2-To The Reality Of Sin | Series: No Longer Slaves | David Meyer

Yes, one church now exists in part because of your generosity and they had their first services, their launch services last Sunday. Listen to this. They had 488 people show up in Seattle, Washington, more people than they had chairs. The doors had to be left open. It was spilling out into the sidewalk. It was an incredible time. You see Phil Moore and Caitlin Bowles. They're the leaders of that church. Hey, when you plan a church with somebody, you can call them Phil and Kate now, okay, we're family, but what's maybe the most miraculous is that 25 people last week surrendered their life to Jesus and signed up to be baptized today at their first baptism Sunday ever. That takes a little swag. Like week two, you're saying we're going to do baptism Sunday already, but that's what we are doing today as well. My name is David Meyer. I'm the executive minister here. I want to welcome all of our campuses, Keller, Dallas, West Fort Worth, everyone here at NRH and everyone that is joining us online, as you can tell, we get excited about proclaiming the good news of Jesus, what we would call the gospel. We raise up people and we equip them and we send them all over the world as missionaries. We are a sending church. We partner with other churches and other organizations to plant churches all over our country.

We are a planting church and we raise up each and every one of you to go in your life, in your neighborhoods, your places of work, where you go to school to tell your ones about Jesus. We are a telling church and we do that because of what Jesus has done for us and we can't help but share it with others and we believe that there is a battle that is going on, that there is a, there's a battle in the heavenlies. Our battle is not necessarily against flesh and blood, but against that which is unseen and that Jesus is a freedom fighter, so we're in a series, No Longer Slaves. And today the title is No Longer Slaves to the Reality of Sin. Jesus came as a freedom fighter and he came to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of God had come and he also came to reclaim image bearers, reclaim them back to their creator so that they could spend eternity with him, but also live the most abundant life now possible. But I don't know about you, but as good as that news is, sometimes it's just, life's hard. There's decisions that I want to make, things that I want to do and I don't make a good decision. There's things that I don't want to do, things that, things that I need to stay away from and yet I find myself kind of creeping towards them and end up doing things that I don't want to do. I want to be a good person and yet I fail. Can you relate? Has that ever been you? Was it you and a carload of family members on the way here this morning? I think scripture supports what it is that I'm saying. Romans 7 says this, it says, I want to do what is right, but I

can't. I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. Can anybody relate? But if I do what I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing wrong. It is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. These are words written by Paul, maybe the greatest missionary the earth has ever known. This is after he's met Jesus. He's a follower of Jesus, and yet he is still speaking of the very real struggle of sin in his life. Can you relate? Because you see, the power of sin is incredibly destructive. It's incredibly deadly. Sin is actually more than our mistakes. It is also a power, and a power that wants to take away all the joy and all the assurance that Jesus has to offer. Scripture drives that home. Whenever Paul writes this in Romans, it says, for the wages of sin is death. Wages, that's what you get for what it is that you've done. You have a job, you go and do the things you're supposed to do, you get a paycheck. When it comes to life and the poor decisions that we make,

the sins that we commit, death are our wages. Jesus house for sinners, for you and me, for you and me. Brother James says it this way in the first chapter of his book, temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions and when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. Can we go back to celebrating one church? That was so much better news. All warm and fuzzy like the air has just been sucked out of the room. But here's the reality. In order for us to know the beauty and the magnitude of what Jesus is doing for us, we also have to know the seriousness of our current reality. And there were times that Jesus was talking to his 12 closest followers, his disciples. He had to share hard news with them, but in doing so, he was telling them the truth, but also wanted to be gracious to let them know that there is a turn that's coming and one of those moments in John 16, 33, Jesus says this, I have told you, Jesus is speaking, I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Not so that you'll feel guilty, not that you'll have shame,

but that you'll have peace in Jesus. Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows. There's a truth, but take heart because I have overcome the world. There's the grace church. Can we celebrate that? This is baptism Sunday, y'all. I need the whoopers, the ameners, all of you that are expressive. Let's hear it today. This is the day that you let it rip, okay? But he has overcome the world. He doubles down in 1 John 3, 8 that says this, but the son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to destroy the works of the devil. We know Satan is like a roaring lion, prowling around seeking who it is that he can devour. But what we know is that Jesus is more powerful than the devil in sin. You see, when you know the king of kings, you don't have to worry about some fool that's trying to act like the king of the jungle, okay? The Lord of lords and the king of kings is more powerful than anything that Satan has tried to throw at us, anything that sin has tried to throw at us. That is how powerful Jesus is. But there's a flip side to that. We have to know that Jesus is more powerful than the devil, but you ain't, and neither am I.

