GOSPEL FLUENCY & DESIRE
A man last week. I introduced you to a process called fruit to root that helps us think through. How does the gospel deal with the realities of our life when we're struggling with a sin when we're struggling with a challenge when we're struggling with an emotional reality. That doesn't look like the gospel. How do we change? How is it that we grow in the gospel? How is it that we are set free and liberated from sinful patterns and desires and thoughts. How is it that the gospel actually functions in our lives far too often in the church. We just been told believe it. So just believe the truth and then stop doing the bad stuff. And in the words of that great prophet, dr. Phil, how's that working for you? It doesn't it doesn't work. It doesn't work to just tell somebody stop. It doesn't work to just quote a verse at a problem. We have to go deeper than the fruit or the symptoms or the sinful Behavior itself. We have to move from the fruit down to the roots the desire that is creating the behavior. I want to continue to unpack that this morning, and we're going to walk through another specific example as trying to think of an example one that we all struggle with an end to that. We actually admit to struggling with it took me a while, but I think I got it. So how many of you have been hurt by someone before then? You just willing to admit that very brave of you. Thank you. You've been hurt by someone before what we're not going to talk about how you've heard others yet. Let's just start with how others have hurt you. You been hurt. Now. How many of you like me have struggled?
Granting forgiveness to those that have hurt you. I think this is something that we all know and then I think we can all admit and admitting it is important because if we don't acknowledge, we're never going to try to deal with it. So this is a room full of people that have been hurt by others and buy our own admission. Sometimes we struggle we find it difficult to forgive other you should forget Just do it. Just do it. I don't want to do it. How do I just forgive and then if we can't do it will move from telling people just do it to shame. I can't believe you won't do it. I'm so ashamed of you you should be ashamed of yourself not being able to forget that doesn't help us. I just spirals us deeper sin has the spiraling effect that you start with $0.01. If you check it will move into a whole host of other.
Let me make it a little bit worse for you this morning. Got to have the bad news before we get to the good news. Jesus said This is the part of the Lord's prayer that we leave off and don't want to think about at the end of teaching people how to pray. Jesus says if you forgive others their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses neither, will your father forgive your trespasses?
What's what's thinking for a moment? So we all just admitted that people hurt us and that we have trouble forgiving others. And Jesus is like yeah, if you don't forgive others, you can't experience forgiveness from the father. That summer you were saying was that that sounds like a work that doesn't sound like a gospel of grace of Jesus saying we've got to we've got to do this work of forgiveness in order to get forgiveness from listen. That is not what Jesus is saying and I want to unpack why it's not what Jesus is saying as we walk through this what Jesus is saying actually makes absolutely beautiful sense of the Gospel. If we are not willing to let go of everything else in order to grab a hold of Jesus. We don't get the gospel. Jesus said if anyone would come after me. Anyone can come in town mail feel rich poor educated on the if anyone would come after me. You can come. You got to deny yourself pick up your cross and follow. The gospel is a radical change of Allegiance. It's a defection from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the beloved Son. The gospel is an all-or-nothing reality. It's all in with Jesus Jesus. Anybody can come nobody deserves to come but anybody can come but if you're going to come you've got to be all in.
What was talked a little bit about? Sending impatiens why it is that our hearts struggle so much.
With any type of Simba particular this morning, let's think about why is it that we struggled to forget someone? one of my favorite passages about Temptation and sin is James chapter 1 which is 13 to 15 is three simple versus here, and I want to walk through them in. Just listen to what the spirit says here. starts this way it says let no one say When he or she is tempted I'm being tempted. by God God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself and snow one. There's a reality in every person that I've ever met or talked to.
Where we really don't like taking responsibility for our sin. right Like we we want to blame someone else we want to blame. Our friends are family our boss when I'm playing the devil's sometimes we want to play. It's not my fault. I didn't I didn't want to do it but there's all these Reasons. I'm really the victim. There's business this desire within us to set us to set ourselves free from the responsibility of our sin Yves. Like worm snake made me do it Adams like he's made me do it and we've been doing the same thing ever since trying to Pawn off responsibility for our sinful choices on someone else with James is doing here in this person. He's he's stripping away our excuses. It's not God's fault. It's not the devil's fault is not your family's fault. It's not your boss's fault. Let no one say when they're tempted. I'm being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself pimps no one but each person is tempted. when he is Lord and enticed by his own desire External its internal the problem with sin is not out there. It's in here if we don't acknowledge that reality will never deal with the reality of sin, and we will never experience freedom. Far too often we try to deal with sin by dealing with external reality and all we're doing is treating the symptoms or putting Band-Aids on an open wound. We've got to deal with the sin doesn't exist out there somewhere send isn't an idea or a principle or a proposition sin is in her notes in his personal.
