Northside Church - Sydney
Realigned to Freedom – The Book of Galatians Week 5: Living by the Gospel
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. One of the iconic films of Australian film, The Castle, and as we would have seen as they go on there in the rest of that clip, there's one thing that Dale loves even more than the serenity, and that's the sound of a two-stroke engine on full ball. And he says to his wife there, "Ah, can you smell that? Two-stroke." Guys, we've been traveling through the book of Galatians. Last week I left you hanging a little bit because chapter 13 of verse 5 said, "To not abuse your freedom that you have in Christ, to gratify the sinful desires of the heart." And last week's passage showed us that gospel freedom leads us to a whole new motivation for obedience to God, that we're no longer a baby because we have to, but because we want to. And gospel freedom is a freedom from and a freedom for. And the question tonight is how does, as we finish up this whole series, how does being realigned to freedom, gospel freedom actually lead us to change? How does it lead us to change? Remember the whole background of this book? The Galatians were experiencing issues of racial pride. The Galatians were experiencing issues of disunity. The Galatians were experiencing issues of parts of their church being led astray in their core doctrine. And what was Paul's solution to it all, was it to challenge them to live better and to try harder and to do more and to do all this because the Bible says so? No, his solution was to call them to live out the implications of the gospel. Now I have to ask you, we're at week 5, do you get it? Do you get it? It's because the whole key to this series is that we live around the truth of the gospel, but to some degree we don't get it. And that the key to deeper spiritual change is a continual rediscovery of that gospel. And what does that actually look like? Can you smell that? Two-stroke. You see, the gospel is a two-stroke engine for change, as I've said that once before. Two-stroke, it's a two-fold discipline of repentance and rejoicing and repentance and rejoicing and repentance and rejoicing. That's what we're going to look at tonight. It's two-stroke. That's what we've seen thus far, that the gospel is not Demtel Christianity. I know you want more. It's not adding to the work of Christ. The gospel is not the gospel's a sporeograph, that through its structure and the guy that it gives to our lives draws out patterns that we couldn't draw ourselves. The gospel is Christianity, not Christianity, that it's an experience. It's not adhering to set beliefs and religious beliefs, and that the gospel, unlike George Michael's philosophy, is quite different in its understanding of freedom. It's not that I don't belong to you and you don't belong to me, but it's that we belong to Jesus Christ and he belongs to us tonight. What I'm trying to say is the gospel's a two-stroke engine for change. Now the Bible reading tonight comes to us from Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 through to 26 if you've got your Bibles with you. So we say, "Live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature, the desires, what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit, what is contrary to the sinful nature. They're in conflict with each other so that you do not know what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, then you're not under law. The acts of sinful nature are obvious, sexual immorality and purity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and alike. I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not enter the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." There is something radically different about a two-stroke engine if you're not a rev-head. Some people hear a mechanics and they'll be able to explain it to you after the service. What is absolutely unique about a two-stroke engine is you would never want this to happen in a normal four-stroke engine. If you did this in a four-stroke engine, it would be deadly, it would muck the whole thing up, it wouldn't fire, it wouldn't work. The two-stroke engine is different because oil and fuel are both mixed into the same mixture that combusts. Yeah, what's that got to do with the reading tonight? You're saying that oil and fuel are mixed into your combustion chamber when it comes to change by the gospel. Verse 17 says, "For the sinful nature desires what's contrary to the Spirit, then the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature, they're in conflict with each other so that you don't know what you want." What Paul is saying is that there's two different natures at work inside the combustion chamber of the Christian, that is the flesh and the spirit. So this is paralleled in Romans 7 verses 22 to 23 where he says, "For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?" That's positive thinking, isn't it? The question is, how do they influence this? Verse 16 and verses 24 of this passage, Paul talks