FBC Boerne Youth
Messages from First Baptist Church Boerne's Youth Ministry. Visit us at https://www.fbcboerne.org/youth/
FBC Boerne Youth
Freedom from Lust // Matthew 5:27-30
Continuing our Sermon on the Mount series, we take a look at what Jesus has to say about one of the most common struggles today: Lust.
Discussion Questions:
1. Why do you think Jesus takes lust so seriously?
Follow-up: How have you seen the effects of lust or objectification in our culture, your school, or among your friends?
2. Jesus calls us to take radical action against sin. What are some things in your life that might be stumbling blocks?
Follow-up: What practical steps can you take this week to "omit" those stumbling blocks, even if it’s inconvenient?
3. The "R" in CORE stands for "Replace." Why is it important to replace sinful desires with something better instead of just trying to stop sin?
Follow-up: What are some ways you can fill your life with a greater love for Jesus so that sin loses its appeal?
Thank you, y'all give her a hand. Thank you, hannah, for coming up here to read. I know we gave you the super fun passage to read. But guys, when I was growing up, I confess I was a very picky eater. Do I have any other picky eaters Like you? Still are picky, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I would eat basically like three or four things. One, wendy's chicken nuggets, for whatever reason. Like Wendy's was the only one. If you forced me I could do McDonald's, but Wendy's was it Like don't get me started Burger King garbage. They weren't good, I didn't want them. There was one brand of smoked sausage I don't know why this specific brand. Nothing else would do, just this one Uncrustables grape jelly, not strawberry, strawberry, unacceptable Grape. I would eat Pizza. Pizza Hut was like the top tier Pizza rolls eventually worked their way in there and that was Garrett's food pyramid.
Speaker 1:Like that was literally all that I would eat and I honestly have no idea how I made it to adulthood. I probably already have high cholesterol, but it was all just processed junk and I had eaten it so long that I acquired a taste for it. And when I would try to eat other things, I just didn't want the real nutritious stuff and it wasn't until I get a bit older and I start growing that, hey, I need to eat more than just these three foods, right? And so I remember, for whatever reason, the first food I tried that like broke my pickiness was tacos. I don't know why, but specifically that I remember and I ate it and I was like it's like the music that it's a whole new world, like it all opened up. I was like, oh my goodness, like there's actually like other foods out here, it's fantastic. And it changed the game, Like everything was different for me and I learned, hey, I had grown a taste for this cheap counterfeit, even though it was killing me, like it was not good for me. If I still ate like that, I would probably have all sorts of health issues to this day, not realizing what I was really missing in the real, nutritious, valuable stuff.
Speaker 1:Why do I tell you this story? Well, we've been walking through the Sermon on the Mount this spring and tonight we're on the section on lust, matthew 5, 27 through 30,. What Hannah read earlier and for many of us in this room tonight, lust has caused you to have an appetite for the counterfeit. I know it's a hard shift Shallow, selfish relationships using images of real people on a screen for pleasure, and my goal tonight is to show you that you can have true freedom in Jesus. Specifically, sermon in a sentence right here that while lust distorts how we see others, it damages our relationships and it enslaves our hearts, jesus calls us to take radical action to pursue purity, replace sinful desires with a greater love for him and walk in true freedom. We're going to unpack that sentence. So if you didn't get that, that's all right.
Speaker 1:Real quick, everybody. Pray with me super fast, bow your head, close your eyes and if you would start, would you just say a quick prayer for yourself, would you pray for your heart as we learn God's word, that we would have open eyes and ears for the Holy Spirit to convict us. Maybe this is the first time you've ever prayed. You just say, hey, god, if you're there, will you reveal yourself to me, pray that prayer, and then would you say a quick prayer for me, that what I would say would be helpful, that it would be grounded and rooted in the gospel, god's word, the truth, and that it would glorify him. Lord, we thank you so much for tonight and we pray that, as we jump into a topic that can sometimes be uncomfortable to talk about, lord, that we would just remove all of those pretenses, all that weird stuff, and we would just be honest and real and authentic in this moment, realizing that we've all encountered this in some way, shape or form, and that we could just peel off the things we usually hide behind so that we could deal with it genuinely, so we can find freedom and healing, whatever that might look like, or we could be a part of you bringing freedom and healing to someone else. God, we love you, we praise you. Pray all these things in Jesus' name. And everybody said amen. So we're jumping in.
