The Choice

All right. Come on guys. We are going to jump right into our lesson. It is called the choice and this is I don't even know how to describe this. This is basically I'm giving you a summarized version of how I study the Bible of someone on the topic of sin. We're going to do a spin study right now. And this is a if you've sat with us if you we've counseled you on anything you you're probably going to pick up on some themes that I've shared over the last year of knowing you guys and it's not that I want to redefine. What sin is that would probably not go well for us. But when I do want to do is change the lens through which we look at our role in our decision-making when it comes to righteousness and worldliness. I specifically pick that song before the sermon because I want to talk about the role of the holy spirit in our decision-making and hopefully that will become very clear as we Come in for landing on this thing. So I wanted to start right off with a we're going to start right in Genesis. And we're going to talk about two trees. and how that plays into our decision-making process today of sin, and so let's go right to Genesis chapter 2 Genesis 28 now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden and there he may he put the man he had formed the Lord. God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food in the middle of the garden where the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil Hebrew that stove and raw. Let's keep going. Skip a couple verses and the Lord God commanded the man you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil 4 when you eat from it, you will certainly die. I could have I could do a whole Sermon Just this I love everything about the garden and that is the next state that God created. Here's what I want to start with them. This is how we're going to start talking about the topic of sin the beginning the the start of the human experiment. I did it took everything I had guys at the start of the human experiment in crashing into this Physical Realm begins with a choice. Here are two things. You can choose how you want to move forward and I will tell you the one that I want you to choose and I will tell you the one I do not want you to choose. These are the two trees by the relaxing tree from all the trees. Just don't eat from this tree. Do we have the Tree of Life of the tree of the knowledge of toven rock good and bad good and evil are commonly translated. And so here are the two trees. These are not the two trees. It's not actual footage from the garden of yet, but here's my point. Why why did God even do this if I were God, I would not do this. Like hey, I'm going to make it much simpler for you that you can't mess it up. And I would have put in safety guards and guard rails and like, you know, the tree would be hidden from them and they wouldn't be able to access the tree and not and yet the human experiment in the Physical Realm starts with a choice. the choice that God made very clear

question is why? What I want to talk about going forward is the importance of choice. everything hinged on this what why why do we even follow God if we would not have the opportunity to disobey God? You know, I'll talk about this a lot more at a later date. What's the idea of? I love my boys. I love my sons and they have the ability to completely break my heart. They can wilfully just say that I don't care about you. I don't love you. I'm not going to do what you asked and that's hurtful. But what's the alternative? I could put them in straitjackets and I could give them like a dose of some I don't know. I can give them lithium. So I just being like I'm vegetative state all day and they keep them locked in their room in their straitjackets on drugs. Everything's fine, right? No, that's crazy. That's insane. You would look at me and say you're not loving your son's. At least we're in a state where they can't disobey me. They never make me mad. You see what I'm getting at the fact that God loves you is the whole reason for the ability to disobey in the first place. As much as I wish we didn't have that to change that it's silly like God. You should go back in love us differently. He like he's like, do you know that I am love? So we have these two trees. I'm going to get back to this almost as binary choice to type mentality as we keep moving forward, but I want to move on quickly. I want to talk about two sons and so funny cuz Steve just talked about this in his contribution. The two trees in the beginning then send comes into the world. And now we have these two sons. Genesis 42 now able kept flocks and Kane work to the soil in the course of time came brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord and able also brought an offering fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock the Lord looked with favor on a table and his offering but on King and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face with downcast, but this is what I want to talk about. Then the Lord said to Cain why are you angry? Why is your face down cat if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you but you must rule over it. Now. This is very interesting because this is where God starts talking about Sin and he's use that he's just trying to help the people understand what is happening and he uses like all language. Hey, I want you to understand sin is there it's there with you? It's waiting for you. It's crouching it wants to have you. but you have to rule it. You must rule rule over it. And then throughout the Old Testament. Stan is described in lots of different ways. It's not really described like this much more but then we get to the New Testament and something changes in the way we talked about it and especially Jesus and Paul and we get to what I'm going to talk about the whole rest of the case. We have the two trees good for a bad tree. Don't eat the bad tree now have two sons. Good offering. Offering just do what's right. You don't have to it's not that complicated to do. What's right. You're probably thinking then it's very complicated to live a righteous life like it's hard. But it's actually not that complicated. Okay, we're going to do it. We're going to get into that. We are going to talk about the Starks.

