Podcasts about Monergism

Why did God give the Law, and why did God send Jesus? We can't understand how Jesus fulfils the old covenant unless we understand what God wants from us in the first place. The answer is summed up in one word - holiness. In this sermon we think about holiness and how Jesus is the fulfilment of everything that God promised for us.Understand the Bible is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.You can find a free eBook of Holiness by J.C. Ryle on Monergism.My book, Confused by Grace, can be found here. Get full access to Understand the Bible at utbible.substack.com/subscribe

This titled is available for free in digital format from Monergism com

These Prayers were taken from 2 sources. (1) The Pastor in Prayer - Spurgeon, and Gleanings from Puritan Prayers - compiled by David Jonescue for Monergism com.

At Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, our senior pastor Rev. Craig Bailey preached in his First Peter sermon series, encouraging us to expand our imaginations so we can do the work God has for us and receive the rewards God wants to give us.

Counsel to the Afflicted: or, Instruction and Consolation for such as have Suffered Loss by Fire: With Advice to such as have Escaped that Sore Judgment: Occasioned by the Dreadful Fire in the City of London, in the Year 1666." By Puritan Owen Stockton 1630-1680. The Fire began in London, Sept. 2, 1666, and continued raging for the space of three or four days together with that fury and violence that none was able to quench it, until it had consumed the greatest part of that renowned City. Text is available in PDF, .epub, and .mobi formats from Monergism. Thanks to David Jonescue.

The heart of the Gospel, is Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Without His mercy, we would still be dead in our sins. “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬) In today's episode, we reflect on what Jesus has accomplished on our behalf. May you be blessed by this reminder. -Garrett & Bobby Scripture: Colossians 2:8-10, Hebrews 7:18-25, John 4:6, John 19:28, John 11:43, Matthew 14:18-21, Philippians 2:7, Ecclesiastes 1:9, Titus 3:9-11, 2 Peter 2:1-3, Acts 4:11-12 Additional References: The Second London Baptist Confession (1689): ⁠https://founders.org/library-book/1689-confession/⁠ ⁠https://www.the1689confession.com/⁠ Baptist Faith and Message 2000: ⁠https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/⁠ Monergism's Definition: ⁠https://www.monergism.com/topics/five-solas/solus-christus⁠ GotQuestion's Hypostatic Union: ⁠https://www.gotquestions.org/hypostatic-union.html⁠ David Shrock's Review of 'When Heaven Invades Earth': ⁠https://www.9marks.org/review/book-review-when-heaven-invades-earth-by-bill-johnson/⁠ Social Media: YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@StayReformed⁠ Twitter/X: ⁠https://twitter.com/stayreformed⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/stayreformed/⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/stayreformedpodcast⁠/ Website: ⁠https://www.stayreformed.com/⁠ Email: ⁠contact@stayreformed.com⁠

How should we view "good works" in Christian life? Do they grant any merit before God? Isaiah 64:6 reminds us, "all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment." Today Bobby and Garrett hope to provide clarity; that we are saved by Grace through Faith. The works we demonstrate are simply a byproduct of a regenerate heart. Scripture: Hebrews 11:6, Romans 3:9, Ephesians 2:8-9, Psalm 89:28-37, Romans 3:20-26 Additional References: The Second London Baptist Confession (1689): https://founders.org/library-book/1689-confession/ https://www.the1689confession.com/ Baptist Faith and Message 2000: https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/ Monergism.com Five Solas: https://www.monergism.com/five-solas-reformation Thomas Patient's writing: https://www.amazon.com/Baptism-Distinction-Covenants-Thomas-Patient/dp/B0B7GNTTPS Guy Waters' Article: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/sola-gratia-christians-are-saved-grace-god-alone Social Media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StayReformed Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/stayreformed Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stayreformed/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stayreformedpodcast/ Website: https://www.stayreformed.com/ Email: contact@stayreformed.com

Gleanings From Puritan Prayers Volume 1 and 2 were compiled by David Jonescue and are available for free from Monergism com

Gleanings From Puritan Prayers Volume 1 and 2 were compiled by David Jonescue and are available for free from Monergism com

Gleanings From Puritan Prayers Volume 1 and 2 were compiled by David Jonescue and are available for free from Monergism com

In this fourth episode of our series on the sovereignty of God in salvation, we delve into the profound topic of God’s sovereign choice of His people for salvation. Specifically, the aspect of God’s election, examining scriptures that illustrate how God, in His sovereignty, chose His elect before the foundation of the world. We also … Continue reading "The Sovereignty of God in Choosing, Episode 4 in our Sovereign Grace Series"

Thanks to David Jonescue for the work done by providing these prayers. We cannot allow them to be buried. This title, Robert Hill d 1623 can be found at Monergism. -Gleanings From Puritan Prayers - 2-

Thursday, 4 April 2024   “Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, Acts 26:19   Paul just finished repeating the words of Jesus that he had received during the vision. With that, he next says, “Therefore, King Agrippa.”   Paul once again specifically addresses Agrippa as he did in verse 13. The word translated as “Therefore,” hothen, is derived from two words signifying “where” and “then.” The older English translations of “Wherefore” or “Whereupon” give a good sense of the intent. The meaning Paul is conveying is that he received this vision, and from that, he made his decision, saying, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”   It is an astonishing set of words to be considered. Paul uses the verb ginomai, to become or come into being. The tense of the verb, being aorist, gives the sense of “I did not become disobedient.”   As Ellicott notes, “The language of the Apostle is significant in its bearing on the relations of God's grace and man's freedom. Even here, with the ‘vessel of election' (Acts 9:15) ‘constrained' by the love of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:14), there was the possibility of disobedience. There was an act of will in passing from the previous state of rebellion to that of obedience.”   It is another testimony to the doctrine of free will in man. Paul's choice of words clearly signifies that he could have, in fact, been disobedient to the vision. However, his choice was to comply with what he had been told. In essence, his words can be turned around to say, “How could anyone find fault in me for being obedient to such a message!”   It is reflective of the words of Isaiah 6 –   “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?' Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.'” Isaiah 6:8   The doctrine of free will in man is seen time and again in such callings. Moses and Jonah are great examples of this. Jeremiah is as well.   As for the word translated as “vision,” it is optasia. It refers to an actual vision as opposed to a dream or some other non-specific vision. It is used in Luke 1:22 and is frequent in the Greek translation of the book of Daniel.   Life application: The words of Paul in this verse confirm the doctrine known as synergism. It signifies that man has his part in the conversion process. However, that, in turn, does not mean that man has any part in the salvation process. These are two separate things that some try to shove into one box in an attempt to justify the incorrect doctrine of monergism.   Monergism teaches that man has no part in the conversion process and that God alone converts a person. For example, the idea of being born again from a monergistic teaching says that God chooses a person, God regenerates that person, allowing him to believe (he is born again), and from there, he believes and is saved. The teaching is utter rubbish.   Rather, the conversion process is based on the salvation process. Jesus did everything necessary for man to be saved, minus nothing. However, with that process complete, His work must then be appropriated by those who hear. They can mock, oppose, or blaspheme what they hear (see Acts 18:6), a free-will choice. They can contemplate and check out what they hear (as in Acts 17:20), a free-will choice. They can simply hear and believe (think of Cornelius in Acts 10), a free-will choice. Etc.   With the salvation process complete, man is hopefully provided the chance to believe in what He has done. This is why we share the gospel, send out missionaries, etc. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word of God. If the doctrine of monergism was correct, none of this would be necessary. In fact, it would be a pointless waste of time. God's will cannot be thwarted. But the process must be carried out –   “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:8, 9   God truly wants all to change their minds about Him. But He does not change it for them. Rather, He asks those who believe the message to get about the business of sharing the gospel. Only through that avenue will others be saved. So, get about sharing the gospel.   Heavenly Father, help us to take Your word in its proper light. When we are presented with a doctrine that is incorrect, may You help us to identify it, contemplate why it is so, and then turn from it to that which is correct. We are asking for Your guiding hand to be with us so that we will be properly trained followers of You. Amen.

Does it matter how we share the Gospel? How do we balance our belief in monergism with the idea that the way we present the Gospel has an impact on whether or not the hearer will be receptive to our message?

The Treatise of Faith, first published in 1623 - Recently made available in Kindle and PDF by Monergism. -I have observed that many, who genuinely seek salvation, often build their faith upon the weak foundation of abandoning their sins. This misguided approach prevents them from achieving the certainty of salvation or the constancy of a righteous life that true faith would provide. I have also seen others who, deeply aware of their wretchedness and the need for Christ's intervention, desire nothing more than to be delivered and restored by Him. However, lacking proper guidance on how to attain faith - the means by which they receive Christ and all His blessings - they spend many unfruitful and unproductive years in their pursuit.-. Ezekiel Culverwell -1553-1631-

Let's face it, times are tough. Money is tight. Books and Bible software can be expensive. In this bonus episode, I am going to share with you several free resources you can access and use today to deepen you Bible study without spending a dime. I am also going to list a couple of paid resources that are worth the financial investment, if you have the funds. Let get to it.Paid ResourcesLogos - Logos.com (This software is expensive, but worth the investment.)Accordance - Accordancebible.com (This software is also expensive, but it is so valuable to me. It is my go to Bible study tool.)Free ResourcesPrecept Austin - http://preceptaustin.org/ (A wonderful collection of links to some fantastic study materials. This site is huge and profitable.)Christian Classics Ethereal Library - https://ccel.org/ - (Tons of books and writings)Monergism - https://www.monergism.com/ (over 1,000 free ebooks to download.)E-Sword - https://e-sword.net/ (Free Bible study software)Blue Letter Bible - https://www.blueletterbible.org/ (Awesome free resource)Bible Study Tools - https://www.biblestudytools.com/Navigators - https://www.navigators.org/resources/Bible Hub - https://biblehub.com/Study Light - https://www.studylight.org/Bible Gateway - https://www.biblegateway.com/Bible Project - https://bibleproject.com/Bible Studies - https://biblestudies.org/Bible Net - https://biblesnet.com/studytools.htmlCarm - https://carm.org/There you have it. I hope this small selection of resources will help you study the Bible deeper and preach the gospel better.Support the showBe sure to subscribe to this podcast. Please leave us a review, and point your friends to this podcast.You can contact me, Alan Carr, at alancarr@gmail.com. Our website is: https://preachingmatters.buzzsprout.com/The podcast is a ministry of Dr. Alan Carr and The Sermon Notebook (http://www.sermonnotebook.org)If you would like some Preaching Matters Podcast merch, you can support the show while advertising for the show.Podcast T-Shirt: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1477329809/podcast-logo-preacher-gift-sermon-notes?click_key=10bfd3485c9c310cd30c1ea506644847488583b2%3A1477329809&click_sum=c33942ee&external=1&rec_type=ss&ref=landingpage_similar_listing_top-1&frs=1Podcast Mug: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1468678138/coffee-mug-the-preaching-matters-podcast?click_key=372978b5d3b54393df102deea8e8e4a635954690%3A1468678138&click_sum=7538cce4&external=1&rec_type=ss&ref=landingpage_similar_listing_top-8&frs=1

One of the most fundamental questions when it comes to salvation is: “Who does the work?” Is salvation entirely a divine effort, or are we called upon to contribute — and if so, how much? In this episode, Cameron and Mark unpack the distinction between monergism and synergism, and how it relates to justification, sanctification, grace, and the call to obedience.