In fact, scripture says it very clearly and very plainly. In Romans 5, 6, it says, when we were utterly helpless, utterly helpless sounds a little bit redundant, but sometimes our thickheadedness needs some redundancy. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. We have to acknowledge that we are powerless and helpless towards sin on our own. We could learn from our brothers and sisters that are walking through recovery and celebrate recovery as they go through the 12 steps. The first step is that they recognize that they're powerless. We could learn that from our brothers and sisters. I can remember that I was studying with a guy who was a Marine, he was kind of in the special forces, and he was really struggling with this idea of being utterly helpless and needing somebody to come and rescue because he said, look, that goes against my training. I'm the rescuer, I'm the one that comes in and fights against the bad guys. I'm the one that sets people free, and for you to say that I'm utterly helpless just messes with my mind because I'm conditioned for that to not even enter into how it is that I think. And I said, all right, let me see if I can help and put it into context for you, but he had been in the Middle East. Let's say you've been deployed and you encounter an IED and it explodes and you take the brunt of that explosion

and you find yourself face up on a dirt road and that explosion has blown off your arms and your legs and you're laying there utterly helpless. Are you helpless in that moment? And he's like, well, no legs, no arms. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, do I have my eyelids? And I'm like, sure, you can have your eyelids. And he goes, okay, then I'm not utterly helpless. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he goes, well, I can communicate. I can communicate via Morse code. And so, and I'm like, okay, no eyelids. You don't get any eyelids either. And he's like, okay, then I would be utterly helpless. But not only would it be utterly helpless, but there would have to be somebody else to come and rescue him so that he would not die. If the wages of sin are death, guess what? Dead people can't help themselves and dead people can't help other dead people. We need somebody who's alive. We need somebody who is not powerless to death. We need somebody by the name of Jesus. You see, if we sing songs like my sin, not in part, but the whole has been nailed to the cross, the only way that that. What's true is Jesus has to be who he says that he is. You remember that scene, and he asked the most important question that'll ever be asked,

the most important answer that you'll ever give, and he says, who do you say that I am? He's been hanging around with his 12 disciples, they've been doing ministry almost three years, and it's kinda time to do a progress report, and he's like, all right, what's the word on the street? Who do people say that I am? Are they getting what it is that we're teaching? Are they getting what it is that we're doing? And the disciples are like, oh, oh, it's going really well. They think you're Elijah, or they think you're Jeremiah, or they know you're a prophet. There's some people that say you're John the Baptist, which is weird, because he baptized you, and so now how y'all are the same, but anyway, most people are saying a prophet, so it's going really well. And I can't help but think that Jesus kinda dropped his head at that moment, and just kinda started praying, and going, Dad, they don't get it. Our target marketing ads aren't working, our TikTok videos aren't working, our search engine optimization, what do we need to do? And I think the Father said, why don't you ask them? Ask the 12. And I think Jesus looked up, and he took the time to look each and every single one of them in the eye as he asked this question, something that I wish I could do

with each and every one of you. And he said, who do you say that I am? And Peter stands up, and Peter says, you are the Christ, you're the son of the living God. And Jesus says, that's right, Peter, and it wasn't flesh and blood that told you that, but it was my Father in heaven, and it is on this truth that I will build my church, and guess what, Hill's family? He said, and the powers of hell will never conquer it, ever. So, we have to know who Jesus is in order for his claims to be possible. Remember that illustration? Rick's done it a few times, where he talks about grace and a demonstration of that, and there's these graduate students, they're taking a philosophy of religion course, and they're going in to take their final. This final has a horrible reputation of how hard it is. Nobody's allowed to talk about it, nobody's able to tell anything about it. These students walk in, they know how much of their grade is dependent upon this final. They sit down, the final is there, face down, the professor stands up and she says, okay, you can look at your test now. They take it, they flip it over, and their name's been filled out.

Every question has been filled out. They've all already been graded, they've gotten every single one right. They've gotten 100% on this final. And the professor says, that is, in fact, going to be your grade. And you have not earned it, it has been given to you freely, you have just experienced grace. That's pretty incredible, right? But the authority and power of that professor is limited. Because if one of those students walked in to physics 101 next week, taking their final, and turned it over, and it's empty and they've got to fill it out, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. My other professor filled everything out, and I got 100, and he's like, well, that's fine, she can do that. But that's not what happens here, you're not getting any gifts here. Because that religion professor's authority was limited. If Nola and I, Nola's my wife, say we were out and we went to dinner and a movie, and we stopped by Quick Trip on the way home, and somebody came in and started to rob the place, and I'm kind of getting closer to protect her, and it goes south, and bullets start flying, and all of a sudden, as I'm protecting her, I take a bullet that's fatal to me,