about desire. Now, the way it often got translated was the word lust, and when we think of lust or we think of sexual desire, but that's not what it means. What it means here really is literally translated as an over-desire, a controlling longing, something that is driving us. Now, this is crucial because what he's saying is that sinful desires are the things that begin to control or drive us. And so, the irony here is that often these desires, they're not bad things, they're not evil things, they can be good things we've heard this before, haven't we? And when these good things, when they become over-desires, the good things turn into ultimate things, and they begin to drive us. So in like this whole book, Paul's been warning us not to lose your freedom. Don't go back to the slavery living under the law, and the question we've been asking ourselves is, how does that happen? Why does it happen? And Paul is saying here tonight that it's the over-desire of the flesh that drives us back underneath the law, that takes us away from the line of the gospel, but here's a good news then. Also note verse 17 says, it says that the spirit wars against the flesh. It says the spirit does what is contrary to the sinful nature. It means the flesh, not only of their desires, over-desires of the flesh, but in some sense, and it's a bit weird to explain it this way, but they're the desires of the spirit. What's the spirit's desire? The work of the spirit, as we said before, is the glorified Jesus Christ, is the point of Jesus to light up Jesus. The desire of the spirit is just as strong, and what is the spirit want? That we're conformed, that we're shaped, that we're molding in the image of Jesus. Romans 8, chapter 28. And so that's great news, because even when we fall into sin, even when we do things that are not right, even when we have an epic fail, we can say that's not who I am. I war against these desires of the flesh, but the spirit wants me to be like Jesus. Two-stroke engine is radically different. They're oil and fuel mixed in at once. There's two natures that work within us, the nature of flesh, the nature of the spirit, they're warring against each other. They're constantly at war. How do we win the war then? That's a question. Well, that's because the first stroke of this engine that is repenting and rejoicing, the first stroke in all of that is, of course, repentance. Now to continue the automotive theme tonight, does the term bog mean anything to you guys? It could do, it might be when your wheels get stuck in the dirt, but bog from an automotive perspective, and I should really know, and I owned a classic car at one point in my life. Bog was this sort of substance that you use to patch up holes and the structure and the integrity of your car. And so when I went going to buy my MG, as I did it was an older car, and it looked beautiful on the outside, and then I had my cousin with me one weekend, and he took me there, and he got his light out, and he shone it, and he looked down the panel of the entire car, and he said, "Sam, see all those ripples in there?" He said, "That's bogged." It's been bogged. And so it looked down there, and now the paint was shiny, the surface looked fented from a distance, it looked perfectly smooth in the panel, but beneath the surface it had been bogged. What am I saying? Bog is a cheap substance that is used to patch up the integrity of the car, and the problem is you look at the surface of it and you think it's totally sound, but then you exert any real pressure on it, it feels flimsy, it feels clumsy, it feels crumbly, it feels fake. Look, what is repentance meaning? One sense of repentance is to identify where we've bogged up the structure of our lives. is we identify our systems of self-saving. To look at that is repent. Now when we hear the word repent, often people think they hear that. They sounds like a bit of rebuke. You've got to repent. You've got to repent of your sin. And we hear that. We hear that. We hear that. We said on TV, we say it in the Southern America, repent. Look, we always think that repent means to turn your life around. Do it. You turn. Turn your life around. And when you go and look at the word repent in the Bible, that's actually the word meta noiete. It actually means to think about your thinking. Actually, it doesn't mean to do a 180. When we hear a 180 turn, we think that it's a 180 turn. We're doing this behavior. We're going to turn around and do the exact opposite. When we repent, we do this behavior. We're going to turn around and do the exact opposite. It's not what the word means. It means to think about your thinking. Think about your life strategy. Thinking about what you're doing. Ultimately, if we think about repentance as just turning around, then we think it's just about behavior modification. Just got to change my behavior. But that's not what it's saying here. It means to think about your life strategy. That's why when you hear the gospel. If someone said to you, "Hey, can I tell you a story about