Explore the struggle with sin and law, and how victory through Christ and sanctification transforms us, aligning our desires with God's will. Chapters: 0:00 Thanksgiving and Christmas at Skycrest 00:01:02 There's Wonderful Power in the Blood 00:04:08 Connect with the Pastor 00:04:45 Connection Groups: New Launch and Mission 00:13:05 Savior He Can Move the Mountains 00:17:31 God's Will in Your Life 00:23:22 Living Under the Law of Romans 00:29:23 Paul on the Law and Sin 00:39:21 Paul on Sin and the Realization 00:47:19 Paul's Testimony on Sin 00:57:14 Paul on Desires and His 01:04:23 All victory in Christ begins with faith 01:08:35 God's Word Recorded on March 2, 2025 at Skycrest Community Church.
7. Living Under the Law of Romans(00:23:22 - 00:29:23)
I don't know if you've ever thought about this or not, but there are some things that we hold on to in our Christian faith tightly that when placed beside, alongside each other, they seem to be at odds.
So the truth is we just kind of keep them as far apart as we can and we don't really talk about them.
And I'm talking about big things, foundational things.
Like, for instance, we talk about the fact, because it's true, thank God, that we are created in his image with dignity.
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We're loved.
The psalmist tells us we are the apple of God's eye.
David wrote in Psalm 139 that everything God created is wonderful.
We are wonderful.
We know that full well.
As the old preacher would say, God don't make no junk, right?
But we're also terrible, right?
The heart of man that God created and animated with the breath of life is now, we are told, deceitfully wicked.
It's in the book.
We are, all of us sinners who fall short, created wonderfully the apple of God's eye and deceitfully wicked.
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Now, following that train of thought, we're also told that, and we're celebrating it.
We are more than conquerors through Christ who gives us strength.
But we hear the good we want to do, we don't do, presumably because we can't.
We don't have the strength.
So the question is, are we good or are we bad?
Can we gain victory over sin?
Or are we destined to fail and fall?
Now, the passage of Scripture that we're reading today speaks to that question.
But what does it say?
Turn in your Bibles to Romans, chapter seven.
This one is in the top five, probably in the book of Romans, of the passages that you have encountered, hear people talk about, quote.
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Here's what Paul says, beginning in verse 14, Romans, chapter 7, verse 14.
He says, we know that the law is spiritual.
But I, Paul talking, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
I don't understand what I do, for what I want to do, I do not do.
But what I hate, I do.
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good as it is.
It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me that is in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what's good, but I can't carry it.
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For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do.
This I keep on doing.
Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it's no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work.
Although I want to do good, evil was right there with me.
For in my inner being, I delight in God's law.
But I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.
What a wretched man I am.
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Lord.
So then, I myself, in my mind, am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin.
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Now, let me ask you a question.
Does that sound like a victory speech or a concession?
Let's look back for a moment, just review.
We've been studying Romans 5 through verse seven.
We're going.
I mean, chapter seven, we're going to go through chapter eight.
But let's just review for a moment what we've already studied those chapters.
Romans 5:8 were written to reveal the path to victory in our call to be like Jesus.
Okay?
We are called to be holy, which is accomplished by growing, growing in and through Christ Jesus.
That process is what theologians call sanctification.
It is developing so that we are becoming like Jesus.
8. Paul on the Law and Sin(00:29:23 - 00:39:21)
Now, here's what we've learned.
Adam and Eve, from the very beginning, failed to follow how many rules did God give them?
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1.
Have you ever wondered why he gave them a rule anyway?
Have you ever thought about that?
They were given one rule because God wanted them to understand that they were graced with free will at creation.
Okay, here's the truth.
We cannot honor love or worship with all of our hearts.
Hearts without the freedom not to honor love and worship with all of our hearts.
So there was one tree that was off limits, strategically planted in the middle of the garden.
The pair exercised their free will, what we call agency today, and broke the rule.
They broke the rule.
The results were devastating.
Okay?
That disobedience, their one act of disobedience unleashed the suffering of sin and death that defines our natural world.
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You've heard of the second Law of Thermodynamics?
Everything is getting worse.
It gets dirtier, falls apart.
That's what happened when sin was unleashed in the world we live in, everything went south.
And so Paul told us that we are, all of us, children of Adam, born in that realm of sin and death.
Now, after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, a time of severe moral declension kicked in all over the world.
It was absolutely pure chaos.
So God decided to start a nation, a people of his own.
And he chose a guy named Abraham.
And that nation who would represent God, showed people that there was a holy God, a creator, Creator who had expectations for their lives.
