By No Means

- Alrighty, so I'll come to you guys. Can take a seat. You can take a seat. Shout out to Brendan for giving. Tony is bald, a great caption. Untrue, untrue. I've got plenty here. I saw one that said I love HB's boots. That's also very exciting. You guys are great. Well, hey, welcome back to "Soul Company." It has been a hot minute. It is glad. I'm so glad to be back. Hope you guys had a good Thanksgiving. I hope you got to take a week off of life. That's awesome. But we're back together again. So if you got a Bible, I'd love you to turn to Romans 6. If you're new here to "Soul Company," we are finishing out our series called "Peace with God." As we've done three weeks to Romans 5 and Romans 6, tonight we're going to be in Romans 6 1 through 14. And next week for our last "Soul Company" the year, we're going to be opening up revelations and looking at heaven. That's right, we're going to talk about heaven, what it is, how to get there, and I'm just kidding. It's going to be a great time. It'll be absolutely electric. I'm so excited for it. Romans chapter 6 is where we're going to be. And as you turn there, heaven jokes. Don't hit as well. Never mind. Moving on. Here's a question I've got for you. Have you ever felt completely unmotivated? That's right. Right around this time every year when I was in college, I was like, man, my brain does not work anymore. I don't know if you ever felt that. You're like, you get into the beginning of the semester. You're all full of dreams. You're like, this is the year I honor God with my classes. I'm going to get all ace. And then at this time of the semester, you're like, this is the year I tried to pass my classes. You're like, please God, let me do it. I remember this moment when I was a sophomore. I was taking marketing 101. I had a marketing professor who was really cool, who told great stories, but never taught us anything about marketing. You business majors know. Your professors are just like graduated business people. They're not even academics. So I was a sophomore, and I remember at this point of the year having a C in marketing 101, which is wildly embarrassing. Like some of you guys are like aerospace engineers. This is marketing 101. Like a trained squirrel could pass this class, you know? And so here it was at a C and I was desperate. I was unmotivated and I was sad. OK, so I went to my professor and I was like, here's the deal, man. I just want to level with you. I have no motivation left in this body. Like I don't have anything else to give. I was just tired. I was like, I work a lot because college is crazy expensive. So I was just like, can you do me a solid? And he bumped me from a C to a B in that moment. OK, here's the deal. Here's the deal. It's never happened since. It never else happened in my academic career. I wouldn't recommend it. Don't go to Iowa State and just start knocking on doors. I heard this one thing. Don't do it. Don't do it. But it completely worked and it saved my life in that moment. It was great, OK? But here's the deal. All of us at some level, we understand that human beings need this thing called motivation. And right around this time of year, everyone, everyone, whether it's in your classes or in your relationships or in your walk with Jesus, we start to wane on motivation. But motivation is something we all need to actually work forward. And all of us are motivated by different things. Some of us are motivated by goals. Like some of you guys are the people who are like, let me share you with me with my five goals in Q4 of this year, like you're the president of the United States. You're like, let me tell you about all of my dreams. Some of you guys are motivated by punishment. You're just like, I just don't want to be punished by my parents, my professor, my bosses. I'm just going to the bare minimum I need to not have any retribution. Some of you guys are motivated by fear, fear of failure, fear of not being enough. All of us are motivated by different things. And like we need motivation in our classes, in our work, in our life, so we need motivation in our walks with Jesus. And I would say we actually need the right motivation in our walk with Jesus. We need to know why we are pursuing holiness, why we're pursuing putting off sin, why we're pursuing Jesus. We need to know why we're doing all of that. And here's this struggle with a lot of us. A lot of us were taught that the reason why we do those things is out of a guilt-based motivation. We do it because we don't want bad things to happen to us. We do it because we don't want to be bad people or experience bad things. A lot of us are taught that the way to move forward in our walks with Jesus is guilt-based. And even this week, I was just processing with God because I just started to kind of spiral in anxiety. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's just like bad thought after bad thought after bad thought about your future. And that was what I was struggling with this week. And over and over and over again, I just went back to some old patterns of motivation, motivation out of guilt. Like I should just not have to struggle with this. Like this, you should be over this by now. Or like, why are you being so anxious? Just figure it out. And over and over and over again, I went back to the same wells of guilt-based motivation and it just sent me into a spiral of guilt and shame. And then today, as I was walking with Jesus, I just felt this unique sense that he was calling me back. Saying that the way forward isn't guilt, it's not disappointment, it's not shame, but it's actually something else. So tonight, that's what I wanna talk about. What is the motivation for walking and holiness? What is the motivation to put off sin? What is the motivation of the Christian life? And I think if you get this simple ideal, shape the way you walk with Jesus for the rest of your life. Here's a simple idea. Our motivation, as Christians to change, isn't guilt-based, it's grace-based. That's where we're gonna spend the rest of tonight talking about. And here's why that is so important. You could use guilt-based motivation for the rest of your life. And what it could do is solve some surface-level sin. Some simple surface-level sin for a short duration, but it'll never lead to the life change that you're wanting. But it is only through a grace-based motivation that you can spend the rest of your life walking in freedom and joy with Jesus and continue to change. So what's our motivation for change? It's not guilt-based, it's grace-based. Okay, so here's where we're heading if you're a note-taker. Tonight, we're gonna look at a powerful question that Romans chapter six asks. It's basically a question of why not sin? Why not just spend the rest of your life doing whatever you want or living in a sinful way? And then we're gonna look at two answers that the text gives us that I think we're gonna find really beautiful and saturated with grace. So one question, two answers, Romans chapter six, let's go. Romans chapter six verse one says this. What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? I'll read it again. What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Okay, I love this question because it's an honest question that all of us ask, last week, Simeon asked the question, "Can you lose your salvation?" That was the trellis of his entire sermon. Can you lose your salvation? And the sobering reality for that is if you could, you absolutely would. That if you could out-send the grace of God, that if you could, in your weaknesses and adequacies, lose your salvation, then you absolutely would because you are at a core level before you come to know Jesus a sinner. But then he actually talked about this. He said, "No, you cannot lose your salvation because you could never earn it in the first place." That your salvation wasn't based on your performance, but only on the blood of Jesus. So your salvation is sealed, signed, and delivered. That is what's true for every Christian in all of human history. That's Romans chapter five. Then a logical follow-up question happens in Romans chapter six, first one. And Paul knows that we're gonna ask that question and that question is, "Well, if that's true, if I can't lose my salvation, then why don't I just sin all the more?" You ever wonder that? That's a legitimate question. Like, okay, if you're telling me that my salvation is sealed and sin is fun, then one plus one equals two. I should just do whatever I want. It's like the spiritual equivalent of, you know when you go to the movie theater, and they're gonna charge you $9.62 for a small pop. You know, you're about to get ripped off. So instead, you rip them off by wearing a hoodie. You know what I'm talking about? Come on, we've all done this a hundred times. You wear a hoodie, even if it's a hundred degrees out. You go to the nearest gas station, you stock up on all the goodies, and you look like a kangaroo. You know, you're just walking in. They're like, "What are you pregnant?" You're like, "No, no, it's just, this is my hoodie." We've done it a hundred times, right? Actually, the last time we went, I told my wife we couldn't do that anymore because of the stealing sermon that during the 10 Commandments series, yeah, of course, I was like, "Baby, we can't, we can't. "I want to, I want to, but we can't, okay." But here's the idea, right? You know it's wrong. There is a sign that says, "No outside food or beverages." You've seen it, you know. But you also know they're not gonna stop you. You know what I'm saying? There's no way the person checking your ticket gets paid enough money to stop you and be like, "Let me see, let me see what you got." No way. So you know it's wrong, but you know you won't be punished. So you do it anyways. I think that's a lot of, a lot of Christians think about sin and their salvation. We know it's wrong, but you also have good enough theology to know that your sins were put on the cross with Jesus, but not good enough theology to not know why you shouldn't sin anymore. That's what a ton of Christianity is. It's just like, okay, I know I'm