a guy who in fact is more than a guy, is God and he comes down and he inhabits flesh that God becomes man and he breaks into humanity and he lives amongst us and he teaches and he died and he was resurrected and that there is a life after death, repent." Really, that word is saying, "How's your life strategy in light of this truth?" It's talking nothing about behavior modification. It's talking about in light of this truth that God has broken into the world. Think about your thinking. Think about your life strategy here. Repent. See how this view and definition of repent can affect how we see things, verses 19 to 21, acts of sinful nature adieu, obvious. The acts of the sinful nature, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, et cetera, et cetera. Paul is saying when you see these sorts of things, they're sticking out like bog on the surface of the car. He's saying you've bogged up the car. But the gospel is saying, see here it says hatred and jealousy and envy. The gospel quarter of repent is not saying go and do the opposite of whatever is happening there. It's saying the question is why you're doing it in the first place. The power of the changing power of the gospel is at the root of the fruits of the flesh is a system of self-salvation. You've bogged the car up. You think it's looking smooth on the outside, but you've bogged it up. So in that way, repentance is not opposing behavior, but it's the identification of our self-saving system. Now, it's not a passive process. I mean, is repentance is saying, oops, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I remember watching Georgie Gregan and the wallabies and they were just continually doing penalty after penalty after penalty after. And he'd go up to the ref and Georgie was always such a sweet talker, wasn't he? He'd go up to, oh, I'm so sorry ref. And it got to a point where the ref said, look, enough of saying sorry, I've got to see a change of behavior. Repentance is more than just saying sorry. It's Georgie Gregan's principle. We've got to see a change in behavior. And so that's why Paul says in verse 18, verse 24, as well, that it's also about dismantling these systems of self-salvation. Verse 24, for those who belong to Christ Jesus, have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Now, what does it mean to crucify the sinful nature? We've heard that term in Colossians chapter 3, remember, when Paul says, since then you've been raised with Christ, set your heart on the things above, set your mind on the things above. Therefore, put to death all your anger and your rage and your malice and your slander. Remember that? Again, look at his pattern, identity and behavior change. And so he's saying, put to death. Now, the mistake we often make is we here crucify the flesh and we think we've just got to stop doing all the bad things we do from a bodily perspective. But it's a mistake to think that. And so as a result, we think we've got to withdraw from the world and we can't go out there because we might do bad things and we can't go here because we might do bad things. Look, it's a mistake. Paul is saying, he's not saying to crucify bodily desires. What he's saying is to put to death your inherent drive to live under the law. Because that's what the nature of the flesh is, to have us to live under law. You know, you say, I don't do that. What he's saying is it means to dismantle our idols. It means to dismantle the last little bit of you, the things that you've got to do, any other little thing, any other little bit of good behavior in order to be right with God. Because what's that? That's a different gospel. And a different gospel, as Paul said, we heard him went one is no gospel at all. There will always be a residual part of you. We're inherently built that way that says, if only I just did this, even after I've had the epic file, if I just if I just do something a little bit better, then I can earn my way back up to God again. He says that's a different gospel. And so now what does that look like? What it looks like tonight is Jesus is not asking you to repent or think about your behavior tonight. Repentance means to dismantle the reasons why there's selfish ambition, why there's dissension, why there's fits of rage, why there's envy in your life, if it's there. Now Paul's a second here. Look at this list. You know the irony, selfish ambition, dissension fits of rage envy. You know the irony with that? You can see that list of different things happening just as much in the church as you do outside of the church. Ouch. See what I love about that is Paul, Paul shows us here in the Word of God shows us here that God doesn't make distinctions between the fruits of the flesh out here, but between are they just belong to the bad people? Because what it's saying here is good people, the morally upright people, the religious people can still just have the same sort of fits of rage in the envy and the jealousy within them. And what he's saying is there's no distinction between different