but misses her, it would have killed her. And so from that moment that I die, until the moment that Nola takes her last breath, that's the amount of grace that I can offer her. But not anymore. Because my authority, my power, is limited. If we're talking about every single one of our sins being removed as far as the east is from the west, and that we get to spend eternity with God forever, then the person who's doing that better have all the authority that there is to have for that to be possible. And luckily, Jesus said at the Great Commission, all authority on heaven and earth have been given to me. And he proved it. In Romans 1, 4, it says, and he was shown, talking about Jesus, to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ, our Lord. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And if Jesus has done that for us, what does it mean for us? How is it that we get to participate in that? Scripture answers that in John 1 12, and it says this, it says, but to all who believed him, talking about Jesus, and accepted him,

talking about Jesus, he, Jesus, gave the right to become children of God. Everybody who believed in him and accepted him, then he gave the right to become children of God, that we would believe he's the son of God, that he died on the cross, paid for all of our sins, he was buried, he defeated death, and he rose again. And in doing that, he demonstrated that you are helpless, but he is not, and if you will admit that, that you are a sinner, and you need a savior, and it's only Jesus, then he will give you the right to become something, someone new, to become a daughter or a son of the one true king. You see, we are no longer slaves when we believe and receive Jesus. We are freed from the penalty and the reality of sin. We are no longer slaves. In fact, we live in such a way as it says in Romans 8 too. It says, and because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. Jesus didn't just step out of a tomb on the third day. Jesus rose from the dead, and he put death to death, and that same spirit that raised him from the dead is available to you, and to do the same in your life as well. And now, life starts to look a whole lot different when we talk about that struggle, and we talk about the ways that sin is trying to impact our life. We find it in Romans 8, and it says this.

This is for everyone. This is for those of you that are gonna get baptized here in a little while, and those of you who've been baptized for a whole long while. Don't forget, the spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, and just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same spirit living in you. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do, for if you live by its dictates, you will die, but through the power of the spirit, you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are children of God, so you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you receive God's spirit when he adopted you as his own children, and now we call him Abba, Father. Now we call him Dad, the creator of everything. Once a relationship with you, where you think of him as your dad, and you know that you're his daughter, you know that you are his son. Because what Jesus has done at the cross, is he has done this. We are now, we are free from the penalty of sin, and given the power to resist the pull of sin. We get both of those.

Yes, we can clap and celebrate for that. Sometimes you'll hear a question asked that, hey, if you died today, would you go to heaven or not? The answer with Jesus is yes, he has the promise of eternal life. And others like to ask the question, well, if you live today, how are you gonna live? And Jesus is the answer, because he gives the promise of abundant life. He gives us assurance that we have been adopted in to the family of God, and that he wants to partner with us to bring the reality of heaven to earth now. And when we know that, and we live from that victory, and we live from that truth, we get a little bit of that swag that we talked about at one church too, and we chant that out, we cry that out. Our victory chant's found in 1 Corinthians 15, where it says, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God, he gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Sometimes some of the best ways to see this actually proved out is to look at somebody's life, to look at their testimony. You're gonna see a picture up on the screen. I'm in the baptistry with Mason and Elizabeth. Mason is about to get baptized in that picture. I met these two earlier in the year doing some premarital counseling, and they're gonna get married on November 16th, and have known each other. for 10 years, and Mason would tell you, man, I've always known about church. I've always known about Jesus. I've wanted to be, I've wanted to be his man, but man, it was hard, and I was trying to make good decisions, and then I'd just make bad decisions, and then when I'd make the bad decisions, I'd just be like, you know, well, what's the point? And then he'd go around, and he'd try to get stronger, and try to be able to resist, and then again, he'd fail. He just got to the point where he said, well, maybe for some reason, God's not for me. Maybe there's no hope for me. Maybe you can relate to that in your story. But last spring, the teammate is, he's a, was a college baseball player at Baylor. They're in Morgantown, West Virginia.

His catcher, Court, comes up and goes, hey, I know what's going on in your life. I know the struggle, maybe not the details, but I know the struggle you're walking through, because I was in that exact same spot a year ago. Let me tell you about Jesus, and all he did in my life, and everything that he changed. And now, I am not a prisoner to those urges, but I just take them to the Lord, and he helps me fight through those, and I know that I have been made new. Mason says, then what do I do? I've wanted that forever. And he said, talk to him. Spend time with him. Pray. That night, Mason goes back to his hotel room, and he's just like, Lord, I don't know. I've tried, but I've never really felt like you've come, and maybe I'm not doing it right, but here's what I know, I'm helpless. I can't do this, and I know you can. And I'm asking you, would you please rescue me? Would you please be my Lord and Savior? And Mason doesn't know how to describe it, anything other than there was just this sensation that came over him that changed everything in his life. And I will tell you, and he knows now, that sensation was of somebody, and that somebody is Jesus's Holy Spirit