Speaker 1:I'm going to reread a couple of these verses up front Matthew 5, 27, and 28. Jesus says you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And so Jesus continues this format that we've seen the last couple of weeks where he introduces a command from the Old Testament. This is the seventh commandment. It's found in Exodus 20, 14, if you want to write that in your Bible next to this verse. And he says you shall not commit adultery. That's what God told Moses to write. And so the literal law here if you don't know what adultery means is don't cheat on your spouse, don't cheat on your husband, don't cheat on your wife. But just like the last couple of weeks, jesus peels back the layers from the literal command and says okay, what's the principle behind it? Why did God give this command? What's the heart that's underneath this? And he doesn't stop with just adultery. He drills down to the heart of the sin and he says that adultery starts in the heart and in the mind, with something called lust. Because you can avoid physical adultery, right. You can avoid cheating on your spouse. But if you look at somebody in a certain way, if you think about somebody in a certain way, it's still sin, right, when you desire them with lust. And why is that? Well, because lust changes how you view and how you interact with people.
Speaker 1:When I transferred schools, there were a lot of differences. I went from a Christian charter school in sixth grade to a public school in sixth grade, and it was a jolt, let me tell you. And one of the things that I really, really noticed, coming from like a very imperfect but sheltered environment to one that was not like that were how the guys that I were in classes with or on teams with would talk about girls. It wasn't oh, you know, she's cool, she's funny, we're friends it was almost specifically centered around their bodies. Or if it wasn't about their bodies, it was about the things they've done or their reputation. And I'll say that it wasn't just the guys I'm not just beating up on the guys here, but that type of talk actually had this effect on the girls. They had this pressure to measure up and I remember back then it just seemed like the culture that I lived in. It seemed normal because that's how everybody talked. But looking back, I can just see how like gross and demeaning that was.
Speaker 1:But the question is, how in the world do people get to that point? Like, how do you just talk about someone that way? Well, what it is, it's conditioning. All those guys were conditioned to think about people that way, to lust after women by the songs that they listened to, the shows that they watched, the movies they watched and ultimately, for many, a pornography addiction. And none of them may have gone out and committed adultery, they weren't even married yet. But the point is they've been conditioned to view people a certain way through lust and it caused them to treat their friends, their, maybe sisters in Christ, maybe their classmates, as lesser than, and treat them horribly. And that's why God takes lust so seriously, is it takes somebody who's made in the image of God. You are an image bearer, you have value given to you by God, male or female, and it strips them of that value and just turns them into an object to be used for your pleasure. That's what it is and that's why God hates it.
Speaker 1:And there's nowhere that this is more obvious than the current pornography epidemic. And just in case you didn't know it, it is an epidemic. Statistics show that over 40 million American people regularly consume it, and it's not just guys. One-third of those are women. And one study says that 11 years old is the average age the child is first exposed and 94% of children will see it by the age of 14. And it's not just incredibly widespread, it's incredibly damaging. 49% of sex trafficking survivors report being forced into it. And even those who willfully participate usually end up depressed, addicted to drugs or alcohol, and suicidal. In fact, the suicide rate among those who are in that industry is six times higher than the general population. That means if you participate in, that, your chance or your statistics of committing suicide six times higher. You might not realize it, but when you're consuming that, you're consuming somebody being exploited what might be the darkest day of their life.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing it's one thing to know that it's bad for society or the people involved, but it's another thing to understand that it's bad for you, that lust takes a toll on you because you have an enemy in Satan and his demonic forces and I know we get weird when we talk about spiritual warfare, but there is an enemy, scripture says, that seeks to steal, kill and destroy, prowling around. He's here on earth. He's not off in hell, somewhere Like he's here. You've probably never been near him, but you've probably been near his agents. And again, that's a whole nother sermon. But, point being, this is one of his favorite strategies.
