Know Your Enemy

As we start this new series, would you new me a favor? Would you welcome all of our campuses that are joining us this morning? So great to have all of you. And let's prepare our hearts for what the Lord has for us. Would you pray with me? Our Father in Heaven, we do give you all the glory, all the honor and the praise. You and you alone are holy and we celebrate you. Lord, we thank you for your people coming into your house today to hear your living and active word. And Lord, we're praying during this next series, Lord, that you would have your way with each and every one of us because this series is so applicable in the life of every single believer. And Lord, those of us who hear it and receive it and act on it will live free. And those who don't will still be in bondage. And Lord, I know the enemy hates this message. I know he's going to do everything to distract us from hearing it, push back in our hearts. Lord, give us all open hearts to hear everything that you want us to hear. And Lord, as we get ready to hear your word, speak deeply to us because Lord, we believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that it is you who are speaking. So our prayer this morning is speak, Lord, we are ready to hear. And so now for all those who have gathered

who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith put into practice, what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word amen. The enemy that you refuse to identify will become the enemy that defeats you. The enemy that you refuse to identify will become the enemy that defeats you. Now as born again believers, we know that Jesus conquered death. He rose to life and through repentance and faith, we have life in his name. And when we repent and believe, we are forgiven. We're forgiven our past, we're forgiven our present, we're forgiven our future. Everything is secure, but the Bible wants to make sure that you know that you have an enemy. And you really have three. You have the devil, you have the world, and you have your sinful self. And in church, Bible believing churches, we tend to talk about all of those things, but we tend to highlight two at the expense of another. We talk about the devil. The devil is a real, real being. The devil was there at the beginning who was created by God who tempted Eve and Adam into sinning. The devil is a real being. He's an angel of light.

He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. We know his character that he's the father of all lies. And every time he opens his mouth, he lies. And we tell believers all the time, beware of the devil. I mean, you don't need to fear him 'cause greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. But you need to be very aware of him because he's an adversary and a foe. And then we also talk about this world. This world has the opportunity to satiate every sinful desire that you would like to have. We have a world that says, hey, if you wanna sin in this way, we'll create an opportunity for you to sin in this way. So be careful of the world and the world's system 'cause as the devil's tempting you into it, the world's saying we'll provide all of that. But the one enemy that we refuse to talk about too often in the church is the one internally inside of you. And it's sin. When you become a believer in Christ, here's the truth. Jesus forgives all your sin, positionally you're seated before him, but the eradication of sin does not happen until you meet Jesus. As a believer, you still have sin in your life. And for those of you that have been a believer in more than five minutes or maybe 30 years,

you know it's true. I mean, how many times is a believer? You know the right thing to do and you don't do it. That's sin that's inside of you. And we so often don't talk about that in the church. We don't talk about sin in the life of the believer. We talk about sin on those sinners out there, those people that haven't trusted Christ, but what about the sin in your life? I came to Christ in 1989, 37 years ago last week. I came to Christ. I knew that I had come to Christ. I knew I was different. I started to love people different. The word started to make sense. And then I went off to college at the University of Illinois. And it didn't go very well. Because what I didn't realize at the time is while the enemy blinds you to the things of God, once you become in Christ that you go to war and that there's a battle that continues to exist and Satan still wants to take you out. And after three years of floundering, trying to live for God, failing to live for God, trying to live for God, failing to live for God. I went to one of my classes and my professor stood up and he told us about himself before he started the class. He said, "I want you to know something." He goes, "I'm a Christian and I used to work with you for Christ." And he began to give his resume and all that he did.

I had never heard anybody in three years ever testify out loud they were a Christian. Then he went on to say, "Because you're all speech come majors don't "for my services, which we the equivalent "of $10,000 to $30,000 a day now. "And I was sitting in college "and I was doing the calculations thinking, "I can live off that. "I need to meet this guy." So I set up an appointment to go meet with him and I opened the conversation by the day. They said, "What brought you in here today?" I was like, "I wanna do what you do. "How do I get where you are?" And oh, by the way, it's cool that you mentioned that you were a Christian. You've never heard anybody say something like that before. And he said, "Are you a Christian?" Now, at the time, I did not know that he had two master's degree and a doctorate in counseling. And I dumped my life. It was an extrovert, it's pretty easy for me to do anyway, but I just started sharing with me my story and what was going on and how hard it was and the sins that I had sinned and all these things. Have you ever shared too much with somebody? That was that day. I had shared way too much and as I was finishing up,