that came and made him new, and gave him a new heart. Yes. And so, as we're talking, he's like, but what's this deal about baptism? He's like, I feel like that's something that I need to do, and it's a step that I haven't taken yet, and they were about to get married, and I'm like, hey, you're in love with Elizabeth, but y'all are gonna, you're gonna get married, that's gonna strengthen and increase your relationship, and so forth, and I said, in some ways, baptism is like that, and he's like, man, I'm all in, and so he ends up getting baptized. You can see the picture of him coming up out of the water and about to embrace his fiancee. But now what Mason will tell you is, he's like, man, it's like before when I felt powerless, now it feels like I'm walking around, and I'm just kind of holding God's hand. Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, and I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. This is what Mason is experiencing now, and Elizabeth would tell you that he is a new man. She loved him before, he was a good guy before, but now he's a man after God's own heart, and he's doing things, she says, that are astronomically different than what he was doing before.

And there is a beauty that happens in that. And so here's your final note of the morning. We announce liberation and new creation in Jesus's name. When we say yes to Jesus, he sets us free, and he makes us new. So here in a few moments, I'm gonna pray, we're gonna stand up, and we're gonna start to worship, and we're gonna invite those of you that have not been baptized yet to come forward. So what does that look like? If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on the cross and rose again, and he's done that for the forgiveness of all of your sins, and you accept that you need him, that you are utterly helpless, then your next step is to join him in the baptistry, and to be baptized with him. You're gonna take your last breath, you're going to die, and you're gonna be buried with Christ, and you're gonna come up out of that water. That water's gonna cascade off of you. That water is not what cleanses you. It is your faith and your belief in the blood of Jesus that cleanses you, and you will be a new creation. But the enemy lies in moments like right now. And he tries to tell you things like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you haven't cleaned up your life enough. There's not an opportunity for you to go forward yet. You gotta go take care of that stuff,

and then maybe you can come forward. That's a lie from hell. Or maybe there's just a particular sin that you just keep committing over and over and over again, and you're so worried that if you said yes today and received this gift, but all of a sudden, man, come Tuesday, come next week, come next month, it just feels like you're gonna succumb. to that sin again, so you can't come forward yet. You gotta go get clean first. That's a lie, straight from hell. Or, I'm gonna go after some toes here, and I'm not actually gonna apologize, but there's some of you that are sitting there going, man, I've made some mistakes, but not that many. And the good that I've done is actually better than the bad that I've done, and I know that in the scale of things that I'm gonna be okay, because I've done more good than I've done bad. Friend, let me tell you, you are utterly helpless, the wages of sin or death, and you need somebody who's alive to come and rescue you, and that somebody is Jesus. In order to prove this, I'm gonna remind you of a verse or show you a verse that you've never seen before, and it's Romans 5a. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

For those of you that as we talk about this moment, and there's this scene that comes up that holds you back, and you think that's the moment that you were removed so far away from God that you could never experience his grace, or that's the moment that the Lord gave you the highest man forever, I want you to know that your worst elicited the best in heaven. Because what happened in that moment is God the Father looked at Jesus, looked him in the eye, and he said, son, I need you to go, and I need you to rescue. I need you to go proclaim the goodness of my kingdom. I need you to go pay for all the sins of the world that have been committed, that are being committed, that haven't even been committed yet. And I need you to rescue, make an opportunity for every single image bearer of mine to know that I love them and that they can come back to me. And in that moment, this is what Jesus did. He said, though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges for each and every one of you. He took the humble position of a slave for each and every single one of you.

And he was born as a human being when he appeared in human form for each and every one of you. He humbled himself in obedience to God, and he died a criminal's death on a cross. He stood in the place that each and every one of us deserved to be. And he said, this is how much my father loves you. And this is what I'm willing to pay for you to be able to come home. So I'm gonna pray at the end. For those of you at the other campuses, you're gonna get some guidance from your leaders. And I'll talk to this room as well of what we're gonna do. But we're about to celebrate because there's about to be a party at every single one of our campuses, but also a party in heaven. So let's get ready by praying to the Lord of the harvest. Will you bow your heads with me, please? God, your heavenly father, you're so good. Thank you for rescuing us. Thank you for coming and paying debts that we could not pay. Help us realize, Lord, that we are helpless without you. But that doesn't disqualify us from your love. It actually all the more qualifies us for the grace that you are offering each and every single one of us.

And so, Lord, there are hearts right now that are stirred in this room, in all of our other campuses as well, asking, is this the day? Could it be now? Is this okay? Can I come forward? And the answer is yes, if you know who Jesus is. He will rescue you. He will set you free. He will help you resist the pull of sin moving forward. He will make you new. And so, Lord, we join you in this moment as we celebrate those who are saying yes. We love you, and we pray these things in the powerful name of Jesus. And the church said? Amen.