The problem is the problem with forgiveness forgiveness is one of those things where it's easy to blame somebody else. Why would forgive them but what they did is so bad, I would forgive them but they haven't apologized I would forgive them but they're going to do it again. I would forgive them. But but but but we get our list of excuses Park rational and our justification attach bible verses to it. Sometimes to avoid the reality that the reason I'm not forgiving the one who is hurt me because I don't want to
I don't want to let just listen what we got on this morning. We send because we want to
we sin because we want to we got all night in the church y'all.
We don't deal with the desire. This is what it said. He says each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. interesting word therefore desire opportunity and in the Greek it it means
What is saying is that?
Send right is not Desiring bad thing. Sin is an over abundance of Desire.
We want things too much.
the essence of sin is He looks at the fruit. And sees that it is a delightful to the eye and it looks tasty to eat and it will offer her something that she believes God is now holding out on and she wants that more than she wants God. The problems not the fruit the problems not the snake. The problem is within Eve herself who has an abundance of Desire. For something that she was not created to desire in that way. Did you see that this morning? We send because we want to if we don't own that will never experience any kind of Freedom or Liberation from sin. We send because we want to exit. I know you coming up with all sorts of examples in your mind now or hey, I don't really want to do that. I didn't plan on doing that those are different things, by the way. well My boss made me send. My boss told me that if I didn't change the report if I didn't fudge on the numbers my boss told me that if I didn't lie to the investors, I was going to lose my job. So it's not my fault. I didn't want to do it but my boss made me do so which I say, that's absolutely not true. You did it because you want to you want to keep your job rather than your integrity.
You see that you have an option b option is to say no. I will not life will then you get fired. Okay? We want to pass the buck of blame to somebody else. When at the end of the day. The essence of free will is that we always and only do what we wants to do all the time.
Make it so let ourselves off the hook. Which one is tempted when he is learning enticed by his own desire? I have seen the enemy and he is me.
It's amazing.
What games does here in these two more verses if he actually lives out of sexual metaphor about him when he's lured and enticed. Those are two words that describe seduction. We are seduced by sin. We are so it's seductive the sexual metaphors continues, right? He says then desire when it has conceived. It gives birth to sin. This metaphor he has a grandbaby and sin gives birth to death.
all starts within us it all starts with an i.
We sin. because we want to
the issue in dealing with our sin. It's not the change the external fruit. We got to change the route of our heart. We have to be with the desires of the / desire of our individual har we've been we've been indoctrinated and programmed in our culture to think of sin forensic lie and objectively. Send is a rule that is broken. We do something we're not supposed to do or we don't do something that we're supposed to do. We think of sin like a great list. And God is the god of the teacher with the big red pen. You know, I know it when I was a kid, we actually got check marks for right and X's when it was wrong. I know that that's our kids are too fragile for X's anymore. So we don't do that, but We think. We think about God is like God just looking at my life up Jeremy. That's an x o I volunteer for VBS big check mark. We were trying to balance the scale trying to make sure we got more positive than negative think about Sin forensically and objectively the challenge with that is that the Bible doesn't think about Sin that way.
The Bible doesn't describe sin. That way. It's always relational. Read through the Old Testament read through the New Testament. Is that breaking a rule? It's rejecting God. Spiritual adultery got over and over and over again describes it that way every single Prophet describes that way you have cheated on me. God said and you run to foreign lover you've told yourself this thing will give me satisfaction. This thing will make me happy. And in doing so you're choosing. It's as your God over. Spiritual adultery a heart lead us away from God to other things and sometimes they're bad things. But sometimes they're good thing but anything that we desire disproportionately are inappropriately to how God designed it becomes an idol and its spiritual adultery.
we sin because we want to
how do we change our heart? That becomes requested right? How do we change out? How do I change the wants to Within Me?
Your tried to do that might be good.
Really good middle of it. I'll be forgetting when I'm going to want to forgive them. And then you see their face.
comes flooding back
how to change your car
it's a great sermon by guy named Thomas Chalmers couple hundred years ago called The expulsive Power of a new affection gripping title, isn't it?
amazing sermon
and this is what Thomas Chalmers says in that spare me says the only way to break the hold of a beautiful object upon the soul. If the show at an object even more beautiful.