I had that overwhelming feeling 'cause I grew up with religion. Like now's the time I'm gonna get judged. Like this is the time he's gonna be like, "Yeah, you're miserable, you're lousy, "you're not getting this, maybe you're not even a Christian." That's what I was expecting to hear. And I just remember he folded both his arms and he leaned back in his chair and he said, "Well, Jeff, I've always told people, "if you don't enjoy sinning, "you probably just haven't found the right sins to sin yet." And I was like, "What?" 'Cause I knew he wasn't affirming my sin. I clearly spelled out how much I hated it. But he was giving me mercy and grace in a way I'd never experienced it before. And then I said, "I want that. "I want what you had." He ended up leading a Bible study for us for a number of years and that's where I started to grow in Christ and that's where I started to live for Christ and that's what made all the difference. So in this series that we're calling no mercy, you need to understand what we're talking about. The Bible says, "Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful "right?" So it's not being unmerciful to people. We wanna be merciful to each other. But here's where we wanna be merciless to our enemy

and to our sin. And too often in church, we make this comment, "Well, I'm forgiven anyway. "I know I'm going to heaven. "My pastor says I'm going to heaven. "The Bible says I'm going to heaven. "If I just repent and believe I'm going to heaven." So it doesn't really make a difference anyway. No, it makes a massive difference. Yes, positionally you can be saved. Yes, you're not going to hell because you sin after you become a believer. But there's too many believers inside the church that are still living in bondage rather than the freedom that Christ Jesus has given to you. And through this series, my hope is, as you listen to this, as you squirm in your seat a little bit, as you're like, "Oh, it's me," that you would listen up and you would say, "Listen, Jesus, "I wanna get this thing right with you." Because if you do, this will be the most freeing series you've ever been a part of, amen? Amen. (congregation applauding) So as we talk about this today, we're gonna be in Romans chapter seven today, Romans chapter seven today to start this series. And in Romans chapter seven, I'm entitling this, "Know your enemy." And the reason is, is the enemy you refuse to identify

will become the enemy that defeats you. And too often in the church, we haven't identified this enemy. Now in Romans chapter seven, just to give you a quick overview, Paul talks about justification during the first four chapters and he talks about having peace with Christ in the fifth chapter and then in the sixth chapter, he talks about having union with Christ and what that looks like, but in the seventh chapter, he begins to talk about what our real enemy is and he starts off talking about what the law's purpose is. And the law's purpose is great and the law is good because the law shows us that God is holy and that he is a standard for his holiness, but it also shows that the standard is unattainable. It's why every time that the law is put out before you, every part inside of you says, well, why can't I do that? Or I wanna break the law. The example I always give is imagine there was a black tarp right in front of the platform today and it was just black when you walked in and there was a big red arrow pointing down to a hole right here and in big red letters it said, whatever you do this morning, don't look in this hole. Right, what would you do? Some would sprint to the hole. Others religiously would say, I'm not gonna look, but I'm gonna wait 'til my wife looks and I ask her what she saw. I mean, there's that thing that goes off in us

when people say, you can't, we say, why not? When God says, don't, we say, I can get away with it. I mean, that's sin in us and so what Paul is highlighting is there's nothing wrong with the law. As a matter of fact, what the law is doing, it's exposing what you have inside of you, which is your sin, but the law can't fix you. All the law can do is show you your symptoms, but it can't eradicate them. The Ten Commandments that God gives us are good. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not have a graven image. You should honor your father, your mother. You should remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. All are good. But what James says is if you break just one of those laws, you're guilty of breaking them. All, and the reality is, is if you study the law, you'll realize we've all broken all of them. Different ways, but grievously. And so as he gets into the middle of this chapter, he's going to talk about where you and I live. It's some of the most honest, biblical text about what it's like in the life of a believer. And keep in mind here, we're talking, God is using the apostle Paul to pin this work. He's going to use human testimony of the apostle Paul. The human testimony of the foremost missionary theologian of the church, the one who we just read in the book of Acts spent his entirety of his life sharing Christ

with everybody, the one that we would think if we expect anybody to get all of it right, other than Jesus, it would be the apostle Paul. So I want you to hear his words and the divine words of the Holy Spirit coming through him in Romans chapter seven and verse 14. He said, "For we know the law is spiritual, "but I am a flesh, sold into bondage to sin. "For what I am doing, I do not understand. "For I am not practicing what I would like to do, "but I am doing the very thing I hate." Can anybody give me an amen to that? (congregation laughing) I mean, have you ever thought to yourself, what am I doing? I don't understand it. I'm not practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing the very thing. I hate, I wanna do this. That's what God wants me to do. Why in the world am I doing that? I said I wanted to do this. I agree with God that doing this, but I still come back and I do that. Show of hands, anybody know what I'm talking about? Every believer knows what I'm talking about, right? But if I do the very thing I do not wanna do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So if I'm doing this and when I'm doing wrong, I'm like, that was wrong.