No sharks. If you've never heard this world before welcome to it sucks go ahead and say it if you never heard it before it's going to this is on my tongue all the time. This is how I talk about this is how I talk about it. What do I mean by sark's what it what it really meant was it's translated flash throughout most of them unless you have the old and Ivy where it was translated the sinful nature when we came up with a whole theology around what the sinful nature is, but we forgot to go back and look at what it's talking about is talking about the sark's another way to think about this is our animal appetites. It's our it's the things that make up our like, you know, our base to self are Instinct will desires that sort that sort of thing true things Define the sharks. And then are all the flavors of this are going to you're going to see for the rest of your life, but the two things are selfishness. Where I'm more important than you and a lack of restraint or lack of self-control. And so this is about I want to do it. So I'm going to do it. It makes me feel good. So I'm going to do it you are giving in to your Starks and so in the new and Ivy and a lot of translations translate this as the flash, let's look at a couple of instances where it's described and I'm just going to put the word socks in there. This is Jesus in the garden Matthew 26:41 Watch and Pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the sark's is weak now he is talking about the flesh as in like your body is tired. Okay, like your it's hard to stay up because your tires been a long day your spirit wants to stay up but your body is like, you know, you take those really long blinks and it's like your flesh is weak. Your body is weak. But he's saying something else like there's that carnal part of you is like, yeah, but I'm tired, so I'm going to just

But look at Paul Romans 8 those who live according to the sharks have their minds set on what the socs desires but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on what the spirit desires and this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to contrast over and over and over again, the sark's versus the spirit. Galatians 5:13, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sark's rather serve one. Another humbly in love about you is not talking about we know this when we say you're you're you're you're following your flesh. We not doing that talking about this we talk about something inside of us. We're talking about something. That's a little deeper than our skin that makes up what we call our flesh and that's the Starks. So what does we're going to talk about this but I want you to start thinking. What does your Stark's look like start going over that your mind? Here we go. Get our main text for this afternoon Galatians 5 now if I said hey, what's in Galatians 5 most of you Might say one of two things one Galatians 5:19. That's the sin list. Galatians 5:19 right you might also have to say isn't the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5. Yes. We're going to look at that. Here's here's the the last three paragraphs of Galatians 5. I know it's really little cuz I just wanted to show you in paragraph form. What are the last three paragraphs of Galatians 5. Well, I label them the spirit vs the Sharks and then a little look at that starts life and then that Spirit life. And we're going to go through each one of these paragraphs. Okay, and I want you to start doing some heavy reflection. So first off, how do I say Galatians? 5:16 through 18. Do I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the Starks The Flash Walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the Starks for the Starks desires what is contrary to the spirit? And the spirit what is contrary to the Starks? They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want. But self-control aspect, but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. This is just saying. Hey guys, we're going to talk about these two things for a little bit one is called the spirit and one is called the sharks or the Flasher the sinful nature all that stuff the spirit and the sharks. They don't get along with each other and they oppose one another and if you follow one, you can't get the fruit of this one. If you follow this, you're not going to get the fruit of this one. Hope that makes sense. They are conflict with with with each other. Now, let's go on. So let's talk about the Starks what happens when you decide what I'm just going to follow whatever my flesh tells me to do just going to follow my flesh. Paul says get ready cuz this is what you get to look forward to the act of the Starks are obvious sexual immorality impurity and debauchery idolatry and Witchcraft hatred Discord jealousy fits of Rage selfish ambition, dissensions factions and envy drunkenness orgies and the life I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God live like what live like the list of things if I do this, I want to hear the king of God guys. I'm trying to make the super simple for us. live by your sark's This is a lift we call this the sin list. I'm sure most of us have heard this first called this and there's others but this is my point. We think of sins as a list of bad things to stop doing or don't do avoid these list of things. What I want us to start to see it's not about the list the list. This list is a horrible list, but this list is not your daily. Wake up to-do list or not. This list is a warning of what your life will start to look like when you follow your your sark's when you follow your flesh. You can you can live a nice, you know Pious life. But but as soon as you start following your flesh that part of you that's all your animal desires and it's your selfishness and if your lack of restraint, what is what is your life going to start looking like get ready? The stuff is going to pop up. So here's my point. When you start seeing this in your life. That's not the time to repent the time to repent already happened when you started following your sark.