grades of sin. He said we have this inclination to think, oh yeah, sexual immorality. That's one of the big ones. I'll stay clear of that one, but this one over here, yeah, a bit of envy. You know I can get away with that. Look there's no distinction. What that means for us tonight is that all of life needs repentance, not just for our bad deeds, but for our good deeds as well. Not just for the bad stuff, but the good stuff. And what Paul is saying is that if this fruit of the flesh is emerging in your life, then it's a sign. Now remember it's a sign. It's not a sense of condemnation. It's not a pass mark. It's not a little report card to say that you're no longer a worthy Christian if a bit of envy has popped up in your life. It's just a sign that you've still got a bit of bog remaining. There's still a bit of a bog up there and you've patched it up life with a bit of bog. And so what we see here is that the first step to actual gospel change is repentance. It means to undertake the discipline of identifying and dismantling the systems of self-salesation. Now what do you mean? It means you need to cut the bog out of your life. It means analyzing what's hidden beneath the surface. It means looking at what's popping up or what is propping up the integrity of your life, finding out what it is and beginning to cut it out. Beginning to weld back in the panels of Christ's likeness into your life. Now it's just not sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Georgi Craigin principle. The gospel leads us to repentance not merely by just sort of setting our will against superficial issues. Real repentance is to analyze the reasons why behind your behavior, why you're seeing those fruits of the flesh pop up in your life. And they will. We're not perfect. They will. But it's a sign, not condemnation. So on the other hand, if it's all repentance, is this just a beat up? If it's all repentance, if it's all repentance, if it's all repentance, if it's all repentance, if it's all repentance, if it's all repentance, if it's all repentance, you've got a circular motion. You've got to have a bit of both. And so the second stroke of the gospel tonight, guys, gospel change is rejoicing. Rejoicing. Now a lot of people are rejoicing this week or over the past couple of weeks because Thorpey is getting back into swimming. I know it's big news. Forget all the fashion and all the other news. Thorpey's actually getting back to what he's actually good at. I wasn't a huge fan of his fashion anyway. And so Thorpey's saying here that he's in fact going to go back and he's got a new a new coach, Gennady Toreski, or something. I think he's always got to have a coach with ski on the end of their name. If you're going to do well in the Olympics, it's always a ski. And so Gennenski is going to be his new coach. And I'm thinking, what is Thorpey need a coach? He's a super fish. He's got feet the size of flippers. He's won that many gold medals. Surely just goes back to his old little swimming file. He pulls it out again. Oh, that's right. That's cool. Right over left to get in the water. Thorpey, do you know? But no, even Thorpe, one of the greatest swimmers that we've ever seen in the world understands that he needs a coach. He needs a coach because a coach shows you where you've been going wrong. A coach corrects poor technique, but a coach is also there to encourage you to inspire you, to point you towards the goal that you're heading for, to help you see the small changes in your progress, to bring the best out of you. Now, some of you might be sitting here tonight and thinking, I don't need a coach. I'm doing all right. I'm doing fine. I've got it. I'm over armed. That's cool. I understand what the Christian life's all about. You might be saying, I'm right. I'm saved by faith. I get it. It's cool. I get it. But secretly, deep down here, asking yourself, where's the power? Where is this power that he's been talking about? Where is this change that he's been talking about? Where is this difference in my life that he's been talking about? I'm righteous. I know it says, imputed righteousness. The righteousness said that God has placed onto me through the work of Jesus. I get that. I'm right with God. But why aren't I seeing that translating into the rest of my life and see the reality of gospel growth is that you will change. I keep saying it. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Okay. Gospel change will happen. Why are I moving from my imputed righteousness to an actual righteousness? Why aren't I growing? What it's saying here is that you're not doing business with your justification. We talked about it. It's the Nosebleed Theology of this entire series that you've been made legally right with God, not because of your past, because of Christ's past, not because of your work, but because of Jesus's work. That is the absolute pinnacle of this book. The reason you're not seeing change is because you're not doing business with your justification. There's one commentator says, "Birkhouse" says. It's a mistake to ask. We know we have imputed righteousness, but now how do we move on to actual righteousness? Look, we do not move on. Any particular flaw in our actual righteousness stems from a corresponding failure to orient ourselves towards our imputed righteousness. Sanctification, that means how we grow to be more like Jesus. Remember, that's the goal of the Holy Spirit. Happens to the degree that we feed on or orient it to or do business with the pardon, righteousness and new status that we now have in Christ imputed through faith. You're not changing because you're not doing business. You're not doing business with justification, the centerpiece of the Christian faith, and so rejoicing means to do business with your justification. It means how we grow is solely dependent on how well you get it, because if you don't get it, you're always going to wander off one way or the other. I'm going to have to do something more. I have to do a little less. I go crazy, legalism, license. So the first thing you've got to do is you've got to test it out. What is rejoicing means? It means you test out your justification, the fruits of the spirit, verse 22, but the fruits of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control. We know it. We know it. We see that the fruits of the spirit when we test it out is like the little chlorine sticks when you've got to pull, and you have to get one of the chlorine sticks and put it in the pool and wipe it around in the water a bit, and if you shake it for a little bit, then there's all these different colored patches on the chlorine stick, and then you hold it up to the side of the bottle and you say, "Yeah, I've chlorinated my pool to the right degree." You see, the fruits of the spirit are merely a way for us to take our lives like the chlorine stick and hold it up to that and say, "I'm a sing love. I'm a sing joy. I'm a sing peace. I'm a sing patience." You see, the worst possible thing you can do is to go and hunt them down as if you can sort of run after them and get them. You see, you don't become a loving person by trying to be a more loving person. It doesn't work that way. These are the overflow in the same way that you don't get an apple by trying to smack around a seed in the ground a little more. It has to go through its process of growing into being a tree and producing fruit. Gospel change is slow, and its gradual, and the fruit is simply a test at the spiriters at work in your life. It's like the litmus test on the pool chlorine. You've got to test it, but then also you've got to – and I loved what Carol said in her baptism tonight – wasn't the ultimate test in seeing how authentic and genuine the gospelized change that's happened in her life? What did she say? She said, "I felt so close, the experience for the Holy Spirit in my life," that she said. It's amazing it was straight out the Bible that she said, "I needed to walk in step with the Spirit." I'm thinking, "Preach it, Carol." Verse 25, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." I'm thinking the Holy Spirit was already talking through a testimony tonight. Amen. We not only test, rejoice. He is not only testing out how we are like the pool chlorine, but it's also walking in step with the Spirit. John chapter 16 verse 13 says, "But when he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his known. He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you." That's the job of the Spirit is to take what's Paul saying to the Spirit's coach. It's the Spirit's key. He's the ultimate East in Europe. The Holy Spirit's key is saying, and that's the whole premise of this Spirit, this series. We think we get the gospel until we pull the chlorine strips out and we go, "Oh my goodness. I'm not matching up here. We don't get it." Then we look at it and we say, "Ouch," and at that split second that you feel I'm worthy, at the split second that you think that you're doing something wrong, at the split second that you think you've got to do, more than that. The Spirit's key comes along and says, "Hey, I'm here. Whoa. Wrong technique." The Spirit's got a job to do. It says, "Hey, look at your position in Jesus Christ. Come on. Go back. Do business with your justification. Go on. Quiet time. That's how the Spirit works in our life." The Spirit's got a job to do to create a renewed heart in the sons that includes you two girls, in the sons of God. It's got a job to renew the heart in the sons of God. Guys and girls evidenced by the fruit. The fruit's not a means to get there, but processed by walking in line with the Supercoach, the Spirit's key. What does that look like? Look, you can watch a 3D movie without glasses. You can watch that, but it's going to look fuzzy. You can hear the audio. You can get an idea of what the story is about, but it's going to look grainy. You might have a headache after about 15 minutes of doing it, but you can watch a 3D movie without 3D glasses. What am I trying to say? The Holy Spirit's like a set of 3D glasses. To