I know I didn't wanna do that. When I'm saying that is wrong by conviction, I am also agreeing that the law is right. I shouldn't have done that, the law is right. God has a higher standard than how I'm living, the law is right. That's what he's saying. If I'm doing these things and recognize that it's wrong, in notice what he says this, make no mistake about verse 17. So now, no longer am I the one doing it. I'm not the one doing this. He's not gonna say the devil made me do it. He's not gonna say that nasty world I'm living in, my culture. I'm gonna blame his mom or his dad. He's not gonna blame his pastor. What is he gonna say? But sin which dwells in me. See, here's the first truth. If you're gonna know your enemy, because the enemy you refuse to identify will become the enemy that defeats you, is that sin dwells within you. You need to know that. Like sin doesn't go away because you trust and cry. It's forgiven, judicially it's been wiped away, it's been washed, so if you stand before God, you can stand before him, it's righteous 'cause he exchanges his righteousness for your sin.

But that nature inside of you, it's not gone. Wouldn't it be awesome if it was? Wouldn't it be so cool if you could tell people the day you repent of your sin and trust Jesus, you'll never even know how to sin anymore. All you'll know how to do is follow the law and you'll follow it perfect all the time. And falsely many of us believe that's how it's supposed to look. Falsely we believe when I come to Christ, I should have done better. How many of you have these? I would have could have should of as a Christian. And then there's even more guilt piled on because of the liar that says, you didn't even sin this bad before you were a Christian. Now after being a Christian, look at all you've done. 'Cause that's what the liar does. What does he do? He lies. But you have to understand church, even as a believer, sin dwells in you. Do you know when that leaves your life? When you meet Jesus Christ and you're totally translated. I mean, that's why Paul said for me to live his Christ to die his game. Like the goal of my faith is meeting Jesus friends. When I meet Jesus and when you meet Jesus, you'll never wanna come back here.

Because when you meet Jesus, you won't have sin in your life anymore. You wouldn't wanna come back to this place. You'll be so enthralled with him. This is what your hope is. Your goal is your joy is when people go to heaven, when people we know that have died go to heaven, they are not looking back here, wishing they missed out, hoping they back 'cause they're missing out on something. They're not missing out on anything we are. They have everything, right? Any person you know that died in Christ would say, "Don't worry about me. You understand? We have sin in our heart and you need to know that it's there and you can't grow yourself out of it. I've been a believer in now 37 years. It's as pervasive as it was the day I got saved. I know it's there. I feel it. I sense it. I act on it sometimes and so do you. So if you think you're gonna work your way out of sin, you're kidding yourself. Sin dwells within you. It's interesting in the book of Genesis when God decided that he was gonna flood the world in Genesis chapter six. We read about how he said that every inclination of man and every one of his thoughts was only evil all the time

and we're like, yeah, that was pre-flood. But then God destroyed the world and after the flood, in Genesis eight verse 21, the Lord said, I will never again curse the ground on account of man for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth and I will never again destroy every living thing as I've done. He doesn't say man's gotten better now. He said, that's just the heart of man. It's just who you are and you need to realize that there's sin inside of you. Jeremiah 19 or 17 verse nine says the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? And think about some of the thoughts that come into your head. Think about some of the temptations that you have. Like where do they come, could they come from within? Jesus even when he was teaching his disciples said, it's not what comes, it's not what goes into the body that makes someone unclean, it's what comes out of the mouth because that's the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, it's internal. That's the problem, right? And so this is what has been going on. The Greeks back in the day tried for 10 years to sack Troy, to go after the town of Troy and they siege the walls. They did every, for 10 years they couldn't get them to do anything and then what they ultimately did was they built this huge humongous horse

and put 30 or 40 or 50 of their greatest fighters in the horse and when Troy saw the horse and saw no soldiers they thought it was a peace offering. So they brought this horse in that we call the Trojan horse and that evening after everybody had gone to sleep those men came out of the horse, unlocked the gates, brought in all the army and what they couldn't do in 10 years from the outside, from the inside they accomplished in one night. Friends, your biggest enemy, he's inside of you. Your enemy's not your spouse, your enemy's not your kids, your enemy's not your mom, he's not your dad, he's not your coach, he's not your boss, it's not your employees. It's sin living in you, that's your number one enemy and it doesn't go away because you're a believer and you need to know that and you need to be merciless towards the sin that's in you. Ephesians two when Paul's writing about that, he said we were by nature objects of wrath. I mean, it's just who we are. It's just our nature and our nature doesn't go away. As a matter of fact we're gonna see how it wars against the spirit once we become a believer. But you think about, if you got a termite problem in your house, you can power wash the walls on the outside all you want and the termites are still gonna eat right through your house. I mean, so often we're looking on the outside at this world and the devil and we're protecting ourselves