Speaker 1:Did you know that 56% of divorces cite pornography as one of the main causes? Think about that, like right now you could be playing with the very thing that Satan wants to use to wreck your marriage. Some of you have dealt with wrecked marriages. You've been on the other side of that and a lot of times we think that it's oh, it's a single person problem. Right, I'm getting married. It's going to go away, but it's not because it trains your brain for variety. Why would you ever think that you're going to be satisfied with one person forever and ever and ever, when you've been looking at hundreds, if not thousands, on a screen? You're training yourself for polygamy. You're training yourself for variety. That switch isn't just going to flip one day. It kills intimacy. You're learning to connect with a screen, and image is not a person. You're learning to use people.
Speaker 1:I could go on and on and on, but the reality is, guys, most of you don't need me to convince you that lust kills. Most of you felt it. Most of you've walked it and lived it. You've seen that in your own life. You hate that habit. You hate those decisions you keep making, those boys or those girls that you keep choosing, and you've tried to kill it, but you can't. You've said one last time, a million times, you've said a bunch of never agains that have only proven to be temporary, and I want you to hear me right now. I am not up here shaming you. Many of you have heard.
Speaker 1:This is my story. I've been there. I was hopelessly enslaved to lust for a vast majority of my life Started at a young age and I went to the camps. I made the confessions. I told God I'm never gonna do it again. And it never stuck. It just kept coming back. So my point here tonight is not to shame you but to tell you, as somebody who's walked through that and found freedom on the other side there, as somebody who's walked through that and found freedom on the other side, there is freedom in the person of Jesus. If you walked in here tonight and say, hey, that's me, I'm stuck in that jail cell, you can get out, no matter how many times you've tried and failed. And that's where Jesus goes in this next passage, or in these next verses, if you'll read with me.
Speaker 1:In verse 29, jesus says this if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away, for it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away, it's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. And so Jesus pivots in these verses. He used the first one to explain hey, the true heart of this command is lust and how you view people as objects. That's why I hate it. And now, in light of that, how are you supposed to respond? Right, we understand that the truth. Now, what's the action that flows from the truth? And he says, hey, well, if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. And I'm not about you to ask to take out your pocket knives, like. That's not what we're doing here.
Speaker 1:Obviously, jesus isn't being literal. He uses hyperbole and exaggeration all the time. In fact, he just talked about how lust is a heart issue, right, he's not talking about physical body parts. So what is he saying? Well, one, he's using this exaggeration to make a point about just how serious lust is. And we just talked a whole lot about that, right.
Speaker 1:But then, secondly, he's saying that, hey, this is so serious that you need to take radical action in your life to avoid lust, because what you feed grows. You understand, that's the lie of one last time, right, you say one last time. But you just fed something, you fed a desire, you fed a habit, you fed a way of thinking, and it grows, right. And now you want it more. We see that with sugar. Right, I'm going to eat healthy. Just one more cookie. But you have one cookie. What do you want? Oh, I want another cookie. I want some ice cream. What you feed grows. You have to kill it.
Speaker 1:And here's the truth, guys. Lust is not just some pet sin that you can manage until you take it to the grave, and this is really anything. If you are managing your sin, it is really managing you. But what type of radical action? Right, like we're not talking about amputating body parts. Well, apparently I've just been really into acronyms lately, so we have another one. It's core. I'm not going to try to explain why the word is the way it is, because it's just a word. It fit with the ones that I was trying to use. Right, so roll with me. But core, the C is for confess your sin, the O is for omit or remove is what that means? Stumbling blocks? R is replace the desire and E is examine your heart. And we're gonna walk through these here with the time that we have left.
Speaker 1:But I just want a disclaimer up front. I am not preaching behavior modification. What do I mean by that? I am not saying that you need to sit here and clean yourself up so that God will love you. That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. There is nothing you can do to earn God's love. However, though we can't do anything to earn God's love, god's love should change everything that we do. If we understand that God loves us, that he loves us enough to die for our sins, why would we want to live and remain in that same very sin? But I'm also not preaching that you just need to willpower your way out of it, because no amount of willpower is going to work. Trust me, I went down that path. It doesn't.
Speaker 1:But these tools, these applications, this little you know silly acronym, are really just practices to place you at the feet of Jesus, to be close to him, because closeness to God is when you're changed. He's the one who cleans you up. He's the one who changes you little by little by little, peels back layer by layer by layer, removes addictions, removes brokenness, removes hurt. If you're near to him, he will change you. So what we're talking about here are just some practical steps. If you say, okay, I know, like being close to Jesus is how I'll be changed, like intimacy and a relationship with him. Okay, but what does that look like? We're talking about the what it looks like here, and there's no one size fits all, but these are just some helpful tools that I've found helpful for myself.