In this episode, we look at Matthew 22:1-14, where we are told "many are called, but few are chosen." What can this parable teach us about the doctrine of election? What is the significance of the wedding garment in verses 11 and 12, and what does it mean to be "clothed in Christ?"

Narrated with permission from--David Jonescue - Phoebe Bookamer, 2022-2023 Lightly edited to update to modern Standard English Editing prayers does not necessarily signify endorsement of all doctrinal content. This book of prayers is available from Monergism com

The Matt Slick Live daily radio show broadcast is a production of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry -CARM-. During the show, Matt answers questions on the air, and offers insight on topics like The Bible, Apologetics, Theology, World Religions, Atheism, and other issues-- The show airs live on the Truth Network, Monday through Friday, 6-7 PM, EST -3-4 PM, PST--You can also email questions to Matt using- info-carm.org, Please put -Radio Show Question- in the Subject line--You can also watch a live stream during the live show on RUMBLE---Time stamps are approximate due to commercials being removed for PODCAST.--Topics include--04- Genesis 1-6-8.-08- Monergism vs Synergism, Romans 4-1-5.-33- Perichoresis, Divine simplicity, The Trinity.-52- The Chosen.-56- Women teachers and preachers.

The Matt Slick Live daily radio show broadcast is a production of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). During the show, Matt answers questions on the air, and offers insight on topics like The Bible, Apologetics, Theology, World Religions, Atheism, and other issues!  The show airs live on the Truth Network, Monday through Friday, 6-7 PM, EST (3-4 PM, PST) You can also email questions to Matt using: info@carm.org, Please put "Radio Show Question" in the Subject line! You can also watch a live stream during the live show on RUMBLE! MSL: August, 29 2023 Time stamps are approximate due to commercials being removed for PODCAST. Topics include 04- Genesis 1:6-8. 08- Monergism vs Synergism, Romans 4:1-5. 33- Perichoresis, Divine simplicity, The Trinity. 52- The Chosen. 56- Women teachers and preachers. MSL: August, 29 2023 CARM   This show LIVE STREAMS on RUMBLE during the Radio Broadcast! Subscribe to the CARM YouTube Channel Subscribe to the Matt Slick YouTube Channel CARM on Facebook Visit the CARM Website Donate to CARM You can find our past podcast by clicking here!

The Matt Slick Live daily radio show broadcast is a production of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). During the show, Matt answers questions on the air, and offers insight on topics like The Bible, Apologetics, Theology, World Religions, Atheism, and other issues!  The show airs live on the Truth Network, Monday through Friday, 6-7 PM, EST (3-4 PM, PST) You can also email questions to Matt using: info@carm.org, Please put "Radio Show Question" in the Subject line! You can also watch a live stream during the live show on RUMBLE! MSL: August, 29 2023 Time stamps are approximate due to commercials being removed for PODCAST. Topics include 04- Genesis 1:6-8. 08- Monergism vs Synergism, Romans 4:1-5. 33- Perichoresis, Divine simplicity, The Trinity. 52- The Chosen. 56- Women teachers and preachers. MSL: August, 29 2023 CARM   This show LIVE STREAMS on RUMBLE during the Radio Broadcast! Subscribe to the CARM YouTube Channel Subscribe to the Matt Slick YouTube Channel CARM on Facebook Visit the CARM Website Donate to CARM You can find our past podcast by clicking here!

In recognition of the Commemoration of Johann Gerhard, we discuss one of Gerhard's Sacred Meditations on the The Certainty of our Salvation. What things cause us to doubt our salvation, and how can we turn to Christ to assuage our doubts?

Allen Nelson is pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. He's also the author of “Before the Throne: Reflections on God's Holiness,” “From Death to Life: How Salvation Works,” and “A Change of Heart: Understanding Regeneration and Why it Matters.” He also writes for Things Above, a Christian group blog dedicated to Missions, Evangelism, Theology, and Sports, which is at thingsabove.us. In addition to Things Above, he has some articles up at Founders Ministries as well. He returns this month to discuss Regeneration, which is not only the subject of his latest book, but is a great follow-up to his most recent show with us on Effectual Calling. Outline of the Discussion For this episode, the outline has been created using the AI tool Podium.page. (0:00:01) - Regeneration (9 Minutes) Alan Nelson, pastor of Providence Baptist Church and author of multiple books, shares his insights on regeneration and how it affects our understanding of salvation and the Christian life. Alan's book, "A Change of Heart: Understanding Regeneration and Why it Matters" is discussed, and how to get a copy. (0:08:43) - Regeneration's Importance (9 Minutes) Alan shares his journey exploring regeneration and its impact on other Christian doctrines. He discusses the debate between Pelagianism and Augustinianism, and how Wesley's prevenient grace and Charles Finney's views have shaped the church. Alan shares his own experience, including the decision to write his book and how he taught the doctrine of regeneration during COVID-19. (0:17:58) - Grace, Synergism, and Monergism (5 Minutes) We explore the differences between Pelagianism and Augustinianism, and examine the concept of semi-Pelagianism. We point out how dangerous this understanding of grace can be, and how it denies the sufficiency of God's grace. We also get into the Mormon teaching of 'after all we can do' and how it relates to synergism. Lastly, we discuss the concept of monergism and how it works in contrast to synergism. (0:22:38) - Doctrine of Monergism and Regeneration Discussion (10 Minutes) We get into the implications of the idea of prevenient grace and point out that it raises more questions than it answers. Allen explains how the concept of prevenient grace does not satisfy the problem of why some individuals respond to the gospel and some don't. He emphasizes how regeneration touches every area of our lives, and how it is not a process of perfection, but rather a redirection of desire and love toward Christ. The noblest desires of those who reject monergism are commendable but ultimately don't defend God's justice and fairness. (0:32:10) - Open Theism and Necessity of Regeneration (12 Minutes) We point out that Open Theism can be a logical [but errant] way to approach the problems with synergistic view of soteriology. We confront the concept of fairness as a challenge to monergistic regeneration; our attitude about someone we love who is not saved, and how the answer is to preach the gospel to them. Jesus promises that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved; which is a refutation of a major misunderstanding of monergism, and very assuring promise. Allen shares his experience of taking the gospel to the streets of his small town, and we explain how this is a logical consequence of the very doctrine we are discussing. (0:44:19) - The Significance of Regeneration (13 Minutes) We explore the necessity of being born again and how Jesus was speaking to all of humanity when he said it. We also discuss the use of Southern vernacular ("y'all") and the differences between singular and plural of "you" in the modern English language. Finally, we look at the concept of longevity in regards to regeneration and how there is no such thing as unregeneration. (0:57:13) - Doctrinal Differences and the Holy Spirit (5 Minutes) We explore the intricate connection between regeneration and the local church.

"God's child remains the old man's grave-digger until the hour of his own departure." - Abraham Kuyper An excerpt From "The Work of the Holy Spirit" by Abraham Kuyper (Read the book FREE at Monergism)

The focus of this episode is the epistle reading for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, which is Romans 5:6-15. How is Adam a "type of the one who was to come?" If Christ's death atoned for the sins of the whole world, why are some people still not saved?

Would it surprise you that sometimes, what looks like healthy religion is actually a brutal, judgmental legalism, full of rules and not Christ? That’s our subject in this sermon from our series through Colossians. What Looks Like Healthy Religion  

What Makes You Complete? People look to all sorts of worldly things to make them complete – in vain. But the child of God has real completeness in Christ! The same Christ in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. What Makes You Complete?

Paul gives the remedy for the threat of false teaching: continual growth in Christ. Join us for this message from Colossians chapter 2. Walking in Christ

Continuing our series from Colossians, we move into chapter 2 which begins to focus on some of the pressing issues Paul addresses in this short but powerful writing: false teaching. In short, false teaching disturbs the hearts of God’s children, robbing them of comfort and assurance. Paul’s Burden for Colosse

Calvary Chapel Franklin: http://calvarychapelfranklin.com/ Email: info@calvarychapelfranklin.com  The Parsons Pad Website: https://parsonspad.com/ Telegram: https://t.me/parsonspadpodcastRumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-1006557?date=this-year Twitter: https://twitter.com/ccfranklintn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CalvaryChapelFranklin/  Subscribe to the audio podcast: https://parsonspad.buzzsprout.com/  Calvary Chapel Franklin meets at: Sunday mornings: 1724 General George Patton Drive, Brentwood TN 37027 Wednesday evenings: 7113 Peach Court, Brentwood TN 37027Mail: PO Box 1993 Spring Hill TN 37174 If you need a Bible, please download the free Gideon's app for iPhone or Android: https://gideons.org/  If you would like to support this outreach, please consider donating via PayPal (Calvary Chapel Franklin is a 501c3 tax exempt religious entity): https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=QCC42G4JT8U76

In this episode we continue the new series: TULIP: A series comparing Calvinism and Classical Arminianism. This episode continues our examination of Historical Points of Interest with an overview of the Pelagian Controversy, the position of Augustine, and a brief detour on the terminology on Monergism and Synergism.   Get the resources/further reading materials on the episode landing page: https://christisthecure.org/2023/02/16/tulip-2-pelagianism-augustine-and-monergism-synergism/    Christ is the Cure is subscriber supported: Join the support team at patreon.com/christisthecure or go to https://christisthecure.org/support-citc/

A round up of links GENESIS The Theology of Creation Effects of the Fall on the Physical Creation: A Biblical Analysis IDOLS- THE CHOSEN The Chosen by G3 WWUTT here- Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Responding to listener questions here ESCHATOLOGY Here is a GotQuestions article explaining eschatology Here is an article from Ligonier's TableTalk Magazine about Eschatological Living KOINONIA Alistair Begg has some things to say about how we should love one another in this devotional If you like the Puritans, John Owen has a fantastic book called Duties of Christian Fellowship: A Manual for Church Members can be read online at Monergism or downloaded as pdf MUSIC Here is Hymnology's Youtube channel of season 4 Michelle Lesley comments here, and also explains further "Why Our Church No Longer Plays Bethel or Hillsong Music (or Elevation or Jesus Culture), and Neither Should Yours" here This episode is also available as a blog post: http://the-end-time.org/2023/02/04/potpourri-in-the-beginning-the-chosen-one-anothering-eschatology/

On today's show we speak to the heretical idea of Monergism, the will being subjected to continual sinning, and what Good works actually look like in the Christian life.