saved. Once saved, always saved. So I'll just do whatever I want. That's a legitimate question. It's actually not a rhetorical one. It's a real one that people ask all the time. It's the one that I was asking when I was a freshman in college. I met Jesus when I was 16, but then I showed up to college and I didn't have a good enough reason for why I shouldn't sin, except a couple flimsy guilt-based ones, like sin is bad, sin is dangerous. And so what I did, my freshman years, I did whatever I wanted to do. I dated a girl. We had a ton of sexual sin. I had so much brokenness in my life. And so I was in this place where I knew I was saved, I knew I knew Jesus, but I didn't have good enough theology around this issue. So it actually wildly broke me. It got me into a really, really dark place and I didn't know the answer to this question. So here's why I belabor the question before I give you the answer, because if you don't have a good answer for this question, you will never thrive as a Christian. You might know that you're saved and I'm glad that you do, but if you don't have a good motive for what it looks like to put off sin and put on holiness, you'll live a life of suffering needlessly with sin. You know, here's the interesting thing about this. I think if we didn't look at the rest of Romans chapter six, we'd actually probably come up with a couple reasons why not to sin. That would look something like this. Reason number one, it dishonors God. Reason number two, it steals your joy. Number three, it makes you doubt your faith. Four, it damages your testimony and fifth, it hurts the people you love. And these, by the way, are all good reasons not to sin. They are all true reasons not to sin, but notice here, these are all guilt-based. They're negative warnings on why not to sin. So for all of us, if we were writing Romans chapter six, we would actually probably write the rest of this chapter, giving warning, after warning, after warning, guilt reason, after guilt reason, after guilt reason, because we're a guilt-motivated people. And yet Paul goes the complete opposite direction, because he knows something about this reality of how human beings change that we don't. That guilt-based motivations might be able to change your behaviors, but it can't change your heart. So he chooses to go a completely opposite direction, and instead of giving you a list of reasons why you shouldn't sin, he actually gives you a couple of reasons of where your grace is found. So here's the answer number one to the question, why should we not sin if we know that we're saved as Christians? Answer number one is we are united with Christ. Verse two says this, absolutely not. I just love that, it's hilarious, he's like, no way. How can we die to sin and still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may walk in the newness of life. For if we have been unified with him in the likeness of his death, we will also certainly be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin may be rendered powerless. So that we may no longer be enslaved to sin. Okay, Paul comes out hot out of the gate. He's like, should we sin? Because we know that grace abounds. And he says, absolutely not. Some other translation say, buy no means. And notice what he says here, he doesn't say, absolutely not because that make you a bad person. Absolutely not because you lose your salvation. Absolutely not because then it wreck your life. He doesn't say any of these things. He says, absolutely not because we who have died to sin, how can we still live in it? Guys, here's what I want you to understand. When you meet Jesus, someone dies and it's not Jesus. Okay, he already died for you 2,000 years ago. He died one time. He resurrected. He ascends and he's never dying again. He's living eternal at the right hand of the Father. He doesn't die, but you do. Your old self dies. Who you were, your old body, your old person and your old identity as a sinner, fallen son of Adam, all of that dies. Here's what happens when you meet Jesus. You are buried with Christ and you resurrect with Him. What He did physically, you do spiritually. You die on a cross spiritually. You get buried into the ground spiritually. You resurrect with Him again spiritually. That's what happens when you meet Jesus and Christ you become a new person. You receive a new identity. The end of verse 4 says, you walk in the newness of life. One of my favorite verses is to describe this as 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Some of you know this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has passed away and see the new has come. Guys, notice here, this passage in 2 Corinthians 5 does not say you became slightly better. You know what I'm saying? You lost some weight. You gained some muscle. You got smarter. You got an A on your marketing 101 instead of a C. It doesn't say you got slightly better. What this passage says is you became brand new. That's the good news of the Christian life. Listen, guilt-based motivations in life could maybe get you slightly better, but only Jesus