Speaker 1:So, c, confess your sin. You have to realize that sin has the most power over you when it remains in the dark. Right, it's this vicious cycle you mess up, you feel guilty, and then you feel shame, and so you try to hide it, and then you want to try and like medicate the shame. So then you turn back to that same issue and it just goes over and over and over again like a hamster wheel. And the way you free yourself from that is the practice of confession. James 5, 16, and we have it says therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. And so at one level, guys, we confess our sins to God and we are forgiven. What that looks like is you are agreeing with what God says about your sin. Lord, I looked at that person in an impure way. I looked at them like they were an object, and that is wrong. That does not give them the value that you give them. I continued to think about that when I could have stopped and I should have directed my thoughts towards you, lord, will you please forgive me? Right. And at that level you have that closeness with God restored right. But on another level, confession to one another is where we find healing, right. So when you actually go to a brother and sister in Christ and say, hey, I messed up this way, this way, this way, pray for me. Like that's when we actually see just that incredible healing that starts to come out of that.
Speaker 1:One author put it this way. He says that you need to have intentionally intrusive relationships. I know that's really like wordy and whatnot. Sounds like it's straight out of an English book, but to translate that you need people in your life who have no secrets with you and you have no secrets with them. They know all your hurts, your habits, your hang-ups. For you that might be a mentor, that might be somebody in the student ministry, a leader, a youth pastor, who, but somebody who knows everything about you, your weak spots, your sin patterns. And not only that, but they have permission to ask those tough questions hey, man, what does your phone. Look like this week. Hey, how have you been praying? Hey, are you walking in purity with your boyfriend or your girlfriend? And they have the permission from you to pry into those areas.
Speaker 1:And I stumbled upon this type of community at DBU. It's where the Lord really began to set me free. During my time there I was in a small group that was through a church called Watermark. Shout out to Porch JP. He was still around back then. My seniors know, yeah, but really what it was is we would circle up at the coffee house at DBU at a completely ridiculous hour, like way too early, like 7 am. It was great Not really 7 am is like late now, but we would get up there like super early, like 5.30, 6 am, and we would just chug coffee and we would talk and we'd pray for one another and we would answer three questions how have you fed your flesh, how have you fed your spirit and how have you fed others? And spirit and others don't really pertain to what we're talking about tonight, but when we asked that question hey, how have you fed I messed up here. I'm feeling tempted here. Will you check back in on me here? And at the end of sharing that we would go and we would pray for whoever just shared and then we would share our peace.
Speaker 1:And it was so incredibly healing and it wasn't always just like coddling, pat you on the back oh, it's okay, try better next time. Like man, I got like beat up a couple of times, not physically, but it felt like it. But that's what good accountability does. It's in love and it's to correct one another, it's to help one another, keep going, to encourage one another, and sometimes there were hard and matter-of-fact conversations. But it was through that type of community that God changed me.
Speaker 1:Without that group I wouldn't be a youth pastor here, that's for sure. I wouldn't be the husband or the father that I am. And as much as I'd like to tell you that it was just something special about DBU best place on earth, disneyland has nothing on it like the coffee shop, specifically, best coffee in the world that's not the case. The special piece was a group of people who were committed to Jesus and committed to one another and committed to following Jesus together. God shows up in that and he changes you through that type of community. Find that group, find that group.
Speaker 1:Here I mean fight for it. Drag your sin into the light, because if it's in the dark it has power over you. If you bring it to light, man, you can really start to walk in that freedom, because you don't have to do it alone and you have people to keep you accountable, to encourage you. So, c, confess your sins. O omit stumbling blocks or remove stumbling blocks. And it's one thing to confess your sins, that's great. But I've counseled a lot of guys who they have no problem confessing their sin.