Scripture: Genesis 12, 25, 17, Genesis 16, 18, Galatians 4, Romans 11:28-29Calvary Chapel Franklin: http://calvarychapelfranklin.com/ Email: info@calvarychapelfranklin.com  The Parsons Pad Website: https://parsonspad.com/ Telegram: https://t.me/parsonspadpodcastRumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-1006557?date=this-year Twitter: https://twitter.com/ccfranklintn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CalvaryChapelFranklin/  Subscribe to the audio podcast: https://parsonspad.buzzsprout.com/  Calvary Chapel Franklin meets at: Sunday mornings: 1724 General George Patton Drive, Brentwood TN 37027 Wednesday evenings: 7113 Peach Court, Brentwood TN 37027Mail: PO Box 1993 Spring Hill TN 37174 If you need a Bible, please download the free Gideon's app for iPhone or Android: https://gideons.org/  If you would like to support this outreach, please consider donating via PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=QCC42G4JT8U76

John chapter 10 contains some of the most comforting and doctrinally instructive passages in the New Testament. Jesus gives His sheep life. They hear His voice and follow Him. And, they’ll never perish because they’re secure in His Father’s hand. In today’s message, we consider this passage in our continuing series on statements of Sovereign … Continue reading "The Shepherd and His Sheep"

The last of 8 week's study of the attributes of God, with looking at His will, wisdom, and wrath. I also make a push for readers and listeners to consider Stephen Charnock's 2-volume treatment on The Existence and Attributes of God. A beautiful 2-volume set in leather is on sale at Reformation Heritage Books, at $50 off, only $70. That's only $35 for each beautiful hardcover book! It's pretty essential reading. RHB has updated the language and punctuation for easier reading. A free online version is available at Monergism, or you can download it for free also as a pdf. Anyway, learning more about God is worship. I hope you have enjoyed this Sunday series on God's attributes. 1. Aseity, Beauty, Blessedness 2. Eternity, Freedom, Glory 3. Goodness, Holiness, Immutability 4. Invisibility, Jealousy, Knowledge 5. Love 6. Mercy, Omnipotence, Omnipresence 7. Peace, Righteousness, Perfection 8. Will, Wisdom, Wrath This episode is also available as a blog post: http://the-end-time.org/2022/10/23/attributes-of-god-will-wisdom-wrath/

Faithfully preaching God’s word invites adversity and suffering. In Colossians chapter 1, Paul remarks on this fact, claiming that he rejoices in such suffering. Moreover, this ministry God had “dispensed” unto him was the fulfillment of God’s promise, even a mystery hidden from the foundation of the world, that Gentiles would be blessed with the … Continue reading "Paul, the Suffering Steward"

To reconcile means to “to resolve or settle a difference.” Through sin, humans are enemies and alienated from God’s presence and blessings and without reconciliation, we would have no hope in standing before God after death, certain judgment awaiting. But praise God, He sent His Son into the world to die for our sins, saving … Continue reading "Reconciled On the Cross"

The Lord Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son, is the great head of the church. In today’s message, we discuss what headship means as well as three ways to visualize the Body of Christ, the Church. Message 5 in our series through Colossians, from October 2021. The Great Head of the Church  

History is filled with people who diminished the awesome grandeur and divinity of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Who is He? Tune in to this week’s message to learn about our great God. The Real Christ

A pastor’s heart is never more revealing than when he prays. In this message, we read Paul’s prayer for the church at Colossae, from Colossians 1:9-12. Message 2 in our series through Colossians, from September 2021. A Minister’s Heart

Continuing our exposition the book of Colossians, we look to beautiful, theological language in chapter 1, verses 12-14. Message 3 in our series through Colossians, from October 2021. Delivered from Darkness

You are surrounded by witchcraft every day, but in a much more subtle form than in previous centuries.  Find out how you can learn to "spot it in the wild."  Our hosts will also provide media recommendations for those searching for thought-provoking content:"Created in God's Image" - book by Anthony A. Hoekema"Monergism.com" - website resource"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" - book by Robert Cialdini"The Hollow Crown" - BBC television series

Episode 17. Blake Long's work has been featured on Challies.com, For the Church, 9Marks, United We Pray, Servants of Grace, Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Monergism.com, and The Aquila Report. He has his own blog at theology-and-life.com. He is the author of an important book called 'Gospel Smugness.'