can make you brand new. Only Jesus can make you new. Christianity in the only religion is the only religion in the world, by the way, that does that. Every other religion, every other line of thought, every other thing to advance yourself, change, transform yourself, everything else is predicated on making you a better version of yourself. Guys, tick tockers can give you five life hacks to make you a little bit better, okay? But only Jesus can make you brand new. Okay, now before we get any further, I do want to address one false teaching in here. I'm going to get a little bit nerdy and use a couple big words, okay? But you're going to love it and it's going to be a great ride. So stick with me. We're going to go one false teaching, one theological reality. Here's the first false teaching that you could get from this text that I don't think is true, which is baptism saves you. Okay, some people read passages like this and conclude that the act of water baptism is what saves you. When you read in Romans chapter 6, we're baptized into Christ. You could think that baptism is what regenerates your soul. This is called baptismal regeneration, and that's not what the Bible teaches. And here's why. In the first century, baptism wasn't even primarily a religious word, it simply meant to immerse something. You could baptize a piece of bread into a soup or talk about baptism by fire. It's this idea being completely submerged or overwhelmed. So in Romans chapter 6, Paul is describing a spiritual reality, not a water ceremony. He's saying for all who believe in Jesus, they are completely immersed in him. It's kind of like if you're a cookie and Jesus is hot chocolate on a cold day, okay? And you just get dunked in Jesus. Like that's the imagery that Paul, I just feel like it's so cold, you know? It's so cold and it just sounds delightful, a cookie and a hot chocolate. Anyways, moving on. But spiritually, that's your salvation, okay, moving on. But what happened was this idea of being dunked, consumed in Jesus, then became a physical symbol of that spiritual reality. It's the outward picture of what has already happened inside of your soul. So let me make this really clear, you can be water baptized and not saved, because water cannot save you. And you can be saved and not yet water baptized, because the blood of Jesus is what saves you. But baptism is a beautiful symbol. It's not the substance, but it's a symbol. It's like a ring that represents my relationship to Josie. If I forget to wear my ring, I'm still married to Josie, but because I'm married to Josie, I want people to know I'm married so I wear a ring. Baptism is a symbol, not the substance. You just wanna get that out of the air? Because I know that might be a question you have, all right? So that's the false teaching, but here's the true teaching I want you to see within this passage, the point of Romans chapter six. The way Jesus makes you new. The way that Jesus saves you is by two theological ideas I wanna make really clear tonight, guys. The way that you are saved by Jesus is not just by having a feeling on a Thursday night. It's not by feeling the warm and fuzzy, you know? That's not how you're saved. It's not by the way you grew up or the religious traditions or class you took or whatever it is, none of those things save you. What saves you are two big, fat theological realities that I want you to understand tonight. The first one is something called substitutionary atonement. This means that Jesus took your place on the cross, receiving the punishment your sin deserves so that you could receive the acceptance that he deserved. Guys, here's the reality, God is a righteous judge, which means some sin had to be punished, but instead of punishing you for your sin, he punished Jesus on the cross for your sins that you could receive what he ought to be received, which is acceptance. But he didn't stop there, he didn't just take away your sin, he actually gave you a new identity, he didn't just get you out of hell, he gave you a heaven reality. That's what imputed righteousness is. So not only do you have substitutionary atonement on the cross, but you also have imputed righteousness, which is when Jesus' perfect record is credited to you on the moment that you put your faith in him. Therefore, here's what happens when you meet Jesus. When you believe in him and the Holy Spirit in 12s your soul, when God looks at you, he doesn't see your past, he doesn't see your shame, he doesn't see your fears, he doesn't see your guilt, he sees his son. That's what imputed righteousness is, is when the righteousness of Jesus is put inside of you. In other words, substitutionary atonement solved your sin problem, but imputed righteousness gave you a new identity. That's why 2 Corinthians 5 is true. It's not because you somehow mustered up yourself and knew you, knew your new me, all that crap, get it out of here. It's not that. It's that when Jesus died on a cross for you and you put your faith in him, he gave you a new identity by imputing his righteousness inside of you. So