Speaker 1:The issue comes when it's time to have some life change. They'll confess all day, but there's no actual changes that get made. And let me tell you that's really one of the most dangerous places you can possibly be. Because confession is important but it should always be paired with this word, this thing we call repentance, and that Greek word for repentance is metanoeo and it really just means a change of direction. So if I'm walking this way, I'm walking towards lust, I'm going to stop, I'm going to confess that to God, and then I'm going to stop, I'm going to confess that to God, and then I'm going to turn around and go in the other direction. And so there's a practical element to that.
Speaker 1:First Corinthians 6, 18 says flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body. You got to flee, you got to run away. Think about Joseph in the Old Testament. Potiphar's wife tries to tempt him. He just like ducks out, dips out, he's gone right. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1:One time I counseled somebody and he was man I'm really like struggling with lust. And this was former, different, not here. And he says man, I've just tried everything, like I can't help it and I just keep struggling. I'm like, okay, okay, you're struggling with sin. Cool, like, can I ask you a few questions? All right, sweet, you know who's praying over you for your freedom? Well, nobody. Okay, well, like, do you have an accountability partner? No, no, I don't really have anybody like that. Okay, well, like, do you have any accountability software, like some filters or anything? No, no, well, did you like get rid of your smartphone? Then, like, did you delete social media? Did you cancel Netflix? No, no. And you realize sometimes oh, I'm struggling with sin. I'm struggling with sin and we haven't even started to fight this guy. He wasn't struggling with sin, it was his pet. He was feeding it, he was protecting it. You have to fight.
Speaker 1:If you want to find freedom, you need to make a plan to remove whatever has caused you to stumble into sin. Part of that confession is okay, how did you get there? How can we walk out of it? And this is how I can almost always tell if somebody's going to get better. Will you move access? Are you willing to put up guardrails in your life? And this could go to any sin, right, maybe this isn't your sin. This is any sin that you might struggle with. That might mean hey, instagram's got to go, twitter, sayonara, snapchat gone. Maybe that relationship needs to go. Those lines have been crossed and that other person wants to keep crossing them.
Speaker 1:You might need to go break up with somebody after this sermon. You might need to get rid of your PlayStation. You might need to get a flip phone. You might need to throw out the TV in your bedroom, a certain genre of music or movies. I can give you countless accountability software, screen time, use a brick.
Speaker 1:Whatever the point is, I'm not trying to be legalistic. I'm just saying what Jesus said and I'm not trying to give you a black and white list of what is or not okay. But the question is are you willing to give up your freedoms if they're keeping you a slave to sin. Are you willing to give up your freedoms if they're keeping you a slave to sin? What price are you willing to pay? And it might cost you something to fight, but I'm telling you, not fighting will cost you everything. R replace the desire. One thing that holds a lot of people back is that they focus on killing sin, and killing sin only. They have no plan after that. And it's not that trying to kill sin in their life is bad, but you have to replace it with something else.
Speaker 1:And so some of you see me do this before. I stole this water bottle from Andrea like two minutes before the sermon, because I forgot I needed one. So thank you for letting me do that. But you know, if you've heard this question before, don't ruin the example by shouting it out. But there's times when you know I've got this cup and it's full of air and the question would be and I just realized there's a crack in it. So I'm going to have to be careful with this illustration.
Speaker 1:How am I supposed to get all of the air out of this cup? You know some kids, if you do this, like in elementary school classroom. They're like oh you know, vacuum it out, like maybe you like turn it upside down, like hold it here and pull a piece of paper, like all these sorts of things. Andrew's bringing me a non-cracked cup. Give Andrew a hand. Thank you very much. I'm glad I realized that before I finished this sermon. Illustration, right, but so it's okay. You know there's air in there. How do I get it out? Well, the answer is if I figure out how I'm supposed to, there we go.
Speaker 1:You want to get the air out of the cup, you fill it with something else, you fill it with water and as you fill it with water, that water drives out the air and you can fill it all the way up. Right Point being it's the same thing with sin. You can spend your whole life trying to play spiritual whack-a-mole get it out of there, get it out of there, get it out of there. But unless you replace it with something else, you're just going to have other things pop up, other idols, other sin struggles. And the point is, I love this quote by John Piper.