But then he goes on to say this about the spirit, but the fruit of the spirit is love joy, peace forbearance kindness goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such things. There is no law those who belong to Christ. Jesus have crucified the sark's with its passions and desires since we live by the spirit. Let us keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited provoking and envying one another each other. The fruit of the spirit. I love the fruit of the spirit but too often we think of this as like a recipe was like I need to work on my love. I need to work on my joy. I need to work on my piece need to work on my patients. I need to work on my kind of soft. I'm a little short in the goodness section or need any more gentleness. I need more self-control. I got to work on those things and then I will have a life that looks like the spirit. That is basically just a new version of Old Testament law people. You're trying to piece together the fruit of what comes from the spirit and pretend. It's now the spirit. This is as dangerous as for Christians are like if I just I just work hard enough it not doing the bad thing and I work hard enough to doing the good thing. Then I will be then that will show that I have the spirit. dangerous dangerous here's here's a here's a list here to list on this side are good virtuous, you know fruit of the spirit and good things in our lives. Okay on the bed on the other side of the bad stuff. This is is it spins in the Bible is a Biblical sins listed throughout the Bible. And might my fear is that through our Christian lives. We have tried to live according to the list. Me like a man like okay, you know sexual immorality of Purity witchcraft or jealousy fits of Rage something images. And if I were to if I was I'm going to skip ahead real quick. So I had him like we can memorize listen about like, I can't remember what number 7 was. What's the number 7 like I forgot what what if I do it I do know if I do it I forgot about I don't remember it. living by the list and we're not actually living by the spirit. We can only bring these back up because here's the thing. This is what it will look like when you live by the spirit and this is what it will look like when you live by your flesh. There's a lot of times. I'm just going to be very honest. There's a lot of times in our lives where we are indulging in our flesh and yet somehow we miraculously expect this to be produced in our life. Why is that because we're not seeing it as the fruit or sing it as something that we can build? I can just do enough good things. Then I'll be a good person, but we're completely ignoring the source of goodness.

So that's one of my questions. Have you been following your flesh? You might be like, well, I don't know what we're going to talk about it when you're flush hoping to reap the benefits of the spirit different people are going to indulge in a Flash listen to their flash differently. It's going to sound different in in their head and it's going to come out differently in their lives. So we do need to spend some time and some energy on little bit of self-reflection. So, how do you what does your socks look like in your life? So instead you just look at animals. The lion is a very different animal than like a domesticated dog and they do different things in their down time and then different things at different times and you are a relatively lazy just kind of sits around other people do the hunting for it until you know, another lion comes in and it's like, okay, it's go time and I'm going to rage and fight and I'm going to be aggressive and that's my that's what a lion a lion was created a dog a little bit different wants to be with you and hang out with you.

But what about you and your flesh? Some of you may your Starks is going to manifest itself different than other people even in this room is going to manifest different than your spouse or your best friend or the roommates. Whatever. So for instance some of you might be very lazy. And when you follow your flesh it comes out in like Netflix binges and tubs of ice cream. I just this is what I do. I indulge feels good. This is what I do.