but we refuse to look inside of us saying this is where it's at, this is what's being tempted, this is what's coming after me. It's the sin in my own life that I've got to deal with, amen? The greatest danger isn't merely external. The biggest enemy is within. Now when we talk about sin there's different ways to talk about sin, the Bible lists different ways to talk about, I'll give you six, you can just write these down if you wanna take notes, if you're a note taker. But the first one is just sin. In both Old and New Testament, this is the number one word that is used for what we're talking about and it literally means this, to miss the mark, it's like an archer shooting at a bullseye and you come up short, that's what sin is. Jesus hit the bullseye every single time. Jesus never sinned, he didn't have sinned, he didn't know how to sin. All he did was perfect, you and I, what? We missed the mark. Shoulda hit here, hit there, missed the whole target itself. I mean, we've missed the mark so many times, it's what sin really literally means the most times it's talked about. Then we hear about this word, iniquity, iniquity. Iniquity is this idea of crookedness, it's a distortion or twisting from its intended shape. It tends to develop over time and it's compounded,

it's when you don't know that this is what God expected and you kind of are bent this way and then you create behaviors that go this way you have a leaning towards a certain kind of sin. That's what iniquity is. Then there's a trespass. A trespass, Lord forgive us our trespasses, we forgive those who trespass against us. That's like a falling or a slipping aside, it's a lapse. I knew better, but I didn't do it right. I kind of slipped up there, that's a trespass. Bible also describes a debt that sin is an obligation that must be paid. Jesus paid a debt, we could not owe, right? It was a debt, forgive us our debtors, right? And then there's transgression. And transgression may be the most serious of all. Transgression is full out rebellion, it's stepping across a line or a boundary. It's the most serious, it's this. I know I shouldn't do this, I'm gonna do it anyway. Anybody here ever transgressed before? Okay, that's transgression, that's the most serious, that's outright rebellion. I know it's wrong and I'm doing it anyway. And then there's this idea of lawlessness, which is an entire rejection of God's law. So if you say somebody's lawless, it means I don't really care about the Ten Commandments, I don't really care about God's moral order,

I don't care that he's holy, I'm gonna live however I want, I'm gonna live antithetical of that, and I'm just gonna please myself. Here's what you need to understand, regardless of which one hits you at which time, you need to take ownership of this, you had to know your enemy, sin dwells within you. Second, sin overpowers even you. Sin overpowers even you. 'Cause we think like, yeah, those people that can't handle their sin, but I've been a Christian a long time, no. Sin overpowers even you. You need to understand that you cannot defeat this enemy, and the enemy he refused to identify will become the enemy that defeats you, and it'll overpower even you, notice what he says. Verse 18, Paul says, "For I know nothing good dwells in me, "that is in my flesh." I think every American needs to put that in their house somewhere. We tend to say, "Oh, you're good, everybody's good, "everybody's a good person." No, there is nothing good that dwells in you in your flesh, nothing. If you're Hispanic, nada, okay? Trying to be bilingual this morning. I mean, there is zip, zilch, nothing, right? We tend to think, "Well, I'm kind of good,

"and I'm better now than before I would say, "so I'm a pretty good person." No, no, no. There's nothing good in your flesh, nothing. Oh, he's a good person, she's a good person. I know what we mean when we say that, but spiritually that's just not true. Spiritually there's nothing good that dwells in you, that is in your flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. The willing's present, I go to church, I hear the word, I want to do what God wants. The willing is present, but the doing is not. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is, we, Paul's spelling, this is not just some guy that's new to the faith. This is a guy that's gonna give his life and be martyred for the gospel. This is gonna be a guy that doesn't care if he ends up in prison. This is a guy that doesn't mind what people say about him. This is a guy that only wants to live for Jesus and hears his testimony. I wanna do it, but I don't always do what Jesus wants me to do. If that doesn't give you great comfort this morning as a believer in Christ, nothing will. I mean, how many times would you say, I wanna do what God wants, I'm just not doing it. That's what Paul is saying.