Speaker 1:He puts it this way. He says I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God. As you create a newer and a stronger love for Jesus, it's going to push out your love for sin, and so I'm here to tell you tonight hey, fill your heart with the living water of Jesus. It's what Philippians 4.8 says. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, admirable, anything is excellent, set your mind on these things. So spend time with Jesus. Do the stuff that makes you love him more. Maybe that's worship music, maybe that's an incredible sermon, maybe that's time in nature, maybe that's time with other brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe that's a really good cup of coffee, I don't know. But whatever that is, do more of that.
Speaker 1:Fall more in love with God, because you will start to see so clearly I can't have this and him. I can't have this habit. I can't have this little addiction and have him, and he's a lot better than this. This only gives me shame, guilt, hiding, hatred for myself. He gives me life, and so anything that's going to cause me to move this direction, I don't want anything to do with it, because I just want him, and that's when it really clicked for me that Jesus is just so much better. Why would I want anything in this life, whether it's pornography or lust or anger or nicotine or whatever if it brings me away from him, it's not worth it. True victory doesn't come from this mastery of filters and self-control, but it looks like a heart that's so in love with Jesus that nothing else will do.
Speaker 1:And so, e, examine your heart and thoughts, and this is the ongoing piece. Like even once you started to walk in freedom. Thoughts and this is the ongoing piece, like even once you started to walk in freedom. It's a lifelong journey because sin creeps up, like Satan wants to kind of piece this thing. Oh, you know you're doing so good, like you can let it go a little bit. Or, oh, you know, you're not actually looking at anything really bad. Like you're just looking at this person, it's just one glance, it's no big deal, and Satan will try to use those to gain a foothold. And a lot of times we think that freedom is the absence of temptation. But that's not going to happen on this side of heaven. Right? Freedom is no longer being mastered by those desires.
Speaker 1:Have any of y'all ever been to the mountains before? Like driven in the mountains, you know those like runaway ramps. Anybody know what I'm talking about. So you're going down a hill and all of a sudden you see this gravel path that like goes off into nowhere. It seems right, it's really deep gravel. The point of that is they put them kind of at the top of a hill and if a semi truck is going through these hills and they wear their brakes out because they've got this heavy load and they need to stop, they can pull off of this road before they pick up too much speed and they can drive onto that path and it'll slow them down. But the point being is you don't want to figure out, you need to break. When you're at the bottom of that hill, you're in trouble, you ain't stopping, you're hitting something and that something's probably gonna cease to exist.
Speaker 1:And, guys, it's the same way with our thoughts. Even when we're walking in freedom, we have to constantly examine our heart of hey, where is my heart at? Where is my mind at? How am I looking or thinking? How am I looking at or thinking about the people around me? Because the thing is, you don't want to try and stop lust when you're planning on how you're going to get away with it. Right, you want to stop lust long before that snowball starts rolling down that hill? Right, you want to get off on that exit ramp, say, hey, you know, I'm going to text my group of guys, I'm going to text my group of girls. Hey, I, you know. I had a weird dream or I woke up just feeling kind of tempted. We all pray for me today. I don't want to get to a spot where I don't want to be and get off of that path early, before that picks up speed.
Speaker 1:And so, guys, I want to close with this. I'll go over it Core. Confess your sins, omit your stumbling blocks, replace your desires, examine your hearts, if you want to take a picture of whatnot. But I realize that a lot of this sermon has been preached to one specific demographic. Right, you're a believer and you're struggling with the sin and you need a way out. But I want to address that there's really three people in this room One.
Speaker 1:You're in jail and the door's closed, and that means that, hey, I'm enslaved to this sin and I do not have a relationship with Jesus, I don't follow him, he's not my king. And what you need to hear is not a bunch of tools, not a bunch of self-help, not a bunch of hey, get yourself out of this. You need to hear, you need Jesus, you need a new heart, because outside of that new heart there is nothing you can do to pull yourself out of that muck and that mire. But Scripture says that God meets us in our mess. He loved us so much to die for us while we were his enemies, and that he not only took the punishment for our sin, but that we receive his reward and that our old self has died with him on that cross and we become a new creation with a new heart. And you're no longer slave to those things. And so if that's you tonight, you say, hey, that's me, I'm in that jail cell and that door is slammed shut and locked.