We've been trained in the church to fight Desire with discipline. You got wrong desires grunt it out. You desire the wrong things. Stop it shame on you and all that does is cover to put more fig leaves on and pretends to everybody else and sometimes to pretend to ourselves that we're not what we really are.
You don't fight Desire with discipline.
You fight Desire with desire.
The only way to break the chains of our heart our idolatrous heart that are loving something disproportionately. The only way to be set free from that desire is to see something even better and desire it more.
This is why we have to learn gospel fluency. We have to see Jesus as better. We have to see God as more desirable than anything else this world might offer up. The only way to break the hold of a beautiful object.
on the soul if the show at an object even more beautiful process again, you weren't here last week listen to it online. But basically that's a series of four questions that we ask twice to get us from the problem to the route and then get us where the spirit has a Let's think about the issue of unforgiveness. But there's four questions. What am I doing? Who am I? What is God doing? Who is God? First question what what am I doing when I'm struggling with unforgiveness?
Obvious here. I'm refusing to forgive. Okay, I don't want to forget. Everything in me says don't forget. I'm remembering the offense. I'm a master of this how many of you do this, right? You just replay it over and over in your mind and you tweak it like this.
Prison Tower replaying conversations that are 20 years old singing Somebody and they don't know it but we feel better about ourselves.
If I forgive them I can't Replay that little fantasy in my head. I'm holding on to the offense. I'm refusing to forgive. I'm holding onto the her.
The destructive power of sin causes us to do really stupid things. On the surface. Nobody wants to hold on to their hurt let go of it. But there's something about that since we actually become acclimated like a frog in the tea kettle. We become acclimated and comfortable with our hurts and where the idea of letting go of our hurt is scary because if we'd known it for so long. It's actually the hurt actually begins to comfort us. The hurt feels normal and the idea of letting go of that pain of setting that other person free and setting ourselves free from the paint if I've been to finding myself as a victim if I didn't Define Myself by my hurts. I don't want to let go of it.
So who am I?
Well, I'm I'm a victim. I'm the victim that hurt me they did wrong. Of course. I'm right. It's in that I didn't do anything wrong.
Sometimes that's true. Much more rarely than we'd like to believe. But sometimes it's true, sometimes we're absolutely innocent. Sometimes the pure victim but when we're holding onto unforgiveness.
We want God to be merciful to us and just to our enemy.
I'm right. I'm the victim. I didn't do anything wrong.
That makes me the judge right that's when you choose to not forgive somebody that hurt you. You are stepping onto the throne that only God is supposed to sit on grabbing his gavel of righteousness. You're saying I determine who's in and who's out I determine who's forgiven and whose Unforgiven I get to decide.
I know you probably don't think through this right? That's why we need this process. When you're choosing to not forgive when I'm choosing to not forget, I'm seeing myself as the righteous victim who now gets the stand in judgment over the other. I'm the judge.
What what what we see God doing in this. Will we see God doing? Well, frankly sometimes I don't think I'm doing anything, right? That's not what we want to see him doing. What are caught on fire from the heaven like Sodom and Gomorrah * 10? Why come out?
You felt that. You wanted it, haven't you? Maybe some of you if you're not willing to admit it, right? We wanted it the disciples wanted it. We see it all throughout the scripture read the song David's like
I do not doing anything so that you're unfair the unrighteous. I'm the victim and I've declared as the judge that they need to be smited and I need to be rewarded and you're not doing anything. That means you're acting unfairly.
You're just
that's so who do we think about God in that then what we think is a bad ruler. He's a bad ruler. I'm standing in judgment now. Not only over the person that hurt me. I'm standing in judgment over God. You're a bad ruler. You're in just you're at you're an absent father.
I'm here. I'm hurting they wounded me fan. You could have stopped it, but you didn't.
Only mad am I mad at you? You're a jerk. You're a bad roof. You're weak on sitting just if you're not in control God. You're a bad. I'd be a much better guy.
Did the son of Unforgiven GC? How that works.
When you're when you choose not to forgive your choosing that because you would rather hold on to the pain and the self righteous judgement that vindicates you and makes you feel good about yourself rather than entrust yourself to God.
Cinnabon forget it. We we think unforgiveness. That's not much of a sin. Murder adultery genocide got our list of unforgiveness. This is why all Sin is Sin. All sin is equal at the essence of all is the desire to be God and reject him as God. We want something as God other than God.
So we have to repent.