Notice what he says. Verse 19, for the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. Let me say that again, 'cause some of you probably didn't hear that. Look at your own Bibles. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not want. For the good that I want, I don't do. But the very evil, that's what I'm practicing. I wanna have good language, but I find myself swearing. I want to live moral, but I find myself in my thought life, living a moral. I want to be content, but I find that I'm living greedy. I mean, that's what he's saying. He's saying, this is what I want, and I can't do it. You should give great comfort to the Christian, 'cause sin will overpower even you. And the reason we come into church and say, how you doing this morning? Fine, doing better. The reason we put spiritual language on things is to clean ourselves up and look good, but we don't really come to church and talk about, yeah, this week I did it again. This week I wanted to do good and I didn't do good. And there's nothing good in my flesh that dwells in me. We don't talk like that. And even if we did, people would be like,

oh, don't worry about it. I had the same week and it's totally fine. It's not fine, it's killing you. Ecclesiastes 7, 20 says, "Not a righteous man on earth who does good and doesn't sin." Isaiah 64, 6, all our righteous deeds are like filthy garments. And in John 15, 5, apart from me, you can do nothing, right? I mean, you think about it, just in modern day illustrations. I mean, we've used a lot of these before, but the New Year's resolutions where you make it till January 10th, you know? Or the idea of holding a blown up beach ball under the water at the pool or in the ocean, you can do it for a little bit, but it's gonna come up. And then we have testimonies in the Bible. I mean, you have Peter promising he'll never deny Christ. Hours before Christ is gonna be arrested. Not only will I not deny you, I'm even willing to die for you. I'm not like these other disciples. What does Jesus tell them? Peter, you can't. Before the rooster crows, you'll betray me three times tonight. And what happened? Peter wanted to go to the death for Jesus and what happened. He couldn't, why? 'Cause commitment means squat against the enemy of sin, right? And that's what's going on here. And so not only do you need to admit that sin dwells in you,

but you need to realize that that sin in you can overpower you. I mean, we can talk about addicts. You know who say, this is the last time they're tearful. I'm gonna stop. We can talk about people who aren't addicts. Lord, if you just get me through this, I promise you, I'll never, ever, never, ever do it again. I used to pray like that all the time. Without ever having any intention to stop, just wanting to be given mercy. See, wanting isn't enough. If wanting were enough, Paul wouldn't have written Roman 7. Because if I just ask you, how many people want to live a life where they're not in the slave to sin? How many want that? If wanting it was all you needed, I mean, we're done. We don't even need to preach today. Wanting is not enough. It's, the question is this. Where are you trusting your willpower instead of the spirit? Friends, you can't even make it to the parking lot on commitment. And how many times you sat in church and say, man, I will never have this again. I'll never get in an argument again. I'll never think this way again. You're not even starting your car yet

and you're thinking that way, right? That should just show you that this enemy can overpower even you. You're not above it. The longer you're walking with Christ, the danger it is of becoming more religious and thinking, yeah, this doesn't affect me as much anymore. I remember when I was a young Christian like you and that was it. Friends, any sin you've ever sinned, you're still capable of sinning. And any sin you haven't sinned, you're still capable of sinning. Sin is more powerful than you. It can overpower even you. It's taken down 100% of the population except for the God man, Jesus Christ. Amen. (congregation applauding) So don't trick yourself into believing sin's out there and don't trick yourself into believing, yeah, I got some sin but it's not as serious as the sin in you. Sin is sin and you need to understand it dwells within you and it will overpower even you. And the enemy you refuse to identify will become the enemy that defeats you. That's why you need to understand this third point, that sin wars against you. Sin wars against you.

It's not neutral. That knows what Paul says, but if I'm doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, what's doing it? But sin which dwells in me. He's not blaming somebody else. He's not blaming the devil. He's not blaming the world. He's not blaming the first century. He's blaming, since I wanna do it, but I can't do it, what's the problem? Well, there's sin inside of me that doesn't wanna do it. And it's sin that is overpowering even me, keeping me from doing it. So I know that when I wanna do what's right, but I don't do what's right, I look no further than the enemy within which is sin, right? And I have to name it. You have to name it. 'Cause for many of us, we call it this, we call it brokenness, we call it a struggle. No, it's sin. And we refuse to call sin my name. We come up with cute, clever names to talk about sin. I'm struggling with immorality. No, you're addicted to porn, and you're an adulterer. So why don't you just call it what it is? Do you understand what I'm saying? No, you're a gossip and a slanderer. That's what you are, and you have to call it by name.