That nation was born, but they struggled.
They really struggled.
So ultimately, God gave them the law, okay?
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Revealing the expectations he gave it through Moses, started with the ten Commandments and then the.
The five first books of the Bible.
It revealed his expectations and it provided for them a means to.
To a holy life.
It was a path by which they could break free from the realm of sin and death.
But as we tragically learned last week, the law because of sin nature, the law actually stimulated mankind to sin.
Okay?
Paul put it succinctly in Romans, chapter 7, verse 5.
He said, said, for when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us so that we bore fruit for death.
Now, the bottom line, what he was communicating, is that the law, which was good, the law is good, it's reliable, it shows the path was actually too weak to overcome our sin nature and ultimately revealed our transgressions and condemned us as sinners.
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Okay?
There had to be another way out of the realm of sin and death.
And that way turned out to be a person.
His name is Jesus.
Now, there's one final thing that Paul needed to say about this conundrum, okay, between sin and death.
And he said it through this passage in Romans, chapter seven.
But what was he saying?
Now, let's go back to the beginning where I highlighted some of the issues that we have with Christian teaching.
Are we good or are we bad?
Okay.
Are we more than conquerors or are we conquered by sin?
Can we do the good that we actually want to do or not?
Is it impossible?
Is it possible?
Because the truth is, when you read Paul's testimony as we did earlier, verses 14 through 25, he seems to be saying that we can't do the good we want to do.
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As a matter of fact, he says, I can't do the good good I want to do.
Do you remember his confessions?
Just listen to These words, verse 15, he said, I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do.
And then verse 17, as it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but sin living in me.
For I know, know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what's good, but I cannot, cannot carry it out.
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil.
Evil, Paul is saying, the evil I do not want to do.
That's what I keep on doing.
And then finally in verse 24, he says, what a wretched man I am.
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I'm a wreck.
Who.
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Now there's a question that we have to answer.
We must answer this question today to unlock the truth of this passage of Scripture.
Who is the I that he refers to?
Remember he kept saying I, I, I, I.
Who is the I?
Is he saying the I that you know me as today?
The one to whom Christ Jesus appeared on the road to Damascus, temporarily blinding him and then radically changing him to the point that he changed his name to Paul?
Or is he saying the I, the man that he was prior to meeting Jesus, the guy named Saul who was under the law and enslaved by sin.
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Who is he speaking as?
We need to understand that, because the answer to that question affects everything we understand about this passage of Scripture.
Scripture, if the eye is Saul prior to Jesus, then the passage was written as the final illustration of the futility of living under the law and enslaved by sin and death.
He's wrapping up what he's been telling us from chapter five to the end of chapter seven.
But if the eye is Paul, then we're left with a terribly uncomfortable conclusion.
That in Christ Jesus, Paul, the great world changing apostle to the Gentiles, has all the intractable, unsolvable problems with sin that he had before he met Jesus, before Christ lived in him.
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Now, the way we normally read that passage of Scripture is to assume that it is Paul giving a real time testimony.
He's revealing what it's like to walk in his shoes.
He's being vulnerable.
And he's telling us that even now he struggles with sin just as we do.
And that's why we hear people say all the time, you know, the good I want to do, I can't, I can't do.
I'm just like Paul.
What he's saying is that if this, if that's who is Speaking here, what he's saying is this is a universal struggle for believers and non believers alike, and it is one that we will never ever, ever win this side of h*** Heaven.
That is the traditional interpretation that I have heard all of my life, that the sin nature is unconquerable and therefore we are actually less than conquerors.
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And if that's the true interpretation of this text, it is extremely disquieting and it actually presents two demotivations to our pursuit of holiness which we have clearly established God has called us to pursue.
So what are the demotivations?
First, this idea that we can't conquer sin weakens our willful resistance to sin, right?
Like why try?
You can call it surrender, you can call it give up itis or quitter's result, whatever you want to call it.
If we face a temptation thinking there's no hope to overcome it, that we can't beat it, then we are much less likely to resist it, to stand firm as we are called to do in the face of temptation.
So our decision is we're just going to give in to it and we'll clean up the mess later because we can't beat it.
9. Paul on Sin and the Realization(00:39:21 - 00:47:19)
00:39:21
Our resistance is down.
Now the second demotivation it gives us is it kind of gives us a like a get out of jail free card with God, right?
We don't have to grieve sin as Jesus told us to.
Remember when Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
In the Sermon on the Mount, he was talking to people who were willing to step into mourning sin and the devastating effects of sin.
