worse than you. I am worse than you because of God's mercy to me. He has shown me so much more and more again how I've fallen short, but yet he's still merciful to me. He's still encouraging to me. And he's still causing me and wanting me to walk in victory. And that's why so many people refuse the gospel of Christ, because in their hearts, they're justified, because their good deeds today were better than their bad deeds. And that's why it's so hard for us to humble ourselves, because we want to appear righteous. And who cares if we appear righteous before men? We need to appear righteous before God. And so those men, their sins will be retained. Jesus said to the Jews, he says, unless you believe that I am he, unless you believe that I am he, your sins will remain. Your sins will remain. But if you believe that I am he, your sins will be forgiven. And so we need to humble ourselves and acknowledge, man, there's nothing good in my flesh. Look what it says here in Romans 7. We always have a battle of the flesh and the spirit, brothers, sisters. It's always there. Romans chapter 7, Romans chapter 7 verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would have not come to know sin except through the law, for I would have not known about coveting or lusting if the law had not said, you shall not covet or you shall not lust. This can be a lust for anything. It can be a lust for a person. It can be a lust for the world. It can be lust for money. It's a coveting. It produces in it. And the only way that you can see that you're sinful is when the law came. So sometimes it feels like God's law is coming upon you. Why is it? Because God wants to expose some sinful desire that's in your heart. You shall not rebel. And yet in our heart, it produces all matter of rebellion. What happens when you go to even a recovery house? You go there and they have all of these rules. What do those rules produce in them? It produces in them every manner of desire to break those rules. You want to. Why? Because the Lord is trying to show you something about something that's in your members. And it says right here, but sin, the thing that's in your members, sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting or lusting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead. So when the law came, they were doing just fine. But when the law came, the word of God came, the preaching came, it produced in them a manner of desire that they wanted to rebel. They wanted to sin. They wanted to do what was wrong. Because the Lord was trying to show them that that sin was still living in them. It was still alive in their members to show them that they are sinful, to show them that they have need of a savior. That's why the law came. That's why there's so many religions. The law even is based off a lot of those religions. Do good works. Don't lie. Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't murder. Don't do all those things. And if you do those things, you will enter life. That's what it says. But the law came so that it would show them that they have coveting, that they have lust. Because there's one commandment out of those 10 commandments that shows them that they are full of lust. They're full of coveting. And God is trying to deliver them from that. And it says right here, and I was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me. It's true. The moment the commandment came, you shall not lust. What does it produce in you? Just so many thoughts in your mind. It just bombards your mind. It bombards your mind. Don't love money. Man, you just constantly struggle. Dan, don't covet that house. I'm telling you, I scroll through every house that you can look at and I'm still not satisfied. It produced death in me. I'm telling you it's true. It's the Lord showing me that there is still sin in your life and you need saving from that. It's wrong. It says for sin, taking opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it, it killed me. The sin through the commandment produced in me every manner of evil desire and it deceived me and it produced spiritual death in my life. Why did it do that? Look what it says right here, verse 12. For then the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore, did that which is good become a cause of death for me? No, may it never be. Rather, it was the sin in my life in order that it might be shown to be sin. So this is how we see that we have sinfulness in our life. God speaks to us and puts a conviction in our life. The law comes and it produces in us a manner of every evil desire. It shows that we have further cleansing that needs to come and this law which we thought was bad is actually a good thing. It's actually a good thing because it's showing that there's sin in my heart and I need deliverance and I need a savior. That's why it comes. That's why we preach the gospel because it produces conviction in their life. Do you know that there's no offense given when you talk about Buddha, Muhammad, you talk about Krishna, you talk about all the gurus, you talk about these things with people and they will say these were good people. We're a good people too. But when you say the name Jesus, it produces some sort of anger in their heart, a hostility, even sometimes with Christians. I can have Christians in there and they talk about God. When you talk about God, there's no offense. But when you say Jesus, oh, they get mad. Yes, why? Because it's for showing them that there's sin in their life. Life has shone in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it and they don't want to come to the light. Why? Because their deeds are evil. And instead of coming to the light, they do all these good deeds so that it looks like they're good in the sight of men. We can't settle for that, guys. That's not Christianity. We don't need to look good in the sight of men. We need to look good in the sight of God. And the only way that that happens is if we have a right relationship with them. And the only way to have a right relationship with them is to humble yourself and say, Lord, I've fallen short of your commandment. What does it say? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Everyone has sinned. There's none righteous, not one. Our tongue is full of poison. Our hearts are full of guile. There's none who seeks after God. It's only because of what Jesus is doing in our life that causes us to even have a desire for those things. But it says right here, in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my spiritual death through that which is good, that through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful. How does sin become utterly sinful? It's through the commandment. To show you that that sin is so wretched and so vile. Sometimes I've asked the Lord, why do you put me through these trials? And I know it's to show me that the sin that's in my heart has to become utterly sinful so that I hate it. I don't know about you guys, but I used to do drugs. I used to smoke. And I used to say, Lord, give me a hatred for these things. And you know what? The Lord gave me a hatred for it. And you know what? That's when I got set free from those things. Because I said, Lord, I don't hate these things. I love these things. I love doing drugs and I love smoking. I love it with a passion. I love watching filthy movies. I love just doing my own thing. And you know what? I said, Lord, you need to give me your heart. And you changed my heart towards it. But now, with anger, the love of money, self-righteousness, do I still ask the Lord for a hatred for that? I don't know if I do, brothers. I don't know if I do. Fighting with my wife. Arguing with my wife. Do I hate that? Do I ask the Lord to help me to overcome that? Or yelling at my children and being impatient with them. Have I asked the Lord to give me a hatred for that? No. How many of you guys hate that thing? Because when you look back in the past of your life, you can remember things that you did wrong. Some of you hate it now. I, my friends, I need to ask the Lord to give me a hatred for it now. It needs to go deeper. But the law says you're not supposed to get angry with someone. You're supposed to live with your wife in an understanding way. She's a weaker vessel. Have you had that enter your heart? Or do you just put a yoke on her and just say, hey, I need you to do it my way. And if you don't do it my way, and you never give them freedom to become themselves. That's wrong too. Do you have a hatred for that? We don't want to do that. We want us to grow together in unity. As the Lord is first, we will grow one with another. And our characters will be as God designed them. This is how a body is. God doesn't want us to be circumcised outwardly, brothers. He doesn't want us to look good outwardly. He wants us to be your unique personality that God gave to each of you. He does. You want to know why? Because God didn't make a mistake in your personality. So you don't need to be like brother Randy. You don't need to be like brother so-and-so or this brother or that sister. You need to be yourself in Christ Jesus and allow the Lord to make you like Jesus. God didn't make a mistake in giving you the personality that he did. I remember once I was so discouraged because there was a group of brothers. They were arguing. And I usually don't take sides unless I sit back and I start to think about what it is. And some brothers got mad at me that I didn't take sides. And the other brothers, they got mad because I didn't take sides. But I just sat back. And I remember I went to go see my mom. Praise God for a believing mother. And I said, Mom, I'm really struggling. She says, you know, Dan, the Lord has made you that way. You've always done this. Whenever there's some sort of situation, you never take sides right away. You always stop back and you always think about that. And she says, God didn't make a mistake when he made you that way. I said, that's a gift from God. I said, you need to trust the Lord in that. And you know what? It brought so much freedom to me. I was like, thank you, Lord. You made me. I don't need to be anybody different because I've always struggled with insecurity. I've always struggled with not fitting in with people. I have. I put on a good outward image. I try to look good. I buy a nice shirt. You know what I mean? I want to look. And I've always struggled with being accepted by people. I have. It's always been the thing that I've struggled. I got picked on so much when I was a kid. So I always thought that I needed to be somebody different. You know what, brothers and sisters? You don't need to be anybody different than what the way the Lord has made you. You be that in the Lord. And it will produce love in your heart. It will produce love for the Lord because he's so kind to you. But one thing we do need to change is that sin, that area of sin in our life that we're making provision for, that we're making provision for. We need the Lord to crucify that sin with so incest that it would become utterly sinful. That that sin that we don't hate yet, we would start to hate it. That means none of us would ever go up to a bowl of poop and just eat the poop. We wouldn't. This is the most disgusting thing. And that's what we should do towards our sin. And that sin dwells in my heart. And Lord, you've got to cleanse my heart. You've got to clean me out. Cleanse me from within. Make me a vessel that's pure. Make me a vessel that you can put your Holy Spirit into. Some of us want to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The Lord can't do it yet because there's more refining and more cleansing that needs to happen. Guys, it's not just a once I prayed and then that's it. It's not. It should be a day-to-day walk where we grow with the Lord. Where we become more like him. It's not about that. I don't know about you, but I don't want that. As a job, I bought a mechanic shop. I have it. But I don't want to just buy a mechanic shop and you're sweet. I bought the mechanic shop and it's got a name on the wall and this is it. You know what I want to do? I want to learn about cars. I want to learn about this stuff. I want to learn how to run my business better. Some brothers, they just say, well, I'm just so happy to be here. I'm in the building. So good. But you don't want to get any better. You don't want to learn about the car. You don't want to grow as a person. But I'm in. I'm in the building. I don't know about you guys, but that's not the full use of it. God didn't save you so that you could just be in the building. No, he saved you that you could be useful for his kingdom. So he can say, Dan, I'm going to send you to the street corner to share with that brother over there. And perhaps that brother today, instead of being justifying himself, may humble himself and say, I need to save you. And that's what I want to do. I don't want to be so unwilling