'Cause if you refuse to call your sin by name, you can't kill it. Well, I have some brokenness. Okay, sin's still ravaging through your body. Until you name what it is that's keeping you from doing what God wants, you can't be set free from it. And in church, oh, I gotta struggle. Oh, I got a burden. Oh, I got a problem. You've never met my parents. You've never met the coach. I mean, I had a really hard life. My circumstance, stop making excuses for your sin and call your sin sin. (audience applauding) And I'm not telling you this to keep shame on you. I'm telling you this because this is the way to freedom. It's freedom, which is what God wants. Sin wars against, you notice what it says. I find then this principle that evil is present in me. Paul, the apostle Paul finds this principle present in his life. What's the principle the apostle Paul finds present in his life? That evil is present in me, not with me, and not around me, in me. This is a principle that's true in your life. Look at all those evil people out there. Look at all those evil people that are doing all those. It's the evil in you that's the biggest problem. See, if we spent all our time allowing the Lord

to deal with the evil in us, the evil out there would change. But it's easier to look on the horizon and be like, look at all those evil people out there. Man, they're horrible. Look at all they're doing wrong. All the time, not recognizing the things in us that are breaking God's standards in his law because of the sin in us, amen? And sin wars against you, notice this. Verse 22, "For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man." I mean, he's saying the same thing, oh, I love God. I love his standards. I wish the whole world would embrace him. I love that about God. But I see a different law in the members of my body. My inner man says God's great, but I see this different law, this different principle at work and it's in my flesh, it's in my body. And here's what it does. It wages war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. Friends, sin wars against you. That's why for some of you, you found yourself in situations since becoming a believer, you said, I know I'll never experience that and you've experienced that. That's why for some of you looked out at people that you respect and ministry,

or people that have walked with the Lord for a long time and you've seen him trajectory and all of a sudden, massive fail, massive, what would happen? It was sin within them, even them, that they didn't take the time to deal with that ended up taking them down. You can't fight sin. If you could fight sin, you do not need Jesus. And many of us come to church, independent of Jesus, thinking, well, I don't need him, I'm safe. Now I can do it like me and Jesus, we're both like superpowers. No, you're not. No, there's evil right inside of you with your sin that is waging war against your soul. Listen, if the devil blinds you to Christ before you know him, to keep you from coming to know the glories of Christ and knows that once you trust Christ, he can't have you for all eternity 'cause you belong to Jesus and no one can snatch you out of his hands. Then what's the devil's number one strategy? It's not just to distract you, it's to steal, to kill, and destroy you. And so he says, since you belong to Jesus and I can't have you in my possession, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna work overtime to get you to live a life that looks nothing like the Jesus you say you believe in. That's a strategy.

So he's gonna tempt you and he's gonna use the world to do it, but here's his number one ploy, the sin in you that you don't think is there. 'Cause if you're naive to it, like, oh, it's just the world and the devil and I'll defeat them without dealing with like, Lord, why am I thinking this and why am I doing this? And Lord, this is wrong and I'm confessing it to you and I'm repenting of it and I'm forsaking it, he's got you. And it may not happen overnight. I don't know anybody that wakes up one day and says, I think I'll have an affair by nightfall. I don't know anybody that wakes up one day and says, I think I'm gonna rob from my company today and take a bunch of money, it's progressive. When sin is undelp within your heart and you don't take it seriously enough, bad things can happen. He has game foam on you. He studied you. He knows you. He knows when to feed the thought. He knows when to give you the lie. When does it happen to you? Are you aware of it? Do you study what the devil is studying? He knows just when in your marriage to lob a thought into your head to say out of your mouth. Just the time to say something hurtful, or you call it truthful, but it's going to hurt

the other. He knows just the right time. When do you most succumb to sin? Have you studied yourself? I know for me, after I preach, when I'm emotionally, spiritually, and physically exhausted, like this afternoon, I'm on a high alert. I know these are the times for me. After a spiritual hide, that's the time for me. Do you know what it is for you? Not saying that you're going to be aware of every single attack, but are you aware of you? Are you aware of your personality? Are you a talker like me, whose number one sins usually come out of my mouth? Are you an introvert? Were your sins come out a different way? How does the enemy study you, and when does he lob grenades in your life? When is it you feel like, man, I'm defeated again? Are you aware of it? You've seen all the illustrations from nature, where a predator isolates one from the herd and then it strikes. You've seen in a boxing match, when they come off after a round, the coach is whispering there. You see how he's got to cut over as I go after that, he's got this. I mean, they're studying their opponent. You need to study your opponent. Your opponent is the devil who's trying to blind you to the sin that's inside of you. What are the times that you're most prone to seeing those things? When is that? Because you need to be aware that sin is waging war against you. Sin is not neutral.

It's not, well, I love Christ and I'm reading the word and so sin just kind of, it's like a little small stream underneath the rapids. No, sin is waging war. It's trying to take you out as a believer all the time. It wages war against you. It has a strategy. Sin recruits your eyes, your habits, your schedule, your relationships. Sin is always on the look to see what it can get. You should look at that. You should spend time over there. You should invest in her. You should invest in him. The enemy is always at work getting your sin to show itself. So nowhere your sin attacks, through whom does it come? Through what does it come? If you don't know your enemy's strategy, you're going to lose this battle. If you don't know what he's trying to do in you, you're going to lose this battle. Does that mean you're omniscient and can know all things? No. But I've been a Christian 37 years. I've seen some habitual patterns in my life over time. I'm going, yep, right here, yep. This happens here, yep. I need to deal with that. Yes, I need to confess that. This tends to be the way it works for me. And the more aware you are of the strategy, the greater power you're going to have. But know that sin wages war against you. And here's what the devil does. Listen, listen, listen.