But hey, if we get out of jail free card because we can't get over sin, we don't have to mourn it.
Believing that we can't beat it actually makes things much easier, right?
We have a built in excuse for sin.
We're victims.
And God, he has to know that.
I mean, he's omniscient, so he has to know that and he has to has to forgive us.
He understands he was tempted in every way, just as we are.
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Oh, but yet he was without sin.
Of course he was.
And when you really think about it, this view makes sense.
Because as we learned last week, Paul said sin used the law to get under our skin.
And now he's saying that it's like a parasite, it is alive and well within him.
Remember what he said in verse 17, it is no longer I myself who do it.
Here's the excuse.
Looks like he's giving us an excuse.
Hey, that's not me.
It's not I who do it.
It's actually sin living in me.
Paul.
So again, the crucial question on which our status in Christ depends, Are we conquerors or captives?
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Is the redeemed, transformed Paul now really telling us that sin also lives in him?
Him?
Surely not.
He is not.
Because if that's what he was saying, it contradicts everything else he wrote throughout the Scripture.
We have to say, when we think critically about it, that ultimately this passage of Scripture does not give us an out.
It's not an.
It's okay.
Okay.
It's okay.
There's no hope.
We all do it.
Because for that to be the case, he would have to be arguing that sin is bigger.
Sin in us is bigger and more powerful than Christ in us.
And it is not.
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Didn't we learn in chapter five that we died to all this?
That we are literally no longer.
We no longer have to be responsive to sin.
Yet we learned that.
So I think that we have to conclude that the eye to which he is referring is the eye that was traveling to Damascus bent on persecuting the church, not the eye that was gloriously humbled, redeemed, and ultimately transformed after his encounter with the living Lord Jesus, who fulfilled the law, defeated sin and death when he was raised from the grave.
Now, why do I say that?
Because in this biographical passage, it is clearly sin that is in charge and living in him, not Jesus.
And by the way, when you say I can't, I can't overcome.
Come, that's the truth.
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Sin is calling the shots, not Jesus.
This is Saul.
Now, what do we know about Saul?
He wanted to do the right thing.
He wanted to honor God and overcome sin by always doing the right thing.
Do you remember?
Saul was zealous for God and his law.
That's why he was persecuting, even over sin, the killing of Christians.
He thought that believers in Jesus were doing irreparable harm to Israel.
And if they weren't stopped, if that radical sect wasn't eliminated from Israel, they would actually delay the coming of the Messiah.
So he worked very hard to get it all right.
He was zealous to live according to the law.
Now, of course, the irony was that God was going to send the Messiah because they couldn't get it all right.
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And Saul was proof of that.
So what did he do?
He told his story how his zeal for the law actually turned on him.
And.
And it actually intensified his struggle with sin.
It didn't relieve, exasperated his struggle with sin.
It inflamed it.
So now it's crystal clear why he felt free to make excuses for the sin problem that he couldn't handle up on.
Because apart from Christ, there was a reason, there was an excuse.
It was the power of sin working through the law that simply overwhelmed his flesh.
But he is not now saying that in Christ, sin retains its unconquerable power.
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And therefore we have excuses.
No sin is defeated.
It is a vanquished foe for those who are in Christ Jesus.
That's the teaching of Scripture.
That's the point he's making now.
It leads to the question, why then are we still tempted by sin?
If we really won that victory, are we still going to be tempted?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The enemy is actively seeking someone to devour.
Okay.
When we are in Christ, it stands at the door of our hearts and knocks.
Do you remember in Revelation, chapter three, where Jesus says, behold, I stand at the door and knock.
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If you let me in, we'll connect.
Well, when we connect with Jesus, there's someone still knocking, and it's sin.
But in Christ, we do not have to open that door.
See, when we are in Christ, it is not sin that lives in us.
It.
It is Jesus.
Remember what Paul said In Galatians, chapter 2, verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
Now.
When was Paul crucified with Christ?
10. Paul's Testimony on Sin(00:47:19 - 00:57:14)
When he came to faith on the road to Damascus.
So it's no longer he who lives, it's Christ living in him.
So therefore it can't be sin living in him.
The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.
When you place your faith in Christ Jesus, the old is gone.
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The old sin nature is gone.
Sin that once lived inside of us because of the law is out and Christ is in.
And if we cooperate with his plan for sanctification transformation, then we will find victory over sin.
That is the path.
And this is what Paul had given his life for.
Okay, listen to what he went on to say to the Galatians.
In chapter four, verse 19, he says, My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth.