Maybe maybe you indulge your flesh and it looks like self-medication. On any on any level maybe when you indulge in your flesh you become very angry full of Rage. Now that's totally different than the Netflix Bender, right? The guy that's going around punching holes in the walls. He's obviously in spin the Netflix Binger.

But they are the same because they are indulging their flesh. Maybe you indulge your socks with pleasure and escapism whether that's in relationships or sexual exploit.

But if you are unaware of what your socks looks like you are spiritually handicapped. You never thought like what is what does it look like when I am who I am when I'm super selfish and I don't have any restraint. What does that look like? It's going to look different for different people.

And so we need to spend some time thinking about this. Jesus actually talked about this. This is another classic sin list in the Bible Mark 7. You went on what comes out of a person is what the files them for. It is from within out of a person's heart that evil thoughts come sexual immorality that murder adultery greed malice deceit lewdness Envy slander arrogance and Folly all these evils come from inside and defile a person.

And so the question was how is someone defiled because the people in this verse they were talking about like you eat with unclean hands. You don't follow dietary laws the way we do, how how is it possible? He's like you guys are missing it because it's not what I eat that makes me defiled. If you look through versus before he actually says like what I eat goes in me and then out of me, that's what it's what comes out of me from my heart. Which defiles mean. Until this gets back to what is going on inside of us and how does that play into the Battle of sin? Would be very easy to think that it's just the list. Here's a list of bad things to do. Don't do them. Here's a list of good things to do get to work start doing some of this stuff and then God will love you. So damaged that it score.

And yet what we're trying to do what we're trying to paint the picture is if it's a much simpler Choice inside our heart. There's one last one. I usually talk about this a lot when you're studying send stuff. James 4:17 in like the last scripture in James for if anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it. It is sin for them. Get you a very interesting point about Sin the fact that our knowledge plays a role in what is and is not sin. If you know that you should do something you choose not to do that you are now and send but it says it's insane for them. Yours the way I described this all the time. Me and Brian are walking down the street. We're both doing that's a dark alley alley and I see an act of violence occurring maybe a man is beating a woman. And I look at him like oh no now Brian did not look down the alley. So now we are in a unique place. Cuz I have knowledge that Brian doesn't have Brian and I are doing the same thing our actions are identical and yet I am in sin and Brian is not because I know something Brian doesn't know and that's an obvious example, but you're going to see this play out for the rest of your life. When you learn something, oh my gosh. I might my knowledge increase now. Do I have a responsibility to obey this? The answer is yes. You learn things about what God is pleasing to God. What is unpleasing to God you are obligated to now change the way you live.

So this is a very deep scripture when I got to dig into this right now. Okay, but I'm trying to paint a picture that it's not just a list of bad things. Stay away from these list of good things to do this. Here's my question for you question number one. Do you recognize when you are listening to your flesh? Because if we're totally honest sometimes the answer is no. But it can be yes. and this gets back to Cain and Abel it's not that deep. You just have to learn that there is an acceptable and unacceptable thing and then it's a much simpler Choice. It's actually a choice between two things not a choice between 12 things and fit in 15 things. It's actually a choice between two things. Are you listening to the spirit or you listening to your flesh?

Do you recognize it when you are listening to the flesh? The answer might be yes, but I do it anyway. Congratulations your incident. That's that's you decided. I know what I should do. I know what I should not do. I'm going to choose the wrong thing. And this is life. This is been all of us this week. I'm sure it hasn't wait till next week. It'll happen next week like you listen to your flesh and then go down the road. The flesh takes you

But remember Paul when you live like this, here's what's going to happen.

And so we cannot please God when we are listening to our flesh. We should we should be able to listen to it. Like what's that? Thank you know. So there's an Indulgence that goes on. For you and might be ice. I shut myself off. I don't talk to people. I don't want to see anyone going to be when people talk to me. I'm going to be upset or it might be I'm going to start to say everything my love to gossip. And I love to spread, you know, all kinds of mistrust and distrust around the fellowship. It might be I go after whatever feels good in the moment. I'm going to chase the pleasure right now.