If he knows he can't have you for all eternity, but he can get you to live in a pattern of sin, here's what happens. When you're living in sin, you no longer want to serve. When you're living in sin, you no longer want to share the gospel. When you're living in bondage, you can't really talk about your faith openly. So who wins the devil? He's like, yeah, you can go be with Jesus, but I'm not going to let you take anybody else with you. You can go be with Jesus, but I'm going to make you more miserable now. Then you were before you met Jesus. That's the whole point. But here's the deal. If you're free, not only from the penalty of sin, but you're free in the present, from the power of sin, not meaning you'll never sin again, but you're growing in holiness, not what? Not perfectly, but increasingly, you can have freedom to live for Christ in a way that gives you incredible joy. But the purpose of this series is not to bring so much conviction or extra shame or more guilt. It's to let the Lord do those things, and conviction is good, and guilt is good, to the extent it pushes you towards Christ. But if you move towards Christ and you forsake sin through this series, praise God. Praise God, amen. That's why Paul says in Romans 6, 12, "Do not let sin reign in your mortal body." First Peter 2, 11 says, "Fleshely lusts wage war against the soul." James talks about why our quarrels and conflicts from among you. They're the passions within that war. I mean, the reason we fight with each other is because we have sin in our lives. If you didn't have me sin in your life, you'd never argue with anybody because you'd have No desire to be right because that's should remind you today. The law is good. God's completely holy. He's awesome, but I got a problem.

Not only do I have an enemy from the outside, the devil, and not only do I have an enemy, the world that's inviting, but I've got sin inside of me that I've been unaware of, and this sin can destroy even me, and this sin that I've been not talking about, not thinking about, not looking at is actually waging war against me. And here's the truth. The enemy you refuse to identify will become the enemy that defeats you. So let me give you this final point. And you need to understand this. If you don't deal with this, sin will defeat you. Sin will defeat you. There are some people who are genuinely born again that are so defeated, that they're not being used of the Lord in any fruitful way whatsoever. There's some of those people that said, "Yeah, I tried Christianity. It was okay, but this is not for me." They never dealt with their sin. Sin will take you out, anybody. I've talked to you many times from this pulpit about why I don't meet alone with a woman other than my wife. It's not because I'm scared. It's not because I think to myself, "Oh, I might look at her." None of that stuff. It's because I know that sin wages war within me, and I don't even want to give the appearance that I love someone other than my wife. Amen? I don't. And I've watched too many men in my position that I've had a number of respect for falling in that way. So it'd be easy to say, "Well, that would never happen to me. I'm way more spiritually mature." That's the dumbest thing you can ever say. The best thing you can say is, "Whatever's happened to anybody else apart from the grace of God can happen to me if I don't take this sin thing seriously." Amen? I have to be merciless with me because we make exceptions. We're always ruthless with other people. I can't believe they would do that. I can't believe they only set that bound again. We don't do that for ourselves. Here's what we say, "I can handle this. Who are you to tell me I can't handle this? I'm 40 years old now. It doesn't really matter anymore. We make every excuse in the world for us, but we hold other people to a higher standard, and this message is, "No, hold yourself to the standard of the glory of God." Because if you don't, sin will defeat you. Notice this. Notice how Paul speaks of himself. The foremost missionary theologian. Now, many counselors in America would say, "This is really bad for his psyche, but it's not." Wretched man that I am. I'm a wretch who will set me free from this body of death. I'm wretched. I'm a Christian. I'm born again. I'm seated in the heavenly realms with Christ Jesus, but in my body, I'm wretched. I want to do good, and I can't, and I try to do good, and I do the opposite, and what's wrong with me? Who's going to rescue me from this? It's a body of death. I can't commit