Until what?
What was he trying to do?
What was he striving for?
For until Christ is formed in you.
Until Christ is formed in you.
Now, obviously Paul wouldn't suffer to have Christ formed in them if it wouldn't bring about victory, right?
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Why would he do that?
And when Christ is living in and ultimately formed in us, guess what's not sin.
There aren't going to be two life forms in us, only one.
And this is absolutely key to understanding whether we are going to increasingly win against sin, because that's a journey claiming the victory that is ours, or if we're going to continue to stumble and fall in sin.
The degree to which you succumb can be directly correlated to the degree to which you are sanctified.
Sanctified, okay?
The stronger you are, the weaker sin is.
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The weaker you are, the stronger sin is.
Okay, so we'll succumb according to our level of maturity.
It's pretty simple, right?
And Paul uses his Testimony in Romans 7 to show what happens without Christ.
Right?
This was Saul who was struggling.
Sin was living in him.
But he also reveals the truth about what happens to the person who is not moving toward Christlikeness or holiness.
Okay?
So we have to ask the question.
We have to figure out where we are.
Because if we're not moving in the direction that God has called us to, then we're moving away from it.
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Sin's grip on us is strength strengthening.
So we may want to do what is good, but if Christ is not being formed in us, which was the objective of Paul's struggle, if Christ is not being formed in us, then we are destined to struggle.
Now, this passage of Scripture actually provides for us a way to determine.
Determine where we are in our quest for holiness.
So I just want you to enter in, all right?
Just think for a moment.
Where are you?
Is it a constant struggle?
Are you, like, relating to Paul most of all in that passage where he's like, you know what?
I can't.
I'm just.
I'm wretched.
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Or when you look back over the course of your life, can you see that you're moving beyond, Moving beyond the trap of sin and getting better at honoring God and representing your Savior.
Now, this is really important to understand, so I just want you to stay with me here for a minute.
We know that Plato.
Not the stuff you play with in kindergarten, the guy, okay?
Plato influenced the way all the Romans saw the world.
He pretty much philosophically established their worldview.
And he taught a concept called the appetitive desires.
Okay?
Now, he said appetitive desires determine moral character.
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And these appetitive desires have two components, okay?
This is where it gets what we find desirable and what we find fulfilling.
Okay?
That's what the appetite of desire is made up of, what we want and what satisfies us.
Now, he taught correctly, by the way, that when our moral character is developed or fully formed, those two components are actually in sync.
What we find desirable and what we find fulfilling are the same things, okay?
But as our character is being developed, when we are not mature, those two things are apart, separated, okay?
Now, it's true of the mature, whether, by the way, they are virtually morally virtuous or corrupt.
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So in the extreme, we find what is desirable is fulfilling.
So whether a person is fully mature in Christ or incorrigibly wicked, there is alignment in what they want and what they find satisfying, okay?
Their moral character is fully developed, one way or another, good or bad.
But as it is being developed, those two things, what we want and what satisfies us, are generally separate.
They're apart.
Now, the vast majority of people are in the middle, still developing, not yet sanctified and not yet irredeemably wicked.
They are, we are, with Saul, experiencing a division of character.
Now, what they want to do, they don't do.
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And what they don't want to do, they do.
They are not in sync.
Do you see what I'm saying?
What they want and what will satisfy them are not together.
Now, what that means is this is the way it works out in everybody's life.
Things that are forbidden, like when the law tells us no, those things are actually desirable, okay?
It's now what we want to do.
It's not what we want to do in our minds, but we're going to do it anyway, okay?
The things I don't want to do, that's what I find myself doing.
And guess what?
It's profoundly unsatisfied, satisfying, okay?
What we desire doesn't fulfill us.
So God fears when we give in to temptation, succumbing to our desires, we actually end up experiencing remorse and regret because it doesn't pay off, it doesn't satisfy, it doesn't fulfill us.
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And so with Paul, we end up saying, oh, what a wretched person I am.
I mean, does anybody ever say wretched like we use other words?
But that's what we're saying.
We're frustrated because we can't seem to get it right.
The reverse is true, okay?
Think the good I want to do, okay?
There are certain actions that we would recognize to be morally good, but inconvenient and costly.
It's the good I want to do, but it's not exactly what I do.
11. Paul on Desires and His(00:57:14 - 01:04:22)
So the average person has little to no desire to do those things because they cost something.
It's inconvenient.
I don't want to make the sacrifice.
Sacrifice.
I'm going to Let it pass.
But when we do choose to step into that sacrifice, we find it, what, deeply satisfying.