this right here is why Paul gets so passionate. He says, "Absolutely not." He doesn't go for the easy, low-hanging guilt stuff. He says, "Absolutely not because you're..." That's not who you are anymore. You're not enslaved. You're not a son of Adam. You are a son of the high king. You are set free in Christ. You have the identity of Jesus in you. That's why you don't sin. That's why you don't pursue sin. You know, one of my favorite illustrations of this idea that we don't sin because that's not who we are anymore is an illustration by Augustine. So Augustine was one of the church fathers. He was one of the goats back then, okay? He's very influential. A lot of what you think about Christianity, he coined. It was in the fourth century that he lived. And at 31 years old, he met Jesus. He got converted. He had a life-changing relationship with Jesus. But for the last 31 years, he was living for the world. So he slept with a lot of women, did a bunch of stuff, had a big history, and had a big past. And he tells a story of how one day he was walking down the street, just down a street in Ames, you know, just living as he didn't live in Ames, you know. But you get what I'm saying, down the street. And this woman that he used to sleep with, sorry, saying, "Augustine, Augustine." And she's like yelling out his name, like trying to get his attention. And he just keeps walking by. Give her the cold shoulder, kind of rude, okay? And she says, "Augustine, it's me." Like, don't you remember? It's me, like, we used to sleep, like, it's me. And he turns around and he says to her, yes, but it's not me. I know who you are, but that's not who I am anymore. And I love that because here's a reality, guys, as Christians, you're gonna deal with temptation every day for the rest of your life. No matter how much of a bubble you live in, no matter how much you try to protect yourself from it, you're gonna live with temptation every day for the rest of your life. But here's what Augustine did, and here's what you can do. I see you, but it's not me anymore. That's not who I am. That's why Paul says, number one, the reason why we don't sin, even if we know we are safe forever, which we are if you're in Christ, is because that's not who you are anymore. You have a brand new identity. You have the atonement of Christ on the cross. You have the righteousness of Christ put inside of you. That's not who you are. Okay, but here's the second reason that Paul says we ought not to sin, is because we're set free. And this is the last thing we'll see today. Verse seven says this. Since a person who died is freed from sin. Now, if we die with Christ, we believe that we also live with him, because we know that Christ haven't been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, Jesus. Verses 12 to 14, I want you to lean in here. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness, but as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God and all these parts, all parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness, verse 14, for sin will not rule over you because you are not under the law, but under grace. Okay, here's a simple idea I want you to see here in this text. Not only does Jesus give us a new identity, he also gives us the Holy Spirit Resurrection power to change. Your old self at an identity level was a sinner, but remember, you died. Your old self died. Therefore, you are freed from sin because we died with Christ. We are also resurrected with Christ. Death no longer rules over Christ and sin no longer rules over you. Before sin was your master, you had to do what it said. It ruled over you, but now in Christ, sin gets told by, it's it, what am I trying to say here? But now in Christ, you get to tell sin what to do. You are a new creation, and you have the Holy Spirit power inside of you. You are set free. I love all this language in this. You're set free. You're freed from sin. You're dead to sin. You're alive in Christ. Sin no longer has to rain over your mortal bodies because you are set free. Here's the second reason why Paul says, that we ought to fight sin even though we know we're not enslaved, punished by it, is because sin is a horrible way to live and for the first time as a Christian, you can fight it with power. You have a new power inside of you. And the process of killing sin and becoming more like Jesus is what we call sanctification. In other words, it's how we change. Point two was all about justification, the atonement and the imputed righteousness on the cross. That's a moment where you fully believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and your life has changed forever. Your eternity is sealed. Your salvation is sealed. But then for the rest of your life, you have something called sanctification. And that's living out of the new identity and killing sin. So here's what I wanna do inside of this point. I wanna tackle the three major questions that you might have about sanctification, okay? Number one is, how does it work? Like literally how does it work? Do I change myself? That