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Heavenly father, we thank you for the blessing it is to gather. We thank you for this church. We thank you Holy Spirit for knitting our souls together. And one voice, we have the privilege to worship you to glorify you. And as we glorify you, as we grow in glorifying you, meditating on your glory on how much higher you are than anything in the created order. Our faith and our hope are strengthened and we thank you for that. We thank you for the holy scriptures. You did not leave us without a word from you. You are a God who communicates to us. We thank you for the incredible book of Romans. It's so rich and so deep, and the implications are so transformative. We thank you that despite our sin, Jesus Christ came and he died for us. Jesus, you died for us when we were yet sinners rebelling against you, running from you, blaspheming your holy name. We wanted nothing to do with you. You came, you lived the perfect life of love and worship toward God and cared toward people so much so that you gave yourself as a sacrifice. In obedience to God the father, you gave the ultimate sacrifice, yourself, your life. And you bled on that cross and you suffered. You died and you were entombed. You didn't stay dead and we thank you for that. We thank you that because of your resurrection, you are now just and the justifier, that by grace through faith, when we repent our sins and trust in you, it's as if we had never sinned. I pray today, set our gaze upon the path of sanctification that you call us to each one of us. And I pray that you empower us by the Holy Spirit and encourages from the holy scriptures today. And we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're continuing our sermon series through the incredible Book of Romans. Today in Romans 6:15 through 23. The title of the sermon is The Paradox of Freedom. We've talked about, and this was chapter 5 and then the beginning of chapter 6, St. Paul has been transitioning from talking about justification by grace through faith, to sanctification. Justification by grace through faith is when you repent of your sin and you trust in Jesus Christ. It's just as if you had never sinned. From God's perspective, you are sinless. You are holy. God's gift of righteousness, Christ's righteousness imputed to you, and now begins the process of sanctification. All those freely and instantaneously justified through faith begin the process of sanctification. How through the same act of faith, by continuing to believe, by continuing to repent and believe on a daily basis, that's how we are sanctified. The word means to become more holy, more set apart, more righteous, sanctity. We get the word sanctity from agios in the Greek, holy. Sin for the Christian therefore should be out of character. Sin should be uncharacteristic. When sin happens in your life, you say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not me. That's not who I am. That's not my new identity in Christ." And if you think you're a Christian, but you have never meditated on sanctification, if this isn't even a category for you in your life, then you're probably not a Christian. And today, we're going to help you become a Christian and show you how important it is to follow Christ in this path. Yes, we do battle indwelling sin. We battle with it daily. While we were in Adam, we didn't battle sin. It was just normal. We were on team sin. Now, we are on team Jesus. It's a winning team over sin. That's what it means when scripture says we are more than conquerors. That's what the text is about today. We're in Roman 6:15 through 23. Would you look at the text with me? What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching, to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. This is the reading of God's holy inherent and fallible authoritative word. May you write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time this morning. First, set free from slavery to sin, set free for slavery to God, and set free for sanctification. First, set free from slavery to sin. The context is we are in Christ. Pastor Andy did a tremendous job last Sunday explaining what that means to be in Christ, that we've been crucified with Christ, buried and entombed with Christ and raised from the dead with Christ in newness of life. And this is symbolized with baptism. We have baptism today after the second service. It's symbolized with baptism. What is baptism? Baptism is a sign. It's a sign, outward sign of an inward reality that you died with Christ. You died to sin and you were raised with Christ to walk with him in the newness of life. So we've been set free from sins, horrible consequences. That's death. From sins, shameful guilt, that's condemnation. From sins, desperate tyranny, which is slavery to the flesh. Therefore, we must reckon. And you see this phrase over, and over, and over in Romans 18 plus times. He said, "You have to reckon this. You have to count this. You have to consider yourself dead to sin." God considers you righteous, therefore you have to consider yourself righteous and dead to sin. Practically speaking, how does this look? There has to be a vehement, a vehement, vociferous, digging deep into my GRE words. Inside of you, there has to be a militant reaction against sin. When the temptation rears it's ugly head, you have to say to the sin like to a terrible old girlfriend or boyfriend, ex, you broke up. They weren't good to you, cheated on you. That person keeps calling and you have to say, "You are dead to me." Sin, not to the person. "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Your number is blocked. I never want to see you sin. You rear its ugly head. You're dead to me. You're dead to me." That has to be the posture of, "We're broken up forever. Sin, you do not entice me. You do not lure me. You do not attract me." The stream of thought begins in Roman 6:12 through 14. And Pastor Andy handled this masterfully last week. But it begins of verse 12. 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 is instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace. He says before we come to Christ, sin does have a dominion over us. It has an authority. It has a power over us. He says, "But that power is broken through Christ." Just a aside here, but it's an important aside, it's about this concept of free will. And I have to set this up because we're going to get to Romans 9 through 11. I cannot wait. I'm excited for Romans 9 through 11. But this idea that we are born with a free will, of free moral will. This idea is not biblical. This idea is actually very pagan. The idea the free will is every time we have a moral option before us to sin or not to sin, to do good or to do evil, that we have the power to say yes or no and the will is basically a state of indifference. Well, this idea isn't biblical at all. It's actually anti-biblical. Indeed we do have a will. What's the will? It's the power of volition. We have the capacity to make choices according to towards our desires. But the problem is our desires want nothing to do with God. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not want to think about God. We don't want to worship God. We don't want to obey God. We have no affection stored God at all. By nature, we are only wicked continually. By nature, we have no inclination towards things of God. So this idea of I can choose Jesus anytime I want. I can follow Jesus anytime I want. Not unless Jesus Christ saves you. Not unless Jesus Christ regenerates your heart. Before Christ sin does reign in our moral body making you obey. Non-Christians are not walking around thinking how they can be moral obedient to God. They're not thinking about how they can study the scriptures to find out eternal life. You want nothing to do with God. And at best, maybe just lip service. If you haven't studied this concept of free will, I would commend to you Martin Luther's the Bondage Of the Will. Masterful. It's a Christian classic. He responds to Erasmus of Rotterdam in which he explains, "Look, we're born sinners. Scriptures, clearly, Ephesians 2, and you were dead in your sins and trespassers. We have not the capacity to worship God to do his will. And also Jonathan Edwards wrote The Freedom of the Will. Also masterful work. "Unless you're born again," Jesus told Nicodemus, "you can't enter the kingdom of God. But once you are regenerated, sin no longer holds your will in bondage. Once you become a Christian, you can say no to sin. You have that power given to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why in verse 12, he says, "Don't let sin reign in your body. You have the power, Christian to say no. Sin, you are not king. You are not desperate. You are not fewer. You are not in charge of me. I will say no to you." Don't let sin make you obey it's passions. Verse 13, don't present your members to sin. Present yourself to God. Verse 14, don't let sin have dominion over you. Sin is mastered no more. Sin no longer owns you. Sin no longer has authority over you. Stop taking orders from sin. Don't go where sin might be attractive to you. Literally block sin out. That's what he's saying. As Christians obviously, we still sin, but we don't have to. I was never taught this. I was never taught this. I was taught Jesus is always there for you when you sin. Come to him for forgiveness. Oh, clean slate. Now, okay, go and attempt not to sin. But when you sin, we all know you're going to sin. Come back. There wasn't... Which is actually a very defeated spirit. If you wake up and you're like, "Yeah, I'm a sinner, so I'm going to sin today," you're going to live categorically different than if you wake up and you say, "I am a saint, I am a saint. I am saint and I will reign over sin. I will not let sin reign over me." Today, as Christians, we still sin. But hypothetically, Christians, the moment you get saved, the moment you get justified, the moment you trust in Jesus Christ, you were repent of your sin. Hypothetically, from that moment, you could live a life of absolute holiness. Sit with that for a little bit that from... Oh, wait. You've already sinned from the moment that you got justified. Let's start from today. Starting today, dear Christian, you can live a life of absolute holiness, righteousness, perfection, hypothetically. Obviously, we sin, but you could. So every time you're faced with this temptation, God gives you the power of the Holy Spirit if we simply cooperate. Okay, a couple terms I got to give you if you haven't heard these. Monergism and synergism, monergistic and synergistic, our regeneration, our justification is monergistic meaning it's the work of one person. Our justification, our regeneration, it's the work of God, only of God. You did nothing to justify yourself. You did nothing to be born again in the same way that you did nothing to be born physically. You did nothing to be born spiritually, it's monergistic. God elects before the foundation of the world. God predestines. God draws. God writes your name in the book of life before you were even born. Justification is monergistic. But from the moment that you are reborn, the Christian life becomes synergistic. It's a joint effort. It's you and God. Now, you are paddling together. You're in the rowboat of life. And unless you're pulling your side, you're just going to be going around in circles. Or if you think it's only up to you, you'll also be going around in circles. Philippians 2:12 through 13. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do you see that tension? Do you see that cooperation? You are to work out your salvation. I'm to work out my salvation. It's my responsibility to work out my salvation. It's your responsibility to work out your salvation. But then he said, "But it's God who works in you. You work out what God works in both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So God is the one that actually activates the will. And the word for work here is he gives energy for the work for his good pleasure." So work out what God works, and you diligently use the means of grace. The means of grace of holy scripture, studying the scriptures. Feed your soul, dear Christian, in the form of studying a scripture every day, praying to God. Corporate worship. When the saints gather together, there is more Holy Spirit in the room. I have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. When we get together, the Holy Spirit is moving. That's a means of grace. Community groups. That's another means of grace. During the week, you meet brothers and sisters and you share life together. You share your burdens. You pray for one another. That's a means of grace. As diligently as you care for your body, and many of you do, and that's tremendous. The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are to care for our bodies. I had so much spinach last night. I had extra spinach. Whenever my girls don't finish much spinach, whatever's left over, that's what I have for dinner. That's when you know your dad, whatever's left over, that's what you got. You care for your body. You want the vitamins. You want the nutrients. You want to care for your heart. You do a little cardio. You work out. You care for yourself. In the same way that you care for your body, you have to care for your soul, if not more important. Feed the new man. Feed that new soul. Starve the old man. Starve the flesh. You can't reign in life if sin is reigning in you. So this is what he talked about in chapter 5. He says, "We are called by grace, by God's grace. We're called to reign in life." So in a sense where, we're children of God, but we're also kings and queens. We are to take authority, dominion over the kingdoms of our lives in submission to Jesus Christ. So in a sense, we're slaves to God, but when we're slaves to God, we're also kings reigning over sin. He says, "If sin is reigning in you, it's because you let it reign." Every part of your body, all your members are personified here. It's instruments as tools, either for righteousness or unrighteousness. A lot of people think Christianity is just spiritual. That has nothing to do with life. Like, "Oh, your faith. All right, all right. That's what you believe. It's out there. It's very personalized." Nothing to do with the way that you physically live. And we push back at that. That's a false idea. It has everything to do with how we live. Romans 12:1 through 2, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies, not just your souls, your bodies as live as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Every day you wake up and you say, "God, I am yours. Jesus, I'm yours. I am on the altar. My body is on the altar as a sacrifice." That's through worship. "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." Full body. Holistic submission, your mind. Lord, my mind is yours. Help me take captive every single thought that is a virus against my walk with you. Submission of the mind, submission of the mouth, of the voice, tongue, legs, arms, hands, fingertips, everything in submission to God. Roman 6:14, he continues, "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace." And this is what you need to understand in context. He's not saying that this is license to sin. "Oh, we're under grace." I heard this so many times. You meet with someone and you're like, "Hey, man or sister, you're living in sin. Here's the scriptures. We should repent." And he says, "We're not under the law. We're under grace." No, no, no. Hold on. You can't just rip a verse out of context. What's he talking about? Paul has already explained the law condemns us. So before Christ, we are all under the dreadful burden of the law. The law reveals our disobedience that we can't be saved by obedience to law. We're all debtors to law. But once in Christ, we are no longer in the condition of being crushed by the weight of the law. Now, we're under grace and the law operates differently depending on which realm you're in. We talk about that in chapter 5. And Adam, the law condemns us and reveals our sin. It has no power to affect change. In Christ, you're saved by grace. Now the law is transformed by this whacking stick of burden, condemnation, repent, repent, repent. Once you do repent, the law becomes this path that God gives us as a rule for life. God says, "Here's the guardrails for the fullness of life, a life in which you are going to flourish. Not just temporarily, but for all of eternity shows us the way of life is freedom from sin. So no grace doesn't nullify the law. It transforms what the purpose of the law in our lives. So Romans 3:31, he says, "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?" By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law." Romans 7:12, that next chapter. "So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." Romans 7:14. "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am over the flesh sold under sin." So we're not under the principle of law as a means of salvation. We don't look at the 10 commandments and say, "Fulfill the 10 commandments and then God will allow you to go to heaven." That's not how Christianity works. God gives us 10 commandments and he says, "Try doing it." And as soon as you try doing it, you're like, "Yep, I can't do it." And he's like, "Good. Now, you get the point. Repent of your sin. You need Jesus Christ. Once you're in Christ, you get the power of the Holy Spirit to now live according to God's will." Which is the law. We're justified by grace through faith. We're under grace, which doesn't mean we're free to sin. It actually means now we're free to obey. We have the ability to obey God, and its obedience from the heart. And it's all by grace. Our justification is by grace. And so is our sanctification. Roman 6:15. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law, but under grace. By no means. So Paul has been a pastor long enough. He knows. He knows this is always the objection. Whenever you tell people, you can't earn your salvation. There's nothing you can do to merit your way into heaven, it's only by grace. And they're like, "But that doesn't work." You can't just tell people that you can repent of your sins anytime and all of your sins are forgiven. Now, there's no motivation to live a righteous life. No, no, no, that can't be how it works. This is what Paul continues to say, he says, "But if that's how you think, you don't understand grace." He says, "By no means. May it never be. God forbid." Verse 16. "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" So to fully understand this verse, you need to understand the culture of that time and indentured servitude. When modern readers hear the word slave or slavery, we think of the slave trade in the west and recent centuries, which was essentially kidnapping, stealing people, bringing them across the ocean, then selling them at the auction block to other people. In the ancient world, slavery was primarily voluntary servitude. So if someone couldn't pay their debts or couldn't provide for their family, didn't have a place to live, did not have work to provide. This person would offer their services to fulfill the debt and they would live in the master's house and they would fulfill the will of the master indentured servitude. And it was estimated that Rome at that time, when Paul was writing, that one third, at least one third of the population of Rome were in this kind of indentured servitude as slaves. And initially they were made to wear this distinctive style of clothing, so people could say, "Okay. You're a slave. You're not a slave." And then the Romans figured out, "Oh, that's actually a bad move because it's communicating to the slaves just how powerful they could be if they united and worked together of their numerical strength." So then they said, "No, no, no. You have to address like everyone else." And many free men had once been slaves and likely more than half of the Roman church at that time had been enslaved. So they intuitively understood this metaphor that when your master tells you something to do, you are to obey your master and you can't serve to masters. So Paul here is saying in, "Adam, we were slaves to sin, which leads to death, but in Christ we're slaves to a master who redeems us, who loves us, who turns aside God's wrath from us by his own obedience. We worship a master who himself enslaved himself, took on the form of a servant. This is the greatest master that has ever lived. This is a master that did everything to serve us, Christ." God becomes a doulos, becomes the slave to take on the penalty that we deserve. He fulfills the will of God completely. And Paul is saying by repentance, by obeying in him, we're liberated from sin and from death, which formally held us in bondage. Do you ever feel like you are enslaved to sin? Are there sins now in your life that you're like, "I can't even imagine having freedom from the sin"? I can't even imagine what freedom would feel like, what it would taste like. Well, today I'm calling you to believe that you can have victory over that particular sin. Whatever sin the Lord is bringing to mind now. And in your Christian walk... One of the things I like doing my free time is watching fights. I like fights. I like boxing. I like MMA. I told my wife second career, if this doesn't work out, I think I'm going to be an MMA fighter just in case. So one of the things I like to see is the records of these guys. Because some of the guys in the boxing world, they're like, "I am undefeated. I'm 99 and 0." And then you look at their opponents and you're like, "They were all trumps. They were all trumps." I've been to matches like this and I've seen how these guys pad their numbers. It's basically like a professional gets in there and they're like, "Okay, who wants to fight him?" But in the Christian life, we should have a column of wins over sin. You should be able to look back at your life and you say, "You know what? Two years ago, I struggled with envy. I struggled with insatiable desire for social media. I struggled with..." whatever the sin is. "I struggled with pride." And pride is the last enemy. We'll get to pride. Because actually as you grow in the Christian faith, you should be able to look at your resume of wins and be like, "That was pretty good." And then the Holy Spirit comes in and you're like, "Sinner, you wicked sinner, now here's your thorn in the flesh, so you don't get proud." But that should be our goal is to like to graduate away from lesser sins to greater sins. How do you do it? You do it by coming to Jesus saying, "Jesus, set me free. Jesus give me the power to remain free." John 8:31 through 36. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." And they answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed." So obeying sin leads to death. Obeying God leads to righteousness. And the master we obey shows whose slave we really are. Point two is set free from slavery to God. Verse 17. But thanks be to God that you who are once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness. Remember the monergistic, synergistic thing I said? Here it's synergistic, but who gets all the glory? God, of course. He says thanks be to whom? To God that you who were on slaves have become obedient. So you are doing the obedience, but you give glory to God because it's God who gives you the power. He gives you the desire to do it. Thanks be to God. Paul pours forth a burst of Thanksgiving having considered the greatness of what God has done for him. Our goal should be to become slaves of righteousness. And what kind of slaves of righteousness? How are we to obey? He says from the heart, from the heart. And this is the paradox of freedom that you are enslaved to Jesus Christ. And by the way, sometimes it does feel like slavery. I'm not going to stand up here and say, once you follow Jesus Christ, it's just hunky-dory. It's easy. It is smooth sailing. It's not. It's work. It's a lot of hard work, but it's transformative work. He says, "But this is from the heart. From the heart you want to obey." You want to fulfill everything that God has called you to do. You want to do God's will. This is the difference between religion and a relationship. Religion, you're like, "I got to do this thing, so I don't go to hell. I got to do this thing so that I get blessed. I go do this thing because God said so." And he says obedience is from heart. Oh, it's not I have to do this, I get to by the power of the Holy Spirit serve this God that loves me and he's given me a new heart that's free to obey God. Galatians 5:1. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yolk of slavery. So the freedom Christ offers isn't autonomous self-direction. But if deliverance from the enslaving powers of sin that prevent us from becoming everything God intended us to be. This is why our children's ministry and our youth ministry is so important. It's so important. I don't know why things work this way, but they do. It's like when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college, you basically set up your spiritual trajectory. In the ministry here at Mosaic, I've been in the city 13 years. Mosaic is 11. Very few people have come to faith in their 80s, 90s. We've had a few and it's like, "Oh, praise God." Because once you get on this path of, this is what I believe, this is my worldview, and then you just get really busy in life in your job and your career. And then you don't really study, so you don't really... It's when you're a teenager, the spiritual formation is so important. When you're a child, when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college spiritual formation... Because you're figuring out how am I to live? What are the decisions I should be making? What should I be addicting myself to? Good things or bad things? Things that will make me prosper and flourish or things that will be destructive for me. The sooner you get on this path of like, "Oh, this is the way I am to go. This is how I can become the best version of myself." And then you just go. And there's also hope for everyone who at any time you come to the Lord, you can sin, sin, sin, and then the Lord saves you, regenerates you, justifies you, gives you the Holy Spirit. And then transformation all of a sudden. But he says, "This is the path for our flourishing. It's following God's law." Every other religion is a religion of law and human merit. Christianity and stark contrast is a religion of freedom. That's why we mistakenly think that freedom is the absence of all restrictions. Like, "Freedom, yeah." I remember when I got my license, my first car was an Audi 80. It was tremendous. It was a stick shift. I didn't know how to drive stick shifts. I learned that day when I bought it to drive it home and I thought, "It's freedom, freedom. I have freedom." I finally have freedom. I had overbearing immigrant parents and I'm like, "Finally, got my own car." I thought I was free until I got pulled over and I got my first speeding ticket and I realized, "Oh, hold on. Oh, no, no, no, no. There's restrictions to the freedom. And if you do not drive within those restrictions, you are actually going to lose your freedom." Freedom isn't the absence of restrictions. Freedom is the presence of restrictions that we were designed for. This is why we shouldn't get mad and we should be like, "Oh, the law of God." The Psalmist says, I delight in the law of God. I love the law of God because he knows that it's the law of God that brings blessing in life. When a Christian is like, "This is too hard. I can't follow the Lord. This is too hard. It's too restricting. I need freedom. I need freedom. I need freedom away from God, away from his commandments, away from the church. I just need a breather. I need freedom." That's like a fish saying, "You know what? I am restricted by this water. This water is not for me anymore. I'm tired of swimming in water. I'm going to walk." I've got five fish in my house and I've been studying fish for a while. That would be ludicrous of the fish to jump out and say, "I want freedom from this tank." And that's what a lot of people do when they want freedom from God. It's freedom from the environment in which you flourish. It's like a train. A train is most free when it's restricted to rails and humans are most free when we're running on oxygen, so our souls are most free when we're restricted to and by God. We are most free when we are in submission of God's authority, when we humbly submit to God who submitted himself to the law and the punishment for our law breaking. True freedom is found in submission to the God who submitted himself in order to free us. So for us, for Christians, we're set free from sin for sanctification, for obedience to God, and we should be happy with the fact that we are enslaved to God, because this is where we flourish. Matthew 6:33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added onto you. He said, "These are the priorities for the Christians. Seek God's kingdom and righteousness and God will take care of the rest of our needs. This is that priority. Matthew 5:20. "For I tell, unless your righteousness," Jesus said, "exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." So he says Christians are to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. If we don't, we're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. So he's not saying we enter the kingdom of heaven through our righteousness, but he says, if you have entered the kingdom of heaven, you will pursue righteousness. So if faith is real, the fruit of faith is righteousness. It's obedience from the heart. I've always found that verse. Very interesting. What does it mean that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees? Because if you follow the Pharisees in many ways, they were very righteous. They weren't righteous from the heart, but they did a lot of things that were very righteous that we could learn from them. Let's look at them. Let's look at the Pharisees real quick. Who were the Pharisees? They rose up against the secularism of the Jews of that day. They're like, "You're not Jewish enough. You're not obedient to God's law enough." So they start their own movement of conservatives and they sought to restore covenant purity in Israel. They were called the set apart ones and they consider themselves set apart for the singular pursuit of righteousness. But they did it hypocritically. They didn't do it from the heart. But we can still learn from their righteousness. Matthew 23:23 through 24. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." So the problem with them, Jesus is like, "You did the lesser parts of the law, tithing, but you missed the more important parts of the law, justice, mercy faithfulness." You should have done the other stuff. It's good. You should be tithing. Don't forget the weightier matters of the law. Here, I just want to emphasize that this was part of their righteousness. They understood that 10% of their income that the Lord gives them, they are to give back to the Lord for kingdom building purposes. So in terms of our righteousness, Christians, does your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees in terms of tithing? And I say that because statistically less than 3% of Christians in the United States, tithe give 10% of their income to the Lord. The rest rob God of what he calls us to give for the building of his kingdom. So this is a tremendous opportunity for me to plug our building campaign because we still are praying for the Lord to provide us with resources, to build or purchase a ministry center. We've located a tremendous property. And if the Lord would lead you to give, you can go to our website and there's the Mosaic Build and give to build the kingdom of Lord here. So our right to succeed, including with our finances. Luke 18:11 through 22, another example we can learn from the Pharisees. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I get." Obviously, he's a hypocrite and self-righteous for thinking that he's better than this other guy, and that other guy, the tax collector, repented of his sins and he walked away justified. And when this guy didn't, so they had a heart issue, the Pharisees did, but they still had a righteousness in that. This guy tithes. He's said, "I tithe." And he says, "I fast twice a week. I fast twice a week." And the expectation for Christians, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He's not saying if you fast, he says, when you fast. That's an expectation. We are to discipline our bodies even from food, for the purpose of drawing near to the Lord and spending more time in prayer. Something to learn from the Pharisees. John 5:39 through 40 that Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is day that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." Their problem here in the text, they didn't come to the Lord. The scriptures were clear that the Messiah is Jesus Christ and Jesus proved it to them. But here we can learn, at least they did study the holy scriptures. They searched the scriptures. And we can learn from that. Matthew 23:15, "Woe to you, scribe and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." So he calls him children of hell. He calls them hypocrites. But here, I just want to emphasize, they shouldn't have converted people to hypocrisy that they were doing, but at least they cared about evangelism. That's what the word proselyte means. A proselyte is a convert. They travel across sea and land. That's how important evangelism was to them. We can learn from that. That's part of the righteousness that the Lord calls us to. The great commission is given to all of us to go and make disciples of all nations. So Jesus said, "Unless our righteous succeeds that of the Pharisees, we won't enter the kingdom of heaven. Obedience is an expectation for every Christian. It's not a popular word today in many circles. It's never even used this word. But if you study church history, you see that when the church thrived, when there was revival in the church, when people were quickened by the Holy Spirit drawn near to the Lord, they cared about obedience. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a tremendous word called The Cost of Discipleship in which he talks about cheap grace. And he says, "Cheap grace is the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom it departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin, which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. Such grace is costly because it cause us to follow, and it is grace because it cause us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost a man his life. And it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. True grace sets us free from sin and sets us free for God. And we're set free for sanctification, which is growing in proximity to God, growing in closeness to the Lord. The holier you become, the closer you get to the Lord. Roman 6:19 through 20. I'm speaking human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Since some people don't easily grasp spiritual things, Paul used the graphic metaphor of making his point to slavery that we are to be just as wholehearted and obeying God as we used to be to sin. Think about your life before meeting Christ, dear Christian. Think about how your life revolved around sin. And you look at young people around the city and it's like their lives revolve around sin. The sin of pursuing wealth. Just to pursue wealth because of greed, because you're in love with money. The sin of pursuing pleasure, despite any kind of... Without even thinking about morality. Seeking freedom to sin you and then all of your finances and time, and the way that you orchestrate where you live and who your friends are, it's all based around sin. And for the Christian, once you become a Christian that needs to shift. Now, the sin of your life is Jesus Christ and you should have a singular pursuit of righteousness and center your whole life around that. Prior to regeneration, people give themselves wholeheartedly to sin. Now, we are to equally wholeheartedly give ourselves to righteousness. When we are under slavery to the dominion of sin, we're completely free from righteousness. And to be free from righteousness is the same thing as being given over to sin. This is the paradox of freedom. Satan promises us freedom, but gives us only slavery to sin. Jesus Christ promises us a yolk. He promises us slavery, but gives us incredible freedom over the soul. It's like your heart just opens up. Your soul opens up. There's no guilt. There's no shame. There's no regret. You're just focused on the Lord, focused on love, the ultimate paradox of the Christian life to be free from sin is to be a slave to righteousness. Now, we are free to pursue righteousness, to present our members as slaves, to righteousness leading to sanctification. Roman 6:21. "But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things in which you were not ashamed? For the end of those things is death." What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? I was speaking with a college student. I won't say when. I was speaking with a college student and the college student said, "You know what? I live for the weekend. That's all I live for. Nothing else in my life gives me pleasure. I hate Monday through Friday until 4:00 PM." I said, "Why 4:00 PM?" He said, "It's happy hour somewhere." Just living for the weekend. He said, "But then the rest of the week, I am just miserable. I hate my life. I hate my work. There's just no satisfaction, no joy, nothing." And then you look back and you're like, "What did I reap from living like that, from living for myself, from living for sin? What did I reap? What do I have now from all of that? But when you have the Holy Spirit and your vision is clear and you look back at your life and you think of the sins you committed. It's incredibly shameful." That's what he says. He said in verse 1 and 2, "But now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life." Said enslave to God. Not only do you get satisfaction and joy and you get the presence of God, but you get the satisfaction that your life is actually incredibly meaningful. What you do is fruit that you're producing fruit, that leads to sanctification, to sanctify you. But in the end also eternal life for you and then building of the kingdom. Roman 6:23 for the wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Wages of sin is death. So if you are not yet a Christian, if you are here today and you're just not sure. You're not sure. I'll just ask you. Do you care about holiness? Because that's really the test. If you have been justified, then you care about sanctification. You care about obedience to God. If you don't care about obedience to God, you're probably not a Christian. So I call you today to do the following. When we pray, when we worship appeal to God in your heart, in your heart and the depth of your heart appeal to God and say, "God, forgive me for my sins. Forgive me for living for myself, living as if you don't matter as if you don't exist for living as if I were dead to you and you were dead to me." I repent of that sin. Lord, I repent of that sin. I trust in Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ died on the cross, that Jesus Christ on the cross, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Meaning God the father in some sense says to God the son, "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Son, you're dead to me." Because Jesus Christ took our sin upon himself to save us. So repent of your sin, trust in Jesus Christ. And from that moment on, you will see the Holy Spirit is going to grow a desire for sanctification in you. The wage of sin is death. It's eternal death in a place called hell, a place of eternal damnation, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ. One of my favorite things to do is to go to the reservoir, the Cleveland Circle Reservoir in the evening to watch the sunset. I like that. There's lots of benches. There's always at least one bench I can find to sit there. I like to stare into the sun. I was told that that's not healthy. So in the vicinity of the sun, I stare and I pray and I pray. I was kind of bummed out this week that one day, and I drove to the reservoir. I just sat down. I'm praying. I'm like, "Lord, I don't know." There was a spiritual sadness of him battling. I met with a pastor friend of mine and he said, "Welcome." He said, "It's an occupational hazard." That's what he told me and he laughed and that made me feel better. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Lord, just send me some good news." I need some good news. I even left my phone up because I'm like, "Whenever I pray, sometimes the Lord specifically sends me a phone call or text like someone is going to encourage me." And I'm like, "Lord, Lord, Lord." And nothing, just nothing. Just nobody. I'm like, "Lord." And then out of nowhere I hear a voice and the voice says, "Jesus Christ died for your sins." And I was like, "Who's that?" And I realized it was me. I was just talking to me. It was my voice because I learned from the Psalmist that you were to encourage yourself. The Psalmist says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" Why are you downcast? This is the greatest news in the history of the universe. What other news do we need other than Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins because of his great love for me, he washes away my shame, my sin, my regret, all of that. Honestly, I just started laughing. I'm like, "Oh, I just Pastor Jan'd myself. It worked. It worked. I got a big smile on my face and I went home and it was tremendous." And the essence of Christian theology is grace and the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude." We get power for sanctification from justification. We are saved by grace through faith. That's how we get justified. But then sanctification happens when we just think and we meditate on the sufferings of Jesus Christ in our behalf. That's what it took to justify us. And as you do, your faith increases and your sanctification increases as well. A close to this, 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel says to King Saul, he says, "Has the Lord has great delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams. So obedience, God cares more about obedience than the sacrifices that we bring to him. But we can't even obey God unless we meditate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ sacrificed himself because he was in total obedience to God the father. In Gethsemane, he said, "Lord, if there's any other way, let this cup pass for me, but not my will but yours be done." So as we meditate on Christ obedience, as we meditate on his sacrifice, the Lord strengthens our own resolve to be obedient to the Lord. If God is speaking to you about any area of your life, dear Christian, where you are in disobedience, today is the day of repentance and today is the day of resolve. To say to sin, "You are dead to me, because I am alive to Christ." Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for this time in the holy scriptures. We thank you for the meditation on the gospel. And we thank you, Lord, that we can live a life of righteousness, a life of sanctification. And even when we don't do it perfectly, we can always come to you and repent and find grace and pray for anyone who doesn't yet know you today, draw them to yourself, regenerate their hearts, save them and give each one of us an extra dose of the Holy Spirit to work out our salvation, to do it with fear and trembling. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Heavenly father, we thank you for the blessing it is to gather. We thank you for this church. We thank you Holy Spirit for knitting our souls together. And one voice, we have the privilege to worship you to glorify you. And as we glorify you, as we grow in glorifying you, meditating on your glory on how much higher you are than anything in the created order. Our faith and our hope are strengthened and we thank you for that.We thank you for the holy scriptures. You did not leave us without a word from you. You are a God who communicates to us. We thank you for the incredible book of Romans. It's so rich and so deep, and the implications are so transformative. We thank you that despite our sin, Jesus Christ came and he died for us. Jesus, you died for us when we were yet sinners rebelling against you, running from you, blaspheming your holy name.We wanted nothing to do with you. You came, you lived the perfect life of love and worship toward God and cared toward people so much so that you gave yourself as a sacrifice. In obedience to God the father, you gave the ultimate sacrifice, yourself, your life. And you bled on that cross and you suffered. You died and you were entombed. You didn't stay dead and we thank you for that.We thank you that because of your resurrection, you are now just and the justifier, that by grace through faith, when we repent our sins and trust in you, it's as if we had never sinned. I pray today, set our gaze upon the path of sanctification that you call us to each one of us. And I pray that you empower us by the Holy Spirit and encourages from the holy scriptures today.And we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're continuing our sermon series through the incredible Book of Romans. Today in Romans 6:15 through 23. The title of the sermon is The Paradox of Freedom. We've talked about, and this was chapter 5 and then the beginning of chapter 6, St. Paul has been transitioning from talking about justification by grace through faith, to sanctification. Justification by grace through faith is when you repent of your sin and you trust in Jesus Christ.It's just as if you had never sinned. From God's perspective, you are sinless. You are holy. God's gift of righteousness, Christ's righteousness imputed to you, and now begins the process of sanctification. All those freely and instantaneously justified through faith begin the process of sanctification. How through the same act of faith, by continuing to believe, by continuing to repent and believe on a daily basis, that's how we are sanctified. The word means to become more holy, more set apart, more righteous, sanctity.We get the word sanctity from agios in the Greek, holy. Sin for the Christian therefore should be out of character. Sin should be uncharacteristic. When sin happens in your life, you say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not me. That's not who I am. That's not my new identity in Christ." And if you think you're a Christian, but you have never meditated on sanctification, if this isn't even a category for you in your life, then you're probably not a Christian. And today, we're going to help you become a Christian and show you how important it is to follow Christ in this path.Yes, we do battle indwelling sin. We battle with it daily. While we were in Adam, we didn't battle sin. It was just normal. We were on team sin. Now, we are on team Jesus. It's a winning team over sin. That's what it means when scripture says we are more than conquerors. That's what the text is about today. We're in Roman 6:15 through 23. Would you look at the text with me?What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching, to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.This is the reading of God's holy inherent and fallible authoritative word. May you write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time this morning. First, set free from slavery to sin, set free for slavery to God, and set free for sanctification. First, set free from slavery to sin.The context is we are in Christ. Pastor Andy did a tremendous job last Sunday explaining what that means to be in Christ, that we've been crucified with Christ, buried and entombed with Christ and raised from the dead with Christ in newness of life. And this is symbolized with baptism. We have baptism today after the second service. It's symbolized with baptism. What is baptism? Baptism is a sign. It's a sign, outward sign of an inward reality that you died with Christ. You died to sin and you were raised with Christ to walk with him in the newness of life.So we've been set free from sins, horrible consequences. That's death. From sins, shameful guilt, that's condemnation. From sins, desperate tyranny, which is slavery to the flesh. Therefore, we must reckon. And you see this phrase over, and over, and over in Romans 18 plus times. He said, "You have to reckon this. You have to count this. You have to consider yourself dead to sin."God considers you righteous, therefore you have to consider yourself righteous and dead to sin. Practically speaking, how does this look? There has to be a vehement, a vehement, vociferous, digging deep into my GRE words. Inside of you, there has to be a militant reaction against sin. When the temptation rears it's ugly head, you have to say to the sin like to a terrible old girlfriend or boyfriend, ex, you broke up. They weren't good to you, cheated on you. That person keeps calling and you have to say, "You are dead to me." Sin, not to the person. "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Your number is blocked. I never want to see you sin. You rear its ugly head. You're dead to me. You're dead to me."That has to be the posture of, "We're broken up forever. Sin, you do not entice me. You do not lure me. You do not attract me." The stream of thought begins in Roman 6:12 through 14. And Pastor Andy handled this masterfully last week. But it begins of verse 12. 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 is instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace.He says before we come to Christ, sin does have a dominion over us. It has an authority. It has a power over us. He says, "But that power is broken through Christ." Just a aside here, but it's an important aside, it's about this concept of free will. And I have to set this up because we're going to get to Romans 9 through 11. I cannot wait. I'm excited for Romans 9 through 11. But this idea that we are born with a free will, of free moral will. This idea is not biblical. This idea is actually very pagan.The idea the free will is every time we have a moral option before us to sin or not to sin, to do good or to do evil, that we have the power to say yes or no and the will is basically a state of indifference. Well, this idea isn't biblical at all. It's actually anti-biblical. Indeed we do have a will. What's the will? It's the power of volition. We have the capacity to make choices according to towards our desires. But the problem is our desires want nothing to do with God. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not want to think about God. We don't want to worship God. We don't want to obey God. We have no affection stored God at all.By nature, we are only wicked continually. By nature, we have no inclination towards things of God. So this idea of I can choose Jesus anytime I want. I can follow Jesus anytime I want. Not unless Jesus Christ saves you. Not unless Jesus Christ regenerates your heart. Before Christ sin does reign in our moral body making you obey. Non-Christians are not walking around thinking how they can be moral obedient to God. They're not thinking about how they can study the scriptures to find out eternal life.You want nothing to do with God. And at best, maybe just lip service. If you haven't studied this concept of free will, I would commend to you Martin Luther's the Bondage Of the Will. Masterful. It's a Christian classic. He responds to Erasmus of Rotterdam in which he explains, "Look, we're born sinners. Scriptures, clearly, Ephesians 2, and you were dead in your sins and trespassers. We have not the capacity to worship God to do his will.And also Jonathan Edwards wrote The Freedom of the Will. Also masterful work. "Unless you're born again," Jesus told Nicodemus, "you can't enter the kingdom of God. But once you are regenerated, sin no longer holds your will in bondage. Once you become a Christian, you can say no to sin. You have that power given to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why in verse 12, he says, "Don't let sin reign in your body. You have the power, Christian to say no. Sin, you are not king. You are not desperate. You are not fewer. You are not in charge of me. I will say no to you."Don't let sin make you obey it's passions. Verse 13, don't present your members to sin. Present yourself to God. Verse 14, don't let sin have dominion over you. Sin is mastered no more. Sin no longer owns you. Sin no longer has authority over you. Stop taking orders from sin. Don't go where sin might be attractive to you. Literally block sin out. That's what he's saying. As Christians obviously, we still sin, but we don't have to. I was never taught this. I was never taught this. I was taught Jesus is always there for you when you sin. Come to him for forgiveness.Oh, clean slate. Now, okay, go and attempt not to sin. But when you sin, we all know you're going to sin. Come back. There wasn't... Which is actually a very defeated spirit. If you wake up and you're like, "Yeah, I'm a sinner, so I'm going to sin today," you're going to live categorically different than if you wake up and you say, "I am a saint, I am a saint. I am saint and I will reign over sin. I will not let sin reign over me."Today, as Christians, we still sin. But hypothetically, Christians, the moment you get saved, the moment you get justified, the moment you trust in Jesus Christ, you were repent of your sin. Hypothetically, from that moment, you could live a life of absolute holiness. Sit with that for a little bit that from... Oh, wait. You've already sinned from the moment that you got justified.Let's start from today. Starting today, dear Christian, you can live a life of absolute holiness, righteousness, perfection, hypothetically. Obviously, we sin, but you could. So every time you're faced with this temptation, God gives you the power of the Holy Spirit if we simply cooperate.Okay, a couple terms I got to give you if you haven't heard these. Monergism and synergism, monergistic and synergistic, our regeneration, our justification is monergistic meaning it's the work of one person. Our justification, our regeneration, it's the work of God, only of God. You did nothing to justify yourself. You did nothing to be born again in the same way that you did nothing to be born physically. You did nothing to be born spiritually, it's monergistic. God elects before the foundation of the world. God predestines. God draws. God writes your name in the book of life before you were even born.Justification is monergistic. But from the moment that you are reborn, the Christian life becomes synergistic. It's a joint effort. It's you and God. Now, you are paddling together. You're in the rowboat of life. And unless you're pulling your side, you're just going to be going around in circles. Or if you think it's only up to you, you'll also be going around in circles.Philippians 2:12 through 13. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.Do you see that tension? Do you see that cooperation? You are to work out your salvation. I'm to work out my salvation. It's my responsibility to work out my salvation. It's your responsibility to work out your salvation. But then he said, "But it's God who works in you. You work out what God works in both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So God is the one that actually activates the will. And the word for work here is he gives energy for the work for his good pleasure." So work out what God works, and you diligently use the means of grace. The means of grace of holy scripture, studying the scriptures.Feed your soul, dear Christian, in the form of studying a scripture every day, praying to God. Corporate worship. When the saints gather together, there is more Holy Spirit in the room. I have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. When we get together, the Holy Spirit is moving. That's a means of grace. Community groups. That's another means of grace. During the week, you meet brothers and sisters and you share life together. You share your burdens. You pray for one another. That's a means of grace. As diligently as you care for your body, and many of you do, and that's tremendous.The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are to care for our bodies. I had so much spinach last night. I had extra spinach. Whenever my girls don't finish much spinach, whatever's left over, that's what I have for dinner. That's when you know your dad, whatever's left over, that's what you got. You care for your body. You want the vitamins. You want the nutrients. You want to care for your heart. You do a little cardio. You work out. You care for yourself. In the same way that you care for your body, you have to care for your soul, if not more important.Feed the new man. Feed that new soul. Starve the old man. Starve the flesh. You can't reign in life if sin is reigning in you. So this is what he talked about in chapter 5. He says, "We are called by grace, by God's grace. We're called to reign in life." So in a sense where, we're children of God, but we're also kings and queens. We are to take authority, dominion over the kingdoms of our lives in submission to Jesus Christ.So in a sense, we're slaves to God, but when we're slaves to God, we're also kings reigning over sin. He says, "If sin is reigning in you, it's because you let it reign." Every part of your body, all your members are personified here. It's instruments as tools, either for righteousness or unrighteousness. A lot of people think Christianity is just spiritual. That has nothing to do with life. Like, "Oh, your faith. All right, all right. That's what you believe. It's out there. It's very personalized." Nothing to do with the way that you physically live. And we push back at that. That's a false idea. It has everything to do with how we live.Romans 12:1 through 2, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies, not just your souls, your bodies as live as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Every day you wake up and you say, "God, I am yours. Jesus, I'm yours. I am on the altar. My body is on the altar as a sacrifice." That's through worship. "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."Full body. Holistic submission, your mind. Lord, my mind is yours. Help me take captive every single thought that is a virus against my walk with you. Submission of the mind, submission of the mouth, of the voice, tongue, legs, arms, hands, fingertips, everything in submission to God.Roman 6:14, he continues, "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace." And this is what you need to understand in context. He's not saying that this is license to sin. "Oh, we're under grace." I heard this so many times. You meet with someone and you're like, "Hey, man or sister, you're living in sin. Here's the scriptures. We should repent." And he says, "We're not under the law. We're under grace."No, no, no. Hold on. You can't just rip a verse out of context. What's he talking about? Paul has already explained the law condemns us. So before Christ, we are all under the dreadful burden of the law. The law reveals our disobedience that we can't be saved by obedience to law. We're all debtors to law. But once in Christ, we are no longer in the condition of being crushed by the weight of the law.Now, we're under grace and the law operates differently depending on which realm you're in. We talk about that in chapter 5. And Adam, the law condemns us and reveals our sin. It has no power to affect change. In Christ, you're saved by grace. Now the law is transformed by this whacking stick of burden, condemnation, repent, repent, repent. Once you do repent, the law becomes this path that God gives us as a rule for life.God says, "Here's the guardrails for the fullness of life, a life in which you are going to flourish. Not just temporarily, but for all of eternity shows us the way of life is freedom from sin. So no grace doesn't nullify the law. It transforms what the purpose of the law in our lives. So Romans 3:31, he says, "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?" By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law."Romans 7:12, that next chapter. "So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." Romans 7:14. "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am over the flesh sold under sin." So we're not under the principle of law as a means of salvation. We don't look at the 10 commandments and say, "Fulfill the 10 commandments and then God will allow you to go to heaven." That's not how Christianity works. God gives us 10 commandments and he says, "Try doing it." And as soon as you try doing it, you're like, "Yep, I can't do it."And he's like, "Good. Now, you get the point. Repent of your sin. You need Jesus Christ. Once you're in Christ, you get the power of the Holy Spirit to now live according to God's will." Which is the law. We're justified by grace through faith. We're under grace, which doesn't mean we're free to sin. It actually means now we're free to obey. We have the ability to obey God, and its obedience from the heart. And it's all by grace. Our justification is by grace. And so is our sanctification.Roman 6:15. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law, but under grace. By no means. So Paul has been a pastor long enough. He knows. He knows this is always the objection. Whenever you tell people, you can't earn your salvation. There's nothing you can do to merit your way into heaven, it's only by grace. And they're like, "But that doesn't work." You can't just tell people that you can repent of your sins anytime and all of your sins are forgiven. Now, there's no motivation to live a righteous life.No, no, no, that can't be how it works. This is what Paul continues to say, he says, "But if that's how you think, you don't understand grace." He says, "By no means. May it never be. God forbid." Verse 16. "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?"So to fully understand this verse, you need to understand the culture of that time and indentured servitude. When modern readers hear the word slave or slavery, we think of the slave trade in the west and recent centuries, which was essentially kidnapping, stealing people, bringing them across the ocean, then selling them at the auction block to other people.In the ancient world, slavery was primarily voluntary servitude. So if someone couldn't pay their debts or couldn't provide for their family, didn't have a place to live, did not have work to provide. This person would offer their services to fulfill the debt and they would live in the master's house and they would fulfill the will of the master indentured servitude. And it was estimated that Rome at that time, when Paul was writing, that one third, at least one third of the population of Rome were in this kind of indentured servitude as slaves.And initially they were made to wear this distinctive style of clothing, so people could say, "Okay. You're a slave. You're not a slave." And then the Romans figured out, "Oh, that's actually a bad move because it's communicating to the slaves just how powerful they could be if they united and worked together of their numerical strength." So then they said, "No, no, no. You have to address like everyone else."And many free men had once been slaves and likely more than half of the Roman church at that time had been enslaved. So they intuitively understood this metaphor that when your master tells you something to do, you are to obey your master and you can't serve to masters. So Paul here is saying in, "Adam, we were slaves to sin, which leads to death, but in Christ we're slaves to a master who redeems us, who loves us, who turns aside God's wrath from us by his own obedience. We worship a master who himself enslaved himself, took on the form of a servant. This is the greatest master that has ever lived. This is a master that did everything to serve us, Christ."God becomes a doulos, becomes the slave to take on the penalty that we deserve. He fulfills the will of God completely. And Paul is saying by repentance, by obeying in him, we're liberated from sin and from death, which formally held us in bondage. Do you ever feel like you are enslaved to sin? Are there sins now in your life that you're like, "I can't even imagine having freedom from the sin"? I can't even imagine what freedom would feel like, what it would taste like.Well, today I'm calling you to believe that you can have victory over that particular sin. Whatever sin the Lord is bringing to mind now. And in your Christian walk... One of the things I like doing my free time is watching fights. I like fights. I like boxing. I like MMA. I told my wife second career, if this doesn't work out, I think I'm going to be an MMA fighter just in case.So one of the things I like to see is the records of these guys. Because some of the guys in the boxing world, they're like, "I am undefeated. I'm 99 and 0." And then you look at their opponents and you're like, "They were all trumps. They were all trumps." I've been to matches like this and I've seen how these guys pad their numbers. It's basically like a professional gets in there and they're like, "Okay, who wants to fight him?"But in the Christian life, we should have a column of wins over sin. You should be able to look back at your life and you say, "You know what? Two years ago, I struggled with envy. I struggled with insatiable desire for social media. I struggled with..." whatever the sin is. "I struggled with pride." And pride is the last enemy. We'll get to pride. Because actually as you grow in the Christian faith, you should be able to look at your resume of wins and be like, "That was pretty good." And then the Holy Spirit comes in and you're like, "Sinner, you wicked sinner, now here's your thorn in the flesh, so you don't get proud."But that should be our goal is to like to graduate away from lesser sins to greater sins. How do you do it? You do it by coming to Jesus saying, "Jesus, set me free. Jesus give me the power to remain free." John 8:31 through 36. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." And they answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed."So obeying sin leads to death. Obeying God leads to righteousness. And the master we obey shows whose slave we really are. Point two is set free from slavery to God. Verse 17. But thanks be to God that you who are once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness.Remember the monergistic, synergistic thing I said? Here it's synergistic, but who gets all the glory? God, of course. He says thanks be to whom? To God that you who were on slaves have become obedient. So you are doing the obedience, but you give glory to God because it's God who gives you the power. He gives you the desire to do it. Thanks be to God.Paul pours forth a burst of Thanksgiving having considered the greatness of what God has done for him. Our goal should be to become slaves of righteousness. And what kind of slaves of righteousness? How are we to obey? He says from the heart, from the heart. And this is the paradox of freedom that you are enslaved to Jesus Christ.And by the way, sometimes it does feel like slavery. I'm not going to stand up here and say, once you follow Jesus Christ, it's just hunky-dory. It's easy. It is smooth sailing. It's not. It's work. It's a lot of hard work, but it's transformative work. He says, "But this is from the heart. From the heart you want to obey." You want to fulfill everything that God has called you to do. You want to do God's will. This is the difference between religion and a relationship.Religion, you're like, "I got to do this thing, so I don't go to hell. I got to do this thing so that I get blessed. I go do this thing because God said so." And he says obedience is from heart. Oh, it's not I have to do this, I get to by the power of the Holy Spirit serve this God that loves me and he's given me a new heart that's free to obey God.Galatians 5:1. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yolk of slavery. So the freedom Christ offers isn't autonomous self-direction. But if deliverance from the enslaving powers of sin that prevent us from becoming everything God intended us to be. This is why our children's ministry and our youth ministry is so important. It's so important. I don't know why things work this way, but they do. It's like when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college, you basically set up your spiritual trajectory.In the ministry here at Mosaic, I've been in the city 13 years. Mosaic is 11. Very few people have come to faith in their 80s, 90s. We've had a few and it's like, "Oh, praise God." Because once you get on this path of, this is what I believe, this is my worldview, and then you just get really busy in life in your job and your career. And then you don't really study, so you don't really... It's when you're a teenager, the spiritual formation is so important. When you're a child, when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college spiritual formation... Because you're figuring out how am I to live? What are the decisions I should be making? What should I be addicting myself to? Good things or bad things? Things that will make me prosper and flourish or things that will be destructive for me.The sooner you get on this path of like, "Oh, this is the way I am to go. This is how I can become the best version of myself." And then you just go. And there's also hope for everyone who at any time you come to the Lord, you can sin, sin, sin, and then the Lord saves you, regenerates you, justifies you, gives you the Holy Spirit. And then transformation all of a sudden. But he says, "This is the path for our flourishing. It's following God's law."Every other religion is a religion of law and human merit. Christianity and stark contrast is a religion of freedom. That's why we mistakenly think that freedom is the absence of all restrictions. Like, "Freedom, yeah." I remember when I got my license, my first car was an Audi 80. It was tremendous. It was a stick shift. I didn't know how to drive stick shifts. I learned that day when I bought it to drive it home and I thought, "It's freedom, freedom. I have freedom." I finally have freedom.I had overbearing immigrant parents and I'm like, "Finally, got my own car." I thought I was free until I got pulled over and I got my first speeding ticket and I realized, "Oh, hold on. Oh, no, no, no, no. There's restrictions to the freedom. And if you do not drive within those restrictions, you are actually going to lose your freedom." Freedom isn't the absence of restrictions. Freedom is the presence of restrictions that we were designed for. This is why we shouldn't get mad and we should be like, "Oh, the law of God."The Psalmist says, I delight in the law of God. I love the law of God because he knows that it's the law of God that brings blessing in life. When a Christian is like, "This is too hard. I can't follow the Lord. This is too hard. It's too restricting. I need freedom. I need freedom. I need freedom away from God, away from his commandments, away from the church. I just need a breather. I need freedom."That's like a fish saying, "You know what? I am restricted by this water. This water is not for me anymore. I'm tired of swimming in water. I'm going to walk." I've got five fish in my house and I've been studying fish for a while. That would be ludicrous of the fish to jump out and say, "I want freedom from this tank." And that's what a lot of people do when they want freedom from God. It's freedom from the environment in which you flourish. It's like a train. A train is most free when it's restricted to rails and humans are most free when we're running on oxygen, so our souls are most free when we're restricted to and by God.We are most free when we are in submission of God's authority, when we humbly submit to God who submitted himself to the law and the punishment for our law breaking. True freedom is found in submission to the God who submitted himself in order to free us.So for us, for Christians, we're set free from sin for sanctification, for obedience to God, and we should be happy with the fact that we are enslaved to God, because this is where we flourish.Matthew 6:33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added onto you. He said, "These are the priorities for the Christians. Seek God's kingdom and righteousness and God will take care of the rest of our needs. This is that priority. Matthew 5:20. "For I tell, unless your righteousness," Jesus said, "exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."So he says Christians are to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. If we don't, we're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. So he's not saying we enter the kingdom of heaven through our righteousness, but he says, if you have entered the kingdom of heaven, you will pursue righteousness. So if faith is real, the fruit of faith is righteousness. It's obedience from the heart.I've always found that verse. Very interesting. What does it mean that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees? Because if you follow the Pharisees in many ways, they were very righteous. They weren't righteous from the heart, but they did a lot of things that were very righteous that we could learn from them. Let's look at them. Let's look at the Pharisees real quick. Who were the Pharisees? They rose up against the secularism of the Jews of that day.They're like, "You're not Jewish enough. You're not obedient to God's law enough." So they start their own movement of conservatives and they sought to restore covenant purity in Israel. They were called the set apart ones and they consider themselves set apart for the singular pursuit of righteousness. But they did it hypocritically. They didn't do it from the heart.But we can still learn from their righteousness. Matthew 23:23 through 24. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel."So the problem with them, Jesus is like, "You did the lesser parts of the law, tithing, but you missed the more important parts of the law, justice, mercy faithfulness."You should have done the other stuff. It's good. You should be tithing. Don't forget the weightier matters of the law. Here, I just want to emphasize that this was part of their righteousness. They understood that 10% of their income that the Lord gives them, they are to give back to the Lord for kingdom building purposes. So in terms of our righteousness, Christians, does your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees in terms of tithing?And I say that because statistically less than 3% of Christians in the United States, tithe give 10% of their income to the Lord. The rest rob God of what he calls us to give for the building of his kingdom. So this is a tremendous opportunity for me to plug our building campaign because we still are praying for the Lord to provide us with resources, to build or purchase a ministry center.We've located a tremendous property. And if the Lord would lead you to give, you can go to our website and there's the Mosaic Build and give to build the kingdom of Lord here. So our right to succeed, including with our finances. Luke 18:11 through 22, another example we can learn from the Pharisees. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I get."Obviously, he's a hypocrite and self-righteous for thinking that he's better than this other guy, and that other guy, the tax collector, repented of his sins and he walked away justified. And when this guy didn't, so they had a heart issue, the Pharisees did, but they still had a righteousness in that. This guy tithes. He's said, "I tithe." And he says, "I fast twice a week. I fast twice a week." And the expectation for Christians, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He's not saying if you fast, he says, when you fast. That's an expectation. We are to discipline our bodies even from food, for the purpose of drawing near to the Lord and spending more time in prayer. Something to learn from the Pharisees.John 5:39 through 40 that Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is day that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." Their problem here in the text, they didn't come to the Lord. The scriptures were clear that the Messiah is Jesus Christ and Jesus proved it to them. But here we can learn, at least they did study the holy scriptures. They searched the scriptures. And we can learn from that.Matthew 23:15, "Woe to you, scribe and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." So he calls him children of hell. He calls them hypocrites. But here, I just want to emphasize, they shouldn't have converted people to hypocrisy that they were doing, but at least they cared about evangelism. That's what the word proselyte means. A proselyte is a convert.They travel across sea and land. That's how important evangelism was to them. We can learn from that. That's part of the righteousness that the Lord calls us to. The great commission is given to all of us to go and make disciples of all nations.So Jesus said, "Unless our righteous succeeds that of the Pharisees, we won't enter the kingdom of heaven. Obedience is an expectation for every Christian. It's not a popular word today in many circles. It's never even used this word. But if you study church history, you see that when the church thrived, when there was revival in the church, when people were quickened by the Holy Spirit drawn near to the Lord, they cared about obedience.Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a tremendous word called The Cost of Discipleship in which he talks about cheap grace. And he says, "Cheap grace is the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom it departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin, which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. Such grace is costly because it cause us to follow, and it is grace because it cause us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost a man his life. And it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. True grace sets us free from sin and sets us free for God. And we're set free for sanctification, which is growing in proximity to God, growing in closeness to the Lord.The holier you become, the closer you get to the Lord. Roman 6:19 through 20. I'm speaking human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.Since some people don't easily grasp spiritual things, Paul used the graphic metaphor of making his point to slavery that we are to be just as wholehearted and obeying God as we used to be to sin. Think about your life before meeting Christ, dear Christian. Think about how your life revolved around sin. And you look at young people around the city and it's like their lives revolve around sin. The sin of pursuing wealth. Just to pursue wealth because of greed, because you're in love with money. The sin of pursuing pleasure, despite any kind of... Without even thinking about morality. Seeking freedom to sin you and then all of your finances and time, and the way that you orchestrate where you live and who your friends are, it's all based around sin.And for the Christian, once you become a Christian that needs to shift. Now, the sin of your life is Jesus Christ and you should have a singular pursuit of righteousness and center your whole life around that. Prior to regeneration, people give themselves wholeheartedly to sin. Now, we are to equally wholeheartedly give ourselves to righteousness. When we are under slavery to the dominion of sin, we're completely free from righteousness. And to be free from righteousness is the same thing as being given over to sin.This is the paradox of freedom. Satan promises us freedom, but gives us only slavery to sin. Jesus Christ promises us a yolk. He promises us slavery, but gives us incredible freedom over the soul. It's like your heart just opens up. Your soul opens up. There's no guilt. There's no shame. There's no regret.You're just focused on the Lord, focused on love, the ultimate paradox of the Christian life to be free from sin is to be a slave to righteousness. Now, we are free to pursue righteousness, to present our members as slaves, to righteousness leading to sanctification. Roman 6:21. "But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things in which you were not ashamed? For the end of those things is death." What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?I was speaking with a college student. I won't say when. I was speaking with a college student and the college student said, "You know what? I live for the weekend. That's all I live for. Nothing else in my life gives me pleasure. I hate Monday through Friday until 4:00 PM." I said, "Why 4:00 PM?" He said, "It's happy hour somewhere." Just living for the weekend. He said, "But then the rest of the week, I am just miserable. I hate my life. I hate my work. There's just no satisfaction, no joy, nothing." And then you look back and you're like, "What did I reap from living like that, from living for myself, from living for sin? What did I reap? What do I have now from all of that? But when you have the Holy Spirit and your vision is clear and you look back at your life and you think of the sins you committed. It's incredibly shameful." That's what he says.He said in verse 1 and 2, "But now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life." Said enslave to God. Not only do you get satisfaction and joy and you get the presence of God, but you get the satisfaction that your life is actually incredibly meaningful. What you do is fruit that you're producing fruit, that leads to sanctification, to sanctify you.But in the end also eternal life for you and then building of the kingdom. Roman 6:23 for the wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Wages of sin is death. So if you are not yet a Christian, if you are here today and you're just not sure. You're not sure. I'll just ask you. Do you care about holiness? Because that's really the test. If you have been justified, then you care about sanctification. You care about obedience to God.If you don't care about obedience to God, you're probably not a Christian. So I call you today to do the following. When we pray, when we worship appeal to God in your heart, in your heart and the depth of your heart appeal to God and say, "God, forgive me for my sins. Forgive me for living for myself, living as if you don't matter as if you don't exist for living as if I were dead to you and you were dead to me."I repent of that sin. Lord, I repent of that sin. I trust in Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ died on the cross, that Jesus Christ on the cross, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Meaning God the father in some sense says to God the son, "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Son, you're dead to me." Because Jesus Christ took our sin upon himself to save us.So repent of your sin, trust in Jesus Christ. And from that moment on, you will see the Holy Spirit is going to grow a desire for sanctification in you. The wage of sin is death. It's eternal death in a place called hell, a place of eternal damnation, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ.One of my favorite things to do is to go to the reservoir, the Cleveland Circle Reservoir in the evening to watch the sunset. I like that. There's lots of benches. There's always at least one bench I can find to sit there. I like to stare into the sun. I was told that that's not healthy. So in the vicinity of the sun, I stare and I pray and I pray.I was kind of bummed out this week that one day, and I drove to the reservoir. I just sat down. I'm praying. I'm like, "Lord, I don't know." There was a spiritual sadness of him battling. I met with a pastor friend of mine and he said, "Welcome." He said, "It's an occupational hazard." That's what he told me and he laughed and that made me feel better.So I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Lord, just send me some good news." I need some good news. I even left my phone up because I'm like, "Whenever I pray, sometimes the Lord specifically sends me a phone call or text like someone is going to encourage me." And I'm like, "Lord, Lord, Lord." And nothing, just nothing. Just nobody. I'm like, "Lord." And then out of nowhere I hear a voice and the voice says, "Jesus Christ died for your sins." And I was like, "Who's that?" And I realized it was me. I was just talking to me. It was my voice because I learned from the Psalmist that you were to encourage yourself.The Psalmist says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" Why are you downcast? This is the greatest news in the history of the universe. What other news do we need other than Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins because of his great love for me, he washes away my shame, my sin, my regret, all of that.Honestly, I just started laughing. I'm like, "Oh, I just Pastor Jan'd myself. It worked. It worked. I got a big smile on my face and I went home and it was tremendous." And the essence of Christian theology is grace and the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude." We get power for sanctification from justification. We are saved by grace through faith. That's how we get justified. But then sanctification happens when we just think and we meditate on the sufferings of Jesus Christ in our behalf. That's what it took to justify us. And as you do, your faith increases and your sanctification increases as well.A close to this, 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel says to King Saul, he says, "Has the Lord has great delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams.So obedience, God cares more about obedience than the sacrifices that we bring to him. But we can't even obey God unless we meditate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ sacrificed himself because he was in total obedience to God the father. In Gethsemane, he said, "Lord, if there's any other way, let this cup pass for me, but not my will but yours be done."So as we meditate on Christ obedience, as we meditate on his sacrifice, the Lord strengthens our own resolve to be obedient to the Lord. If God is speaking to you about any area of your life, dear Christian, where you are in disobedience, today is the day of repentance and today is the day of resolve. To say to sin, "You are dead to me, because I am alive to Christ."Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for this time in the holy scriptures. We thank you for the meditation on the gospel. And we thank you, Lord, that we can live a life of righteousness, a life of sanctification. And even when we don't do it perfectly, we can always come to you and repent and find grace and pray for anyone who doesn't yet know you today, draw them to yourself, regenerate their hearts, save them and give each one of us an extra dose of the Holy Spirit to work out our salvation, to do it with fear and trembling. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Beginning a new exposition of Colossians, we consider the first 8 verses of this short but impactful epistle. Introduction to Colossians

Continuing his thoughts on the ministry of the church, pastor Winslett speaks about Jesus’ instruction to employ wisdom and discretion in our work. Wise as Serpents

Last weeks message focused on the biblical encouragement to “wait” on the Lord in our trials. Today, we balance that though with a message on working. That is, as we wait on God, there are many things we need to be doing, particularly as a church. Working While Waiting