that I can't be useful to him. What it says here in verse 14, for I know that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin for that which I am doing. I do not understand for I'm not practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I am agreeing with the law, confessing that it's good. The law is now showing me that I'm a sinful man. So now no longer am I the one doing it. But this thing that's living inside of me, it's called your sin nature. And it has to be crucified with Christ. It has to be crucified with Christ. You must die in order that you may live. And the only way for that to happen is you need to be united with Christ in his death. In order that you may be raised in the likeness of him in his resurrection. That's in Romans 6 verse 1. We need to die and be crucified with Christ. And some of us are not crucified yet. We have a knowledge of him, but we're agreeing with this passage that this is there. As Paul wrote, For I know in verse 18 that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For the wishing to do good is present in me, but the actual doing of it is not. Nothing good dwells in my flesh, guys. There is no good thing that dwells in us, brothers, sisters. There's nothing. And this will keep us humble before God. But what it says right here, verse 22, For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. It makes me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. So this law of sin that's in my members, I joyfully agree with the law of God, but I'm seeing a different law. This law that rules the whole world, that is in everybody's nature because they're born with it, because of what Adam and Eve did. It's working in their members and it's producing death in them. That's what's happened, this law. But there's something that sets us free from the law. Look what it says first in verse 24. What is the confession that this man made? Brother Alan talked about confession. Look what it says here. He says, Wretched man that I am, who will set me free? You know, I don't know about you guys, but I've had that prayer maybe a couple times in my life, but I want it more. Lord, wretched man that I am, who will set me free? Who will set me free? Is that the eyesight that I have of my own spiritual condition apart from Christ? It doesn't mean that Christ doesn't value me. God loves me so much. I know this, brothers, that he decided to crucify his own son for me while I was yet sinning and I didn't even want to do anything. In fact, I knew better. I'd already known the truth and I was still living in sin. And yet God decided to send his son to die for me in order that I might become a child of God. That's how much I know he loves me. I don't ever beat myself down. Some of us here, we get so beat down and wallow that we don't find that. No, God does love you. He loves you so much that he's given you another opportunity. He wants you to get up and rise again. He wants you to keep seeking first the kingdom of God. And not only that, his son died for you on the cross and he took my sin and he put it on his shoulder so we can come to him because the Bible says clearly, and it doesn't lie, the word of God is true. If you confess your sins, he's faithful and just to forgive you. If you confess it, the Bible is true. There's no lie in it. So when we sin in our thought life, like Alan shared last week, or we sin in our actions or in the way that we're correlating one with another, we can ask God to forgive us. We can confess our sins. Praise God. That's how much I know that he loves me. I don't beat myself down and say, oh, I'm worthless. I'm a wretched man. No, a true man of God or a true woman of God will say this. I am a wretched man of God. I've sinned. I've done what was wrong. And I'm telling you, it brings you so much freedom. It brings you so much joy. It brings you so much liberty. You have peace again with God. That's what happens. We need to trust the Lord in these situations. But it says right here, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on my one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God. But on the other with my flesh, the law of sin. Look what it says here. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. So that's why we need the Holy Spirit. That's why we need the Holy Spirit, because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death, which is working in my numbers. So there's two laws. There's a law that literally works in your numbers to bring forth death, because you can't overcome. And so you get on your knees and you say, Lord, I can't overcome. I can't change. I don't know what to do. But I believe that thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord that you can save me. That's where it comes. It starts with faith. Last week, we talked about these things. But you know what, guys? We need faith to believe that the Lord can help us in our situations. We need faith to believe that he's leading and guiding us. We need faith to believe that he has got a perfect plan mapped out for our future. We have faith to believe that he is going to provide all our needs according to the riches that are in Christ Jesus. We need faith to believe that our children who are growing up in this wicked and perverse generation, that God is going to take care of them, that he's going to watch over them. I don't know about you guys, but I fear that. And some of you who are parents and some of you who have children, we need to pray for our children in this perverse generation, because it's changing. The times are changing. And we can be a generation that seeks after God. Oh, God, let us be a generation that seeks after him. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. You know who's going to set you free from that law that's working in your members? It's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. We can ask him for provision. Finish here. There was a time where they said, don't forgive them their sins, when in their hearts they don't want to repent. And he can hold that against them. But on our part, we need to remember. I remember there was a time when this brother of mine, those three brothers, there was a time where the Lord said, I need you to separate from those guys, because they're going in a different direction now. At first, it started good. And then after a while, I realized I can't fellowship with certain people. And you need to be willing to say that. There's a time where the Lord says, I need you to stop fellowshipping with them. And I did that. And that one brother, he ended up falling away from the Lord. And the reason that they fell away was because of pride. In fact, it was just because of pride. Our pride gets in the way. And when we start to hear the word of the Lord, and we start to judge people unrighteously, that's when we're in danger of pride. And when spiritual pride comes, the Lord will allow us to fall. He will allow us to be humbled. And we need to be careful that we don't have spiritual pride come into our lives when the Lord starts to use you. It's the greatest danger. When you first come to the Lord, as pride comes into your life, and you start to judge other people, other Christians, because they're not doing the same things that you're doing. I'm serious. It happens. You need to be on guard against that. And the evidence of it is you fall. You fall into sin. And the root of it is pride. And so we need to ask the Lord to cleanse us of that pride. Matthew chapter 10, he sends them out to go preach the gospel, not to the Gentiles, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He says, but as you go, preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you've received, freely gilled. Do not acquire gold or silver or copper for your money belts. You don't need the resources of the world to be effective for God's kingdom. Some of us say, well, if I had this, this, this, and this, then I can be useful to God. You don't. You can be yourself in the day that in the position that God gives you. I met a Christian brother the other day. He is an amazing testimony. He said to me, he said, you know, God, I wanted to be a pastor. And the Lord called me to be in the workforce. He called me to work. This man, he works for a local tool store called KMS tools. And this man's testimony was so he grew up in a Catholic church. And he didn't get born again until like 10 years ago. And he says, the Lord has just been doing so much good work in his life. I have so much love for him. And he just said, you know, the Lord didn't call me to be a pastor. I went to Bible school. I got a degree from the Bible school. And then the Lord called me to work. I was like, amazing. And he says, yes, in the workplace that you're working at, that's where you can be a living testimony. It doesn't have to be in your words, your actions. It can be in the way that you are in the way that you live. That is your testimony, the way that you love them. You don't always have to talk back to them. You don't always have to exhort them. You can just do it by the way that by the way that you act. Some of the best testimonies that I've had is when I say nothing. I don't have to say anything. I just do my actions. Put my head down. And you know what? Over time, they start to ask me, what is the hope that you have that I don't have, Dad? And yet with gentleness and reverence, we can give an answer to them. As it says in 1 Peter, it says right here, don't acquire gold or silver or copy. We don't need a great music system. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not the greatest musician. Thanks be to God. He gives me a love to sing songs. And thanks be to God. He gives me brothers who have songs to sing some Sundays because I don't. And you know what? We can give whatever we have and say, Lord, I'll be useful to you, whatever you want me to do. And Jesus isn't in the great outward show. He's literally with the humble. I'm not saying I'm humble, but he's literally with them. And it doesn't need to be some extravagant performance. It doesn't, brothers, sisters. It needs to just be anointed by the Lord and the Spirit of God to move freely in your midst. Do not take a tunic or sandals or a staff for the worker is worthy of his support. God will provide for you. If God's called you to do something for him, he will provide. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it and abide there until you go away. When I go into a city, I'm always asking the Lord, Lord, send another brother or sister to my way path that we can have fellowship with them. I'm always asking that, you know, and I don't see everybody, but the Lord will send one. And if you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, let your greeting of peace come upon it. But if it's not worthy, let your greeting of peace return to you. And whoever does not receive you nor heed your words as you go out of that city, shake off the dust of your feet. It says it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for them in the final day. Isn't that amazing? Sodom and Gomorrah got burnt to the ground. And it will be more tolerable for them, for the people who do not receive the words. They did not receive Jesus. Jesus came into his own hometown and they said, listen, is this not Jesus, the son of the carpenter? And he says he could do really no miracle there because he marveled at their unbelief. So don't be discouraged if you don't have great acceptance when you're doing the work of the Lord. It happened to Jesus. Lastly, in 2 Corinthians, the final verse, this encouraged me today because I always get encouraged when the presence of the Lord shows up. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 16, it says, Whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom. I don't know about you guys, but who wants freedom? Where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom. And if you're not abiding where the spirit of the Lord is, there will be no freedom. You need to personally, yourself, obey the convictions that God puts in your heart so you can have the peace of God in your life, and that peace that you have will guard your hearts and minds as you walk with him day by day. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you can be with us, Lord, and you help us. Lord, nothing is impossible with you. Lord, there's nothing impossible by your hand. Lord, all things are possible to him who believes. I pray that you would encourage us, strengthen us. We repent of where we fall short. I repent, Lord Jesus, and ask you to keep working in my life. Keep cleansing me. Keep changing me. Keep washing me, Lord. Keep renewing me, I pray in Jesus' name. Fill my heart with love and help me to judge myself rightly so I don't need to be judged. Lord, I thank you for the brothers and sisters. Restore relationships. Bless the homes. Bless the children. And we ask this in your precious name. Amen.