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I didn't want it, but I did it and I'm fulfilled by it.
Those two things are separate.
The desires and the fulfillment are not together when our character isn't fully formed.
They are not together when we are not sanctified.
Sanctified in Christ Jesus.
That's the average person living out of alignment with their desires and what fulfills them.
But in the extreme, whether sanctified or wicked, there is alignment.
The wicked desire what is bad, and they are fulfilled, at least temporarily, by the bad things they do.
The person being transformed into the image of Christ.
Christ wants what Christ wants and is fulfilled in what Christ wants.
It's all aligned.
So their heart being transformed, desires to do what God wants them to do.
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Now, here's where we're getting to.
The further along you are in the road to sanctification, the more we desire the good and the more joy we derive from doing the good.
So we are irresistibly drawn to do what's right.
We are irresistibly stepping into the place where we are reflecting the image of Christ because we are going through this process of sanctification.
We are conquering sin.
We don't want the bad.
So this is the great.
This is the great part about what Paul is teaching us here, is that actually, as you grow those things that used to tempt you are no longer tempted.
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Because now what's happened is what you want and what you know to be fulfilling is in perfect alignment.
So we aren't tripped up.
We don't fall back into the sin patterns that we had in our old self when sin was alive in us, because we find it repulsive.
We're getting better.
We aren't conquered.
We aren't captive.
We are conquering.
Before Christ, living as Saul, sin was living in him.
Why?
Because he was working through the flesh to try to get it right.
And in that state, he said, there's some things I want to do.
I can't pull it off.
There's some things I don't want to do.
That's the very junk I find myself doing.
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Who is going to rescue me?
Who is going to break this pattern for me?
We know the answer.
Answer?
Jesus Christ.
Once there was no alignment.
But after he came to Christ, everything changed.
He was no longer captive.
He was conqueror.
Where are you?
Are you aligned with God's desires?
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Do you find your satisfaction in him?
Him?
Are you moving in that direction?
That's what he's called us to.
Do you find those things that seem to have you captive?
Your anger, hunger, your addiction, the things you think about incessantly?
Do you find that they are more in tune with that which glorifies God?
The good.
You see the good in people.
Or.
Or do you feel hopelessly trapped, as if sin is living in you?
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What wretched people we can be be and how gloriously changed God can make us.
My prayer for you is that the good we want to do will be the good we can't help but do.
Because Christ is living in us, the hope of glory in him.
Everything's aligned and we are more than conquerors.
Let's bow our heads and pray.
Lord, we can all relate to those times where we know things aren't in sync with us in our hearts or minds.
01:04:14
We're out of alignment.
Our wants are not your wants.
12. All victory in Christ begins with faith(01:04:23 - 01:08:32)
We are perpetually unfulfilled, as proved by the fact that we just keep adding stuff, we just keep doing more.
We just keep looking for something that will soothe our souls.
And that's because we aren't yet fully sanctified.
We aren't who you've called us to be.
I pray, Father, that today that we would resolve that.
As much as it depends upon us, we're going to pursue who you've come called us to be.
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Lord, we desperately want there to be alignment in our desires and that which fulfills us.
We want to be like Jesus.
We want to be conquerors, not captives.
Now, if that, if that's where you are, we have to understand that this begins with faith in Jesus Christ, okay?
Without him, we are in the realm of sin and death.
They're literally is no hope sins calling the shots.
Because we live in a natural world that is fallen, that has fallen, is falling, and we're going with it.
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But Jesus said, hey, I'm going to make a way out.
As a matter of fact, he said, I am the way out.
It's the way, the truth and the life.
Life.
No man gets out except by him.
So victory here begins with faith in Jesus.
He's standing at the door, knocking.
If you open your heart, he'll come in and live with you.
The old man is gone.
Sin has been displaced and replaced with the presence of the Holy Spirit of God.
Begins with faith in Jesus.
Do you have faith in Jesus?
Changes everything.
In him there's life and hope.
And then when we place our faith in Jesus, we.
01:07:22
We need to cooperate with the plan for sanctification, getting better, being more like him.
It's having Our minds changed, our hearts changed to become like him.
And we are like him when he is fully formed in us.
Father, thank you for the hope of salvation.
Thank you for victory over sin and death.
And thank you for the possibility of full transformation where the old life is not even appealing and we're just moving to become old that you've called us to be in Christ.
Thank you for the privilege of the journey.
And I pray today, Lord, that you would give us victory, make us more than conquerors.
01:08:30
In Christ's name, Amen.