the Word of God and to the reality of Jesus Christ in your life, you know, when you put the Holy Spirit's glasses on, it makes Jesus so clear and so vivid and so real that he just seems to pop out at you. Whoa, he's like right there, man. It's like a super Jesus. You see, the Holy Spirit makes Jesus real to you. It brings it out. That's the work of the Spirit. So what does it mean to walk instead with the Spirit? It's more than simple obedience. The Spirit's a person. It's a God. It's your coach, the Spirit's key. The coach is the one that's with you the whole time. The coach is the one that is correcting you. The coach is the one that is encouraging you. The coach is the one that is saying, "Come on, you can do this." The coach is the one saying, "Hey, you've got to do goal here." And it's to be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, Romans 8, verse 28. That's the role of the Spirit. He's your super coach. So what does it mean for me practically tonight? It means you've got to get in the pool. We'll start swimming some laps. You're not going to become a good swimmer going down the runway, fashion runway that is. Thorpe understood that. Thorpe's got to get back in the pool. He's got some work to do. He said, "What if I don't want to?" That's a real thing. That's a real thing for some people tonight. What if you walk out of this place and you're realistically saying to me tonight, "Sam, you don't understand what is going on at my life. I'm not up for this super spiro stuff." You know, when it comes out, when I don't even want to think about Jesus and I can understand it, I've had moments of dry times in my spiritual life. What if I don't want to? What if I don't want to focus on Jesus? What if I don't feel like it? Then your process is to submit to the super coach because of the super coach, the spirit ski. It's his job to point you back to him. Look, Christianity is not turning over a new leaf. Christianity is not a whole new chapter in life. Christianity is not just inspiration. Christianity is not just nice feelings. Christianity is a power. It's a power that's come in from outside of you. If you're here tonight going, I just don't even feel like I look at that power in your life. The good news for you is when you call yourself a Christian, Jesus himself sends his spirit into your life and that is his job to conjure up those feelings. It's his job of the spirit to get you to begin to rejoice. It's his job as a spirit to get you to rejoice regardless of your circumstances because it's not about feelings or about circumstances you see. If our problem, if the cause of the war between the flesh and the spirit, the oil and the fuel is the over-desire of good things then you need as charmers put it. One of the old great preachers, we said this before but you need the explosive power of a new affection. If something has the ultimate affection in your life, you need the explosive power of a new one. What am I trying to say here? You need the spirit to help you to meditate on all that Jesus has done for you. The spirit points you back to the reality of who Jesus is. The spirit is the three day glasses. It makes Jesus pop out at you and in those times when you don't feel like it, Jesus begins to pop out and you rejoice. You rejoice for you because of Jesus. I'm not only forgiven of my bad deeds but I inherit his good deeds as well. Because of Jesus, I'm accepted on the basis of not my record but his record. Because of Jesus, I'm right with God and I've got no need to find my own rightness. Because of Jesus, I'm a kid of the King. Because of Jesus, I've changed my hairstyle. Because of Jesus, I obey because I want to, not because I have to. That's the work of the spirit. Now note, this is not some intellectual exercise. There has to be an aspect in which Christianity goes from the head to the heart. It's an experience and what the gospel calls us to do is just to worship and adore him. Until our hearts find Jesus more beautiful than the object we felt we had to have. The work of the spirit is to change us into the lightness of Christ. Slowly and gradually, not all at once by showing us his glory, make him pop out to us and as a result we begin to experience the freedom that we have in him. So the spirit is your coach. And lots of times I'm sure thought he felt like he didn't want to get out a bit. Don't want to, he needed correction. He needed slight adjustments. He needed to be realigned to freedom. The freedom of swimming like the super fish that he is. And so as we realigned to freedom, as we realigned to the gospel, then we begin to see the slow and the gradual changes in the love and in the joy and in the peace and the patience and kindness and gentleness and self-control. Rejoicing, here it is. Rejoicing is a spirit-enabled discipline of testing out and living out our position in Jesus Christ. It means you've got some work to do this week. It means you've got to get and pull. It means tonight and as we finish up tonight, here's the application that the