Intro.

“I can’t believe it’s not butter” challenge.

{Award Prize}

One day, Teresa saw a meme on Facebook that rang true with this Wisconsin girl:

“Life is too short for fake cheese, fake butter, or fake people.”

Nobody wants to be around fake people.

You feel uncomfortable. You guard yourself and your words. You look for any excuse to excuse yourself.

But... What if... What if, YOU’RE the fake person.

You can’t very well get away from yourself, because wherever you go… there you are.

Today, we’re going to process what to do if you are:

Feeling Fake

There have been countless people who have walked away from believing in Jesus because they feel like they are not being genuine.

They felt fake. phony.

They feel like they are wearing a mask.

Sadly, there also have been many who have gone their whole lives in the church thinking that wearing this “mask” is… just the way it is done.

I have some amazing news for you. You are not alone. You are not even in the minority.

Actually:

Everyone who calls themselves by the name of Jesus Christ must wrestle with this dichotomy of wills.

The apostle Paul flat out tells us in:

Romans 7:15 ESV

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

He fleshes it out in verses 18-19

Romans 7:18–19 ESV

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Paul describes it as a battle between your spirit (that part of you that is directly connected with God”... and your flesh (that part of your volition that remembers and craves for sin.)

Paul explains that there are spiritual laws working here.

Romans 7:21–24 ESV

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

So… What, then? Are we doomed to a life of Frustration and Failure and Feeling Fake

ABSOLUTELY NOT

Paul continues in verses 24-25

I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:24-25 MSG

Woven through the text of the book of Romans chapters 4-8 God gives us a plan for us to live in sync with the genuine life of faith and righteousness for which God has designed us.

So...Let’s get started on our “FAKE FREE” life.

I. See the New You

I know.

That sounds like the latest new age self-help book.

But hear me out.

{Pick volunteer}

Can you come up to the platform and help me out.

Walk around the platform and when you get to the place that I am thinking... sit down.

{play the game}

We have a limited amount of space up here, so by trial and error they may find the spot.

But it would still take a while.

What if there were an infinite amount of space. In all probability you would never get there.

We spent our lives before coming to Jesus seeing ourselves as slaves to sin.

Romans 8:7–8 ESV

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

THAT’S how we see ourselves. And our experience tells us that we will always BE THAT.

But God tells us that when we ignite a relationship with Him we are NEW CREATIONS

...what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him... 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 MSG

But... If we still see ourselves as the people we used to be we never get to when God wants us to go.

We need a new road map. A new destination. A new picture of where we are going. Most of Romans chapter 6 deals with helping us get the symbolism of baptism.

Romans 6:3 ESV

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

You used to be a different person.

When you accepted Jesus gift of salvation, that person died.

When you went down into the water at your baptism, it was LIKE that person was buried.

Romans 6:4 ESV

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

When you came up out of that water, it was a picture of the BRAND NEW LIFE that Jesus is giving you.

The trouble is. You have known you for a long time.

It’s hard to believe that you are someone other than the person who didn’t look an awful lot like Jesus.

Paul writes in Romans 12-

Romans 12:2 ESV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

“Do not be conformed to this world.” Don’t look at yourself the way you used to.

“Be transformed.” Transformation isn’t a YOU job. That’s a God thing.

“by the renewal of your mind.” this is YOU again. You must begin picturing yourself as God sees you:

I am God's child. I am a friend of Jesus Christ. I have been justified. I am united with the Lord, and I am one with Him in spirit. I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.

I am a member of Christ's body. I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child. I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins. I am complete in Christ. I have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ

It takes time, AND effort. But you CAN see yourself as God sees you.

II. Get out of the Bakery

I have long told people: “If you don’t want to buy cookies, don’t go in the bakery.”

We must begin putting forth the effort

effort… that’s spelled W.O.R.K.

to get rid of the things that don’t look like Jesus, and begin doing the things that do.

Colossians 3 list some of the thing that need to go.

So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.  

Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.   You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world.   But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language.

Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.  Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him Colossians 3:5-10 NLT

Romans 6 lays it on the line.

Romans 6:12–13 ESV

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

James tells us the outcome of staying out of the bakery.

James 1:25 ESV

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

III. Plug into the Power Source

Chapter 8 talks to us about how the power of the Holy Spirit will take our efforts and empower them for change in our lives.

IF… we truly surrender to His leadership of our lives.

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) Romans 8:9 NLT

God makes no bones about the dangers of living your life without the power of the Spirit.

Romans 8:13 (ESV)

For if you live according to the flesh you will die...

Yet we have nothing to fear if we access the life of Jesus available to us through the Holy Spirit.

Verses 15 and 16 tell us how this is possible.

Romans 8:15–16 (ESV)

...you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

Paul’s readers would have understood this word “adoption”

It was a Greek legal term. It was used when a man would legally… fully… adopt an heir.

That person had full access to all the father’s resources.

John chapter 15 uses the symbols of a vine and its branches to show this… “life-flow” from the giver to the recipient.

God HAS A PLAN for you to come into alignment with the image of Jesus.

For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Romans 8:29 NLT

IV. Show Your Swag

I want to make sure that you are hearing me correctly.

I am not telling you to go about bragging about a “fake life.”

Matthew warns us against this.

Matthew 6:1–4 ESV

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Quite the opposite is true.

Romans 12:9 ESV

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.

The idea I’m trying to get across is that our faith should cause us to walk in confidence.

We are the VICTORS!

Romans 8:37 ESV

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

You have already been slated as the winner.

Romans 8:38–39 ESV

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When you KNOW you’re going to win, you can walk with your head held high.

Conclusion:

Romans 8:1–2 ESV

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

If you feel “fake” it’s not that you’re...

“not really a Christian.”

It’s that you... “are not really a sinner.”