And we then that's dangerous because we start to believe the lie that the spirit doesn't want us to have anything happier or feeling good. But the flesh is whatever feels good in the spirit is just you know the opposite. And I think that we can actually find a place in life where the spirit wants us to feel joy and happiness. And you know that that lifestyle were like man this feels good. Does it come with self-denial? Yes, but it feels good to live in the spirit.

Or when you listen to the flesh you become angry. Do you get a biting tone? Do you start to put people down? Remember, it's that selfishness. I'm better than other people also that lack of restraint. I can say this. I'm going to say it.

So think about these things do you recognize it when you are listening to the flesh want to go back to this verse? Yep, running a little long. I swear I'll wrap it up. This is what God told a taint.

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you but you must rule over it and why do I want to come back to this? Why because this is the roll. One person can play in another person's life. When someone knows you someone intimately knows you knows your socks even husbands wives the super important that's friends roommates everybody. This is super important when someone knows your the way your flesh likes to manifest itself an act out on and it sways like then they can be the voice of God in your life. I can see is crouching at your door. It desires to have you but you can you can beat this thing. You need people in your life that will tell you you can beat this. I see it's working on your taking over right now, but you can beat this.

Here's my question. Do you have someone in your life that can recognize when you are listening to your flesh? Miss two very important things. We need we need to recognize when we are listening to our flash or Starks. We need people in our lives that they can see us from across the room to be like Hugo Sin is crouching.

People in our lives that we can sit down and have a conversation. Some of this is going to be like now this is not where you can just say. Yeah, no one knows me. You have to be known to people you have to reach out and say this is who I am man. When you see me like this, please help me. This is how I indulged My Flesh. Do you see anything else in my character? This is who I am. Men on the flip side when you're the friend and you see someone struggling in sin doesn't have to be the list. Doesn't have to be the full acting out causing trouble. Can't wait until you get a call from jail saying I was listening to my flesh.

Plus four months now you just didn't do anything until last night.

Do we need people who can look at them like you are listening to your flesh right now? Stop it. You have someone in your life that can recognize when you are listening to your flesh.

I just want to go back to the beginning.

in the beginning God started this whole I call it the human experiment. Started this whole thing with a choice. Choice between here's a tree. I don't want you to eat phone. Don't eat from this tree. Tree of Life tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil what I'm trying to present this morning is that those trees have roots that extend right up until into your hearts right now. You have the roots of those trees in your heart right now.

As much as we want to like overcomplicate our spirituality and make up all kinds of excuses for why we do this is why we did that. I fell into a bit they did that so I did this. We can simplify the way our mind works on our relationship with God down to the spirit and the Starks.

There's a thousand different practices and observances. Paul reminds us of the choice. It's not a complex algorithm of lists of sins in and potential outcomes. Is the choice between the spirit and your flesh the starts? My prayer this morning is that we can learn through a lot of self-reflection and messing up and getting open and understanding ourselves. We can learn what our flesh sounds like. What are some what noise is it makes in the background of Our Lives? And when we start to follow that we can see this is what it feels like when I follow my starts before any horribly bad thing ever happened, you know it, you know, you're following your flesh before anything bigger over tour bad happen. You need to learn need to learn how to recognize what it feels like when we are listening to our sark's and we can be open and talk this talk about this stuff. Give me open you say hey man, you know when I get super quiet and I run off into a corner, that's me listening to my socks. Can you come and be the voice of God in my life or hey when you see me, like, you know at the when we go out to eat and I'm like drinking too much. That's me listening to my sweetheart. Please help me.

We can be that voice of the Lord in other people's lives when we see them at the crossroads between listening to the spirit of God and following their flesh. So with that I would like to invite up Courtney Haylor. She is going to a Segway this right into our communion. Thank you so much.