my way out of it. I can't work my way out of it. I can't read my Bible enough out of it. And notice what he says. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord." Amen. So then on the one hand, I myself, with my mind, am serving the law of God, but on the other hand, with my flesh, the law of sin. What's he saying? He's saying this, "I can't rescue myself." Here's what he's saying. You can't change yourself. You can't commit your way out of the sin patterns that you have. You're stuck. It's like flies on fly paper. You're stuck. You can't get out of it. You can't pray your way out of it. You can't read your Bible. You're done. There's nothing you can do. So Paul's like, "Who's going to rescue me?" And he goes, "Thanks be to God for our Lord Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can deliver you from the sin within." Only he can do it, okay? A pastor can't, your friend can't confessing your sin. We'll talk about that in this series. Powerful, but that can't. Only Jesus can. Second Corinthians 3, 5 says, "Not that we are adequate in ourselves." Can't do this in ourselves. Our adequacy is from God, or Zachariah 4, 6. There's what says, "Not by might, not by power, but by thy spirit," declares the Lord. Amen? Psalm 121, I said this in my locker in college. I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Friends, he who began a good work and you will complete it. But we need to understand one thing before I close We're going to talk about how to defeat and how to do all this stuff, but you have to believe this and a majority of people in church don't believe this. They think it's those sinners out there or the others in the church that aren't as spiritual as them. No, the sinner in the church you need to be most concerned about is you. The sinner in the church I need to be most concerned about is me because sin is in me, it can defeat even me, it wages war against me and it will defeat me if I'm not careful. But 1 John 4.4 says, "Greater is he that is in me than he who is in the world." Now let me just say one thing about Grace, because when you hear a sermon like this, the enemy is going to whisper in your ear and you'll probably use another Christian to do it. Don't worry about it, it's Grace. Don't let Pastor Jeff make you feel bad. If you feel bad, Pastor Jeff did not make you feel bad, the Holy Spirit is making you

feel bad. Amen. I'm just a fellow sinner, I'm for you, I'm in the same camp, I'm preaching to myself. I'm not making you feel bad, I'm making you aware of the problem and the problem is in you and what a lot of Christians will say is, "It's grace, it's by grace we've been saved through faith, it's not our own doing, it's a gift of God so no one should but grace." You didn't earn this, it's grace. Give yourself a break, grace. That's the first part of Grace, but notice this in Titus 2.11, in Titus chapter 2.11 it says, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, it's grace." We're saved by grace through faith, amen. Instructing us, this is grace, grace instructs us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age. So what's grace's purpose? So that you live godly and holy, that's the same grace that saved you as the same grace that's going to grow you. So let me ask you a question, how dependent are you on grace for your salvation? Not rhetorical. How dependent are you on grace for your salvation? It's 100 percent. So how dependent are you on grace for your godliness? It's 100 percent. I mean, if you're like, "Hey, by next week, I'm going to get rid of a lot of sin before I get back to church next week because I don't want to feel this way." You can't. Only Jesus can. That's why there's no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. That's what He's going to go on to say. But I wanted to date a land so that you would understand your enemy because the enemy you refuse to identify will become the enemy that defeats you.

And so many of us don't identify the sin in our life. And trying to commit your way out of sin is about as useless as trying to perform open heart surgery on yourself. You can't do it, right? You know, it's like quicksand. You think if I thrash more, I'm going to, no, it's actually stillness is what helps you. I mean, the reality of this truth is you just need to be aware of this week one. You need to know that the biggest problem is within you. It's not outside of you. Because if you'll own that, then we can walk through God's Word and I can show you from His Word how He wants to free you. But you've got to be willing to call sin sin. You've got to be willing to be merciless towards your sin. Not merciless towards other people, merciless towards the sin in your life. So my encouragement this week would be that you would take some time and that you would get before the Lord and say, Lord, what am I blind to? What am I not missing? What have I said is somebody else's problem? What have I said is the culture's problem? Lord, what have I been willing to not identify my own life? Is there something that you've been trying to show me about me that I haven't seen? And when He shows you, here's what you want to do, own it. You caught me. Thank you for showing it, right? I mean, the Puritans called that the gift of tears. It's when the Lord shows you something and it convicts you to a point of tears. Like I didn't even know that was what it was and it's me and at the same time, the grace of God is washing over you. Friends, my desire for this series is that when we're done, you're walking in freedom in Christ for the rest of your life.

Amen. [Applause] Thank you, man, I invite you to stand, our Father in heaven, we give you all the glory, all the honor and all the praise for who you are. And Lord, this is a sober reminder for each of us because we don't like to think of ourselves as the problem. We don't like to think about the sin that's in us. Lord, give us receptive hearts to your spirit. Lord, show us individually just the way we think and the way we act and the way we believe that's antithetical to you, that's different than what you want. And Lord, just show us how we can continually confess those things. And Lord, give us the courage to continue on in this series, to hear your word and to grow in your grace and to be transformed by the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord, we worship you, we give you all the glory, all the honor and all the praise, 'cause you and you alone are holy, holy, holy. In Jesus' name, amen. Could we give God praise for His word today? (congregation applauds)