secret, the gospel change, is the joyful repentance of the self-righteousness under both our bad things and our good things. Paul was saying that the remaining sin in our hearts, Galatians 5 verse 16 is the drive to consistently live under the law. In other words, you're always going to want to go back and keep bogging up your life. It's easy to do it that way. But bog is flimsy, bog is fragile, bog is clumsy, bog is crumbly. So are the idols of the human heart. So are the things that we think will achieve us rightness with God. The gospel leads us to repentance, not by setting our wills or setting this against superficialities, on the stuff on the surface. Gospel doesn't lead us to repentance by just giving us a new paint job, but by taking gospel-wise panels, patching them back into our lives, changes from the inside out, building the car again from the inside out. The secret to gospel change is joyful repentance of our self-righteousness under both our bad things and the good things. What am I trying to say? Gospel change is a two-stroke engine of repentance and rejoicing and repentance and rejoicing and repentance and rejoicing and repentance and rejoicing. Please, please tell me you see it differently after six weeks. Please tell me that you're seeing a difference in Jesus' name after six weeks of doing this. The key to this whole series has been that we live around the truths of the gospel, but to some extent we don't get it. Have you come to a realization that we haven't got it, and we never will get it fully, but the key to gospel change is to constantly be renewed by a rediscovery of what the gospel really is. In that sense, the gospel is not the beginner doctrines. The gospel is not the little baby blocks that we piece together when we first become a Christian. It's not the ABCs of Christianity, but it's the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is God's guidebook, but how you can be realigned of freedom. Am I challenged to you tonight? Can you smell that? Two-stroke. I want this place. I want to believe this place. I dream this place. Each and every Sunday as we come to Bonidoon, the serenity. I pray, look, the ultimate father loves nothing more, nothing more than serenity than to hear a two-stroke engine going at full bore. I'd pray in this place that every time we walk out of here is the residual smell of two-stroke in the air. Gospel change is a two-stroke engine of repentance and rejoicing. How do you need to work on your engine this week? Is it running? Is it working? Is it smooth? Is it happening? Maybe some of you, maybe one of you hit a night and hasn't even got the spark to make that thing go around. That is the faith in Jesus Christ. If you've not accepted him into your life, if your life is not combusting with a power that is beyond you, can I encourage you, exhort you to ask Jesus Christ that spark in your life tonight, to start an engine going that will begin now and move for all eternity. Repentance, rejoicing, repentance, rejoicing, changing us into the very lightness of Jesus himself. Smell that. Two-stroke. Let's pray. Father, we don't get it. And as we have spent six weeks in this book, Luther's book, a book that gave rise to one of the greatest changes in the church that history has ever seen, the rise of Protestantism. Lord, I pray tonight that we understand that the gospel is so much more than those baby doctrines. It's not only good news, but it's the way that we live our life. Father, each of us, right down from the baby Christian to the most mature Christian in this place tonight needs to continually rediscover the good news that is in the work and the person of your son, Jesus Christ. And I pray that this week, not just this week, for our lives continuing to this year and the years to come, that we might get that, that we might continually look back to the supercoach and listen to his still small voice amongst the roar of everything else that is going on in our lives, for the gentle correction and the rebukes and the realignment to freedom that we've been seeking throughout this whole series. Father, if there are people that are still stuck under the bondage and the slavery that is their own desires to think that they need to be right with God. Father, I pray that those chains are broken tonight in the name of Jesus. Father God, I pray that tonight people will rediscover the freedom that is found in Jesus, the freedom that is found in the gospel. Father, I pray tonight that there are lives that will be turned upside down because of the power of your word and the truth that it speaks to each and every one of us in this place tonight. Father, may we never be satisfied with thinking that we get the gospel. And as we move into the rest of this year as a church family and the rest of our lives, Father, after all that we've learned, may we come back time and time and time again to do business with you and all that you've done through your Son Jesus Christ. For that, we're eternally thankful and we pray in His name now. Amen.