We walk through that and repentance moves us than to go. reality check
What's really going on? So
who is God really?
if I experience God's really big who does the scripture reveal got to be and most importantly who does Jesus reveal got to be Who is God what he is a sovereign ruler?
He is a king. Of Justice God's not weak on crime. He's not weak on Justice. He just works in different ways and time frames then we would like if you want to think for a moment that God is incompetent or insufficient or week Injustice. All you have to do is look to the cross. With Jesus is both the atoner and the atonement. God's not in just God's not blind. And God has just chosen to deal with sin on Jesus rather than on us and when that comes to you and me that's good news, but when it comes to the person that's heard us that's when we don't want Jesus to be Jesus. Did you see what's going on here? We got to see the person that hurt us. Not just through our lives, but you godsland how does God see that's in God's hands and disgusting and demanding of punishment. He's just chosen to punish Jesus for it rather than that person.
Question is are we going to accept that?
What will we let God be God will we see that as better? It's certainly better when we look at it from Arson. Aren't you glad that God is not treated you and your sins deserve. I'm not just the sins that we can figure out are the ones that are obviously the ones that you're hiding the ones that you're most ashamed of the ones that give you such fear and trepidation Shannon just paying those since the ones that you know at the core of your being you deserve punishment.
In his Justice pours out his wrath on Jesus instead of you. now this is why Jesus said if you're not going to forgive people, you're not going to be forgiven by the father because if you want God. To treat your enemy according to their sin. Then you need God to treat you according to yours then. What is by grace through faith? Jesus is your substitute in Jesus has tasted the wrath of your sin. How can you stand as a recipient of grace and mercy and say thank you God for your Grace & Mercy give dumb Justice.
God is The Sovereign ruler the king of Justice easy toner, and they told Matt what what is God doing? Not doing nothing. Jesus's right now interceding on behalf of the same. He's he's watching and waiting is that ball in the heavens recollects the prayers and the tears of the same. He Caesar knows it.
And what is he doing? He's forgetting. Angie's it's already been forgiven in Jesus. God's not absence in our injustice Gods Not distance. That's not doing nothing that's already done the work in Jesus.
So, what does that make me what it makes me a victim and victimizer? I went out when I when I get to the gospel when I get to who God is when I look at reality. I'm not only then send against but I've sinned I'm not only been broken. I'm a breaker.
I'm not the righteous judge that I'd like to see myself ass. So I'm I'm a sinner in need of Grace. I'm not the king. And I'm not the judge. Man, that's such good news. There's real freedom in that So, what does that tell me about what I'm doing when I'm experiencing. Well, I'm repenting. and receiving I'm receiving grace and mercy. and I mo3
free to receive forgiveness for my sins freely. I have received freely. I will give away. I am free to set people free into the hands of God. And that changes my unforgiveness. And I forgiven.
Not you got. Walking through that process and condensing and I'm trying to make it simple for the purpose of a sermon life is so much messier than that. And it's not like you just walk through this process once if you really been hurt you can have to walk through this process a thousand times. Cuz you're going to do it, you know this right you release somebody you forgive them and then you see their face again and you got to do it all over again, or they do it again and you got to do it all over again.
What's the gods but walking through this process doesn't just get us two principals. It doesn't just get us to it gets us to Jesus. When I walk through this process when I take my eyes off my pain. When I take my eyes off my judgment, I get to the gospel. The gospel gets me to Jesus and in Jesus. I see a better way. Jesus is the more beautiful thing that sets me free from the adultery of my sin to repent and return to the one who I was made for.
The gospel gets us to Jesus is always better. Hope holding on the pain to hurt to unforgiveness. There is a logic there is a rationale. There are reasons that we do it. and we will never set people free and set ourselves free by forgiving if we just keep our eyes on ourselves or on our enemy or on our pain. Have to take our eyes from the fruit and move them to the root of the Gospel which is Jesus. And when we see Jesus, he said this way then you shall know the truth and the truth. Will set you free. I don't know about you, but I want to be free. Not just from hell. I mean clearly I don't want to go there.
How to be free from myself I want to be free from the Brokenness of sin. I want to be free to love. I want to love myself. I want to love you all I want to love people because that's how God love. By myself, I'll never pull that off but empowered by the spirit looking to Jesus seen the beauty of the Gospel over and over again. There is an explosive power of a superior affection. Jesus is better than anything else your heart is holding on to. Search we have to fight Desire with desire. Our problem is not that we have desired things too much is that we've decided the wrong thing too much. May God set us free by the power of the Gospel to see the beauty of Jesus and be drawn to him a man.