feels weird. Does God change me when I sit on the couch? I don't know. How does it work, okay? Number two, why does it take so long? Some of you guys feel this. You're like, I want to change. I promise you I do. And yet it seems to take five ever. So what's the deal there? Number three, why is it so hard? Why is it so painful? We talked about this about a month and a half ago. Sometimes sanctification feels like surgery, not a spa day. So why does it feel that way? Okay, number one, how does sanctification work? Here's what I want you to understand. Sanctification is a partnership between your faithfulness and the Holy Spirit's power. Does it make sense? It's a partnership. You work together. The best illustration I've heard for this is it's like a sailboat on an ocean, okay? I hate boats. I get so seasick, all right? But just pretend you're on a sailboat. It would be ludicrous for the sailors of that sailboat to think that if they just sit on the sailboat and do nothing that they would get to their destination. Does it make sense? So what do they do? They raise the sail. You know what I'm saying? In all those movies, they're always like, "Grrr," you know, they raise the sail. The sail goes up. But if the sail goes up and there's no wind, nothing happens. They just stay there forever. So what do they need? You need to raise the sail and then you need the wind to blow, right? That's what you need in order to get to your destination. Okay, here's how you experience sanctification. Your job is to raise the sail. You're the sailor. Wee. And then you need the Holy Spirit's power to blow on that sail, to actually move you forward. That's how sanctification works. It is a partnership between your faithfulness and the Holy Spirit's power to change your life. Now you might ask the question, well, how do I raise the sail? And the way you raise the sail is by doing things and experiencing things that help you walk with Jesus. When you do the spiritual workout plan and you read God's Word, that's you cranking the sail. When you live in community and you're confessing your sin, that you cranking the sail, when you come on Thursdays and Sundays and you experience worship and you hear about what's teaching, that you cranking the sail when you pray and ask God to change you. That is you cranking the sail. All that kind of stuff. Crank, crank, crank, crank, crank. That's you. And then you ask the Holy Spirit who in dwells inside of you that Jesus promise would be your helper to blow on that sucker and help you change. That's how sanctification works. Now, you might ask a question then why in the world does it take so long? And here's why. The reason why it takes so long and the reason why it's so hard is what we talked about at the beginning of our live free series in Romans chapter eight that we are still in a war with ourselves and with sin. That though we are, though, if you're in Christ, though you are saved, though you know where you're heading, you're in what theologians call an already, but not yet reality. You already have a save to soul, but not a resurrected body. You already have a relationship with Jesus, but not completely, perfectly until heaven. You already have everything that Jesus promises is your future inheritance, but right now you've got two feet down in a sinful world. That's why it takes so long. It's because you are fighting a war against sin. But the good news of the gospel is that you don't fight it alone. That Jesus died so that you could have his spirit. He said, "Better that I would go "to give you my spirit so that you could change." So here's why we change, Saul company. Here's why we turn away from sin and pursue holiness, even if our salvation's not on the line, because we have the Holy Spirit that actually gives us the power to change. And a life of holiness is so much better than a life of sin. And that's grace. Grace on the cross is atonement and imputed righteousness. Grace in your everyday life is spirit and powered sanctification. That's the grace motivation that Paul gives us here in Romans chapter six. So when you're tempted, here's what I want you to do. Here's the application of this message. Like Augustine, remember who you are. Remember that you're no longer enslaved to sin. That's not your store. That's not who you are anymore. And when you fall because you will, because you're in a war against sin and against the sin in your own body, then remember who Jesus was. That he didn't die for you because you were perfect. He died because you needed him. And so you need him every day for the rest of your life. You need the power of the Holy Spirit, but your job is simply to raise the sale so that the spirit of God can blow on it to change you. So here's the motivation I want to give you as you leave here today. Is your motivation to change isn't guilt, it's grace. But as we enter back in a worship, here's the reality, sanctification, how does it work? It's we raise the sale of the Holy Spirit blows on it. But the question that I often get discouraged about that I think you will often