Speaker 1:Forget the core. Come to the foot of the cross, confess your sin, say Jesus, I have tried my entire life to run this thing, to make it look how I want, and it is not working. I've made a mess out of it. I'm a slave. Jesus, I need something better. I need you. I believe you are who you said you are. I believe that you did what you said you did, and I'm going to give you my entire life, my entire heart. You're the king, you're steering the ship, and if you do, I know it's scary because it's vulnerable and everything that we're really like. Our biggest fear at the core of every single one of us is to be fully known and rejected. That's why we hide, that's why we hide these things. If they knew the real me, if they saw my search history, if they knew what I did on the weekends, they'd reject me. God knows all of it deeper than you do. In fact, the sin was committed against him. Yet when you put yourself at the foot of the cross and say I am yours, jesus, he calls you his son, he calls you his daughter, he calls you beloved and he calls you new. And so maybe that's you tonight and you need to make that decision.
Speaker 1:Second group is you're sitting in that jail cell, but the door is open. You place your faith in Jesus. He's your King, he's your Lord and positionally, you are free. Your sin was paid for, but you're still living in it. Your sin wasn't paid for for you to keep living in it. That door is open. We got to help you walk out. That's what these tools are helpful for. How do you walk out of it? How do I take hold of the freedom that was bought for me with the blood of Jesus?
Speaker 1:And then the third group. You listen to this like. I don't know how any of this applies to me. I've never struggled with this, praise God. Or maybe I've struggled with this and I'm walking in freedom. Guys, be that person to someone else. Help your brother or your sister walk out of it, encourage them, pray for them, whatever it takes. And so, real quick, we're going to close here.
Speaker 1:Everybody. Just close your head, close your head, bow your head, close your eyes. Nobody looking around. I just want you to have a chance to respond to the Lord. We're not counting hands, we're not taking names. In fact, I'm going to say this I don't even want this first group to respond to say, hey, I'm ready to make a decision tonight.
Speaker 1:But if you say, hey, I'm in that first group, I'm in the jail cell, that door is locked. I don't know what I believe. I'm here because my parents dragged me. I'm here because the girl who sits across from me is cute, but I know that I'm in that prison cell and that door is locked and I'm not happy with my life. I feel the brokenness. If that's you. Just slip your hand up real quick. Nobody's looking around. I just want to pray for you. I just want to see you. I see you, I see you. There's no shame in that. This is your opportunity. I'm not counting, I'm not going to hunt you down after this service. I just want you to have an opportunity to confess before the Lord. I see you, you can put them down. Maybe you're in that second group.
Speaker 1:You say, hey, I am in that jail cell and the door's wide open and, garrett, I have no stinking clue how to walk out. Just slip your hand up real quick. This is your opportunity before the Lord. I'm not counting names, I'm not. This is you and God. I see you. I see you, I see you. Thank you for your vulnerability. I know there's a lot of you who you haven't raised your hand, and that's fine.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you, god sees it. You're really bad at hiding. He wants you to come to Him. He wants you to have that freedom, and so I'm just going to say a quick prayer, and we're short on time. We were going to do a thing for D now, but we're just going to go to small groups real quick. Lord, god, I thank you so much for tonight and I thank you for the opportunity to be here and to just deal with a heavy topic, a heavy subject, lord, and my heart breaks for the brokenness that I know exists in this room.
Speaker 1:And, lord, I just pray that as we leave here, lord, if there's somebody who needs to step into faith for the very first time, that they would come grab me after this service.
Speaker 1:I'll be down here for you guys.
Speaker 1:I'm breaking into the prayer.
Speaker 1:If you need to make that decision, you want that jail cell, that door open tonight, come here and meet me afterwards and we'll get that done.
Speaker 1:But, lord, I pray, if there's somebody who needs to do that, that they'd have the courage to do that. They wouldn't put that off, they wouldn't be okay with the status quo and the slavery any longer sin. That you would help them to have the tools and the courage to go to somebody and to be able to start to just step by step, foot by foot, see more of what you've already done for them and how you can, or how they can, walk into that. And for the person who, by your grace and mercy, has not been touched by this terrible, terrible sin and the struggle, lord, that they would be a blessing to others, they could be a brother or sister and help other people walk out of it. And Lord, god, we just thank you so much for tonight and this opportunity. We love you, we praise you, we pray all these things in your son Jesus's name. And everybody said amen, love you, guys. Let's go to our small groups.