get discouraged about is number two, why does it take so long? And it can just be discouraging because guys, I walk with you for a decade and I'm still like, holy cow, I wish I was so different. I wish I had stuff figured out a little bit more. I wish I didn't spiral so much. I wish I had my character in a different place and I just got so discouraged honestly recently and defeated and I needed this reminder. And here's a reminder that Jesus gave me. It was actually a moment that I had with Luca about a week ago. On Sunday night, I took Luca on a daddy date. We went to Texas Roadhouse, the best restaurant in Ames. Iowa was delicious. Thank you. I got coaxed into getting one of their gift cards. If you buy a hundred dollars, you get 20 dollars credit. Anyway, I just want to say, I was like, yeah, take my money, it's so delicious. We ate some genetically modified rolls. It was a great time, okay. So Luca's chugging down these cinnamon rolls. Dangerous clip, don't tell his mom. And then after that, we go to Walmart because there's not much to do names. I'll be honest, there's just not much. We go to Walmart, I need to grab a couple things. And honestly, guys, I could have just put him in the cart, you know, where the parents shove their babies and they can't move, okay? And that would have been really efficient. Now I've got this trip done in like five minutes. But instead, I wanted to walk around Walmart with my son. So he's in a full on bare costume. It's the cutest thing ever. And I stick out my finger and he just grabs it. Okay, so that's how we walk. We just walk like this. And it's so fun. And every once in a while, he like, let's go my finger and wanders into the aisles of cereal sin. You know what I'm saying? Just sin everywhere on the cereal boxes. I'm like, Luca, don't go there. And I have to go back. I like tried after him, I like stick out my finger again. He grabs it, I bring him back. And what would have taken probably like five minutes, honestly, probably took like an hour, okay. We had to get some mouse traps for our house. I mean, it just was, it was fine. But here's the thing, I loved every minute of that as a dad because I love Luca. So even when he wanders and even when he walks places, he shouldn't. And even when it takes an hour or not five minutes, I love Luca. So I'm like, dude, this is so fun. We're like having a blast, you know? Here's what I want you to understand. That's what it's like for Jesus to walk with you. He wants to walk with you on that hour walk through the life of Walmart, you know? He wants to walk with you. And you might be thinking in your mind, you're like, gosh, Jesus, this is taking so long. I'm so disappointed in myself. I just can't figure it out. And you know what his disposition is? He's like, this is awesome. I love walking with you. Jesus has all of eternity. He's like, oh, 60 years, great. It'll take you 60 years to become the type of person you want to become great. I want to walk with you. Jesus has all of eternity to to walk with us. He's not in a rush. And guys, here's a deal. I am so quick to get so disappointed in my progress. But here's what Jesus was talking to me this week as I was riding the sermon. He's not. He loves walking with me. Listen, it's going to take you a long time to become the type of person you want to become. And even at the end of your life, you're still going to be like, dang it. I wish I was different. But Jesus has his figure out. And even as you wander into the aisles of sin cereal, you know? He just takes you back. And he's like, I want you to know that I love walking with you. So it's all come to me. I hope that for the rest of your life, you don't use guilt as a motivator to continue walking with Jesus. You use that image as a motivator to keep walking with Jesus, that Jesus loves walking with you. That's grace. That's grace. So let me pray that we would receive that in our hearts tonight and worship him. Jesus, thank you. That you could have so easily just put us in your heavenly heart and taken us home. But instead, you love walking with us. You love walking with us, even though it's slow and even though it's disappointing and even though we can feel full of shame and guilt. You love walking with us. And Jesus, one day, you're going to walk us all home. And one day, we're going to walk to the pearly gates if we're in Christ and we're going to experience the full joy. No more shame, no more guilt, no more tears. That day is coming. And we can't wait to celebrate next week thinking about that. But for tonight, God, Jesus, I'm just so thankful. I'm thankful that you love walking with us, that even when we're disappointed in our own progress, you're not. You're a joyful friend walking with us home. So Jesus, I pray that tonight grace would be far more beautiful than guilt and that we would worship out of a place of freedom, having received the grace of the cross, having received the grace of the Holy Spirit, having received the grace of the patient friend that walks with us through life. And you're reminding me, pray, amen, amen.