The Village Church
I Plead The Fifth - Audio
I'll be everyone's doing okay this morning. I don't hear anything from you. I guess you're not good okay. But if you have your babbles with you, please come with me to Matthew chapter 6 and we're going to continue to work our way through the Lord's Prayer. That's what we've been talking about and we're going to continue our discussion of that today. Beginning in verse 9 on chapter 6, this is Jesus speaking, "Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also are forgiven our lives and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." This is God's Holy Word to you. Now, no one here wants to be set up to fail. Do you know what it feels like to be set up to fail? Not trying to help you, but really not trying to help you because they want to see you fail. I think a lot of us enter into our relationship with Christ like that. Set up to fail. What do you mean, Alex? What do you mean by that? See, we have a tendency to share Jesus with others in such a way that we set them up to fail once they receive them. When you become a Christian, some of you believe now your life is going to be easier. Now all my problems are done with it. No more struggles. Then there's another side of you who think, who live in constant despair. Life is just always hard. This is what it means to be a Christian. I've got to be in despair constantly. Both of those are set up to fail you. To be a Christian, it's complicated sometimes. You see the mindset of an easy Christian life or the mindset of a despair Christian life, they both point to an internal battle in your heart and soul. It's attention. There's a battle going on inside of us. So some of you, you daily doubt your salvation constantly because of the sins you constantly battle. When you look in the mirror, all you see is how far off you are and so you doubt. The enemy helps you doubt too. You're not a savior. You're not a believer. How can you be a believer and still do some of the things you do and think some of the things that you think and say some of the things that you say. Does that rain home with anyone? Then, as others, you don't ever doubt your salvation ever, ever. You're not even convicted of your sin because Christian life's supposed to be easy. And so, you don't feel the way they're your sin, you don't ever feel it. You see your sin, it's just small ladybug sin, that's all they are. They're just ladybug sins, they're small and they don't really matter, but they do matter. See these two battles, what do you do with them? If my life is supposed to be already easy, if my life's supposed to be no struggles or is the Christian life supposed to be one of this constant despair. What do you do with that? How do you reconcile that? You see, in a legal proceeding, if you're called to court to build witness of a crime, you get up to understand, sometimes you put your hand on a good book, but if you say something that may incriminate yourself, you don't have to say that. What can you do on the oath? I plead the fifth, I plead the fifth. Why? Because I don't want to self-incriminate myself. Now, as believers, we plead the fifth as well. We don't plead the fifth amendment, we plead the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer, and what is that? Forgive us, our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors, that's the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer. We plead. You see, there's no need for due process because even as a believer, you're still going to battle sin. We plead the fifth petition because of that battle. When we self-incriminate God's mercy exonerates us, you see what I'm saying? His mastery frees us when we go to him and say, "Lord, forgive me of my debts." It's a plea for God's mercy, it's what it is. The mercy of God. Not in the mercy of our courts, but the mercy of God is really given, that you don't even have to work for. That's what we're going to talk about today, that mercy, that forgiveness, pray with me. Father God, I pray that as we continue our discussion of the Lord's Prayer, that your spirit will be taking what is preached and applying it to our hearts. And as I'll say before, as I will continue to pray, I can't change hearts. Preaching doesn't change hearts, it's the spirit does. The spirit is the one who makes preaching what it is, and I pray Spirit that you will come and preach to my heart and preach to everyone's hearts and draw our hearts closer to God. I pray you would do that in the name of Jesus. Amen. Now, let me make one thing clear as far as this prayer here. This is not a prayer salvation, this is not a prayer of a salvation, but it's a prayer of being restored to fellowship with God, for my sin hinders me for me, for my sin still creeps up into my life. That's what it's a prayer, it's a prayer for mercy. And see, what the dilemma that we're in is that if I'm already forgiven, why must I continue to plead it for a petition, if Christ has already forgiven me? Why must I still have to repent? See Paul says in Romans 6 that those who have a personal relationship with Jesus, you are no longer enslaved to sin, you're no longer under its power, its dominion. He says in Colossians 2 that you were dead in your trespasses and sin because of your sinful nature, but God made you alive in Christ. For he forgave all of our sins, he counseled the record of the dead against us, taking it away by nailing it to the cross, nailing it to the cross, our sin, our dead, everything we ever done, nailed to the cross. Some of you have dead, credit card debt, card payments, you know, title loans, we all have debt, rent to all companies, and every month we make a minimum payment until the debt is paid off, right? Right? If you have debt, this is what you do, take out the checkbook and you write a check every month until the debt is paid off, see our debt toward God can never be paid off by your minimum monthly payments, like going to church, going to Sunday school, getting a little religion. None of those things can pay off your debt before God, volunteering now at the food bank does not pay off your debt toward God. Who pays off your debt? Jesus pays off your debt by giving up his life and nailing it sin to the cross. So it's true, all of your sins, past, present and future, have been nailed to the cross. It's no longer your master. You have victory over its power, but your flesh still remains. You still battle it. And when you plead a fifth petition to God, this is what you are admitting to God. I know I'm forgiven in Christ, but man, I still battle my flesh. I still have sin in my life, have mercy on me, on my soul. And what's the tension here? Paul felt this tension. If you ever read Romans 7, you know the tension that Paul felt. He says, now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Sin is dead now to God. That's what it is. For I know nothing good to dwells in me, that is my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. How many of you ever felt that way? How many of you ever felt that way, am I just talking to the chair? Okay, every day. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do, I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find this to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is right there with me. This is Paul, a believer, a Christian, right of most of the New Testament saying I still have sin in my life. Now for some of us to say we don't, that's what sin, that's pride, that's self-righteousness. When you want to do good, evil is always there with you, whatever you try to do. That's the tension that we're in as believers, that's the battle that we're in. And meaning you know what Paul is talking about here, you sense the way of your sin, you feel it. When you look in the mirror you see it, your anger, your unbelief, the additions you may have, your lusts, your sinful pleasures and passions, you see it, you feel the weight of it and you beat yourself up sometimes. You see, it's like a habit you just can't shake. But I can only just get this one thing under control, then I'll be the Christian God wants me to be. Just one other thing God, you beat yourself up all the time, you have no hope, you feel shame, fear, despair, no escape, but there is escape. Paul goes on to say in Romans 7, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of sin and death, who will deliver him?" Thank God for Jesus Christ, for there is now no combination for those who are in Christ. For the law or the spirit of life has sent me free in Jesus from the law of sin and death. And so if you are in despair as a believer over your sin, beating yourself up, doubting your salvation, no, there is no condemnation for you in Christ. There is conviction, but there is no condemnation. For Christ, through His Spirit, has sent you free in the law of sin and death. You don't have to carry it, it's simply forgiveness, living forgiveness. The Spirit convicts you so that you complete the fifth petition. That's why He convicts you. The fifth petition is repentance. And repentance is keeping short accounts with God, that's what it is, keeping short accounts with God. I can then keep short accounts with my wife, I need to keep short accounts with Jesus and my relationship with Him. When I sin, Lord, this is what I have done, have mercy on me, because we all mess up, we all tell lies, we all do things we shouldn't do. We realize when we go to Jesus, this is not like going to the court, we go to Him, because He's already paid the price for us. And I said this before, repentance has taken the monkey off your back. It's for your benefit, either you will carry the way of your sin or your life, or you'll repent of it to get it off of you. Jesus is saying, don't live there, rest, rest than me, accept the forgiveness that I've given you. You can rest in the sweetness of His mercy, or rest in the bitterness of your sin. Which one are you going to do? Repentance is for your benefit, it helps you, the kindness of God should always lead us to repentance. So how often do you repent? How often do you repent of your sin? It should be daily repentance, daily repentance, because we all fall short of His Word. All the time, all the time. Back in my days in the blood offs of Georgia, which is the hottest place on earth if you ever lived there, I mean it's hot. I had a friend, we used to get into this religious conversation all the time, and he's a strange dude, but I loved talking with him, because he had these weird ideas. And so one day he wanted me to take him to Walmart, so I said, okay, let's go, we'll go to Walmart, he wanted to get some things. So we got into this discussion about sin, and he said something that I have never forgotten to this day. He said, Alex, you know, I have never committed a willful sin, ever. I was like, excuse me, I have never committed a willful sin. And I was standing in the middle of Walmart, like I've never heard anyone say that before. I was like, is this guy really that holy? Is he really that good, or is he just deceived, so deceived, you don't even see his own sin. Which one is it? Have you ever committed a willful sin? You have, all of us have. It doesn't matter if you are non-believer, or you're a non-believer, or if you've been a believer for ten plus years, you still battle sin, you need to learn to repent more. And all next, I saw an interview of a famous pastor, not going to tell him to tell you his name, and he was asked by this guy, is it hard to lead a Christian life? He responded with, I don't think it's that hard, it's fun. You know, I have joy, happiness, my family, I don't feel like it's that hard at all. I'm not trying to follow a set of rules, and stuff, I'm just living my life. See, others of you, you don't struggle with combination at all. It's not that you don't have any conviction, that's your problem. It's easy, it's easy, I'm just living my life. I'm not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff, I'm just living my life. Only someone who has a small view of that sin can say that. Only someone who has a small view of that sin can say that Christian life. It's really easy. You see, there's a movement in our church culture right now that has abandoned the preaching of sin, because they don't want people to feel bad about themselves. You don't want to beat people up. See, preaching on sin is not a negative, it's positive, because you can't think positive about yourself if you don't know who you truly are, if you have an incomplete picture of what's inside of you. You see, you talk about sin because it lets you be honest about the fact that you want people to be convicted of this sin, that's what we preach about it. And churches are filled with members who are having an affair and never convicted by it. We live under the illusion that everyone in our churches feel bad about their sin, and they don't. That's where you have to understand our sin. Not everyone feels guilty about sin, not everyone comes to church, has a relationship with Jesus. They're friends you have in your life, you've known for years, and then you find out later on, they've got a secret life you never knew about, there could be an elder in your church, a deacon in your church, but one thing we know, your sin will find you out. That's why we preach on it, because not everyone feels guilty, not everyone feels convicted. And when I'm talking about it this way, I'm talking to the person who feels so good about themselves, I've got all these people, I'm just going through the motion, baby. This is just a social thing, I'm not here for eternal reasons, I'm not here to be in a relationship with Jesus, but that's why you should be here, that's why you should be here. I don't want you to be self-deceived. How big is your sin in your life? How do you feel your sin? Jesus tells Jesus in Luke 7, Jesus goes to Simon at the Pharisees' house, the Pharisees invite Jesus into his home to eat dinner with him, and while they were reclining at the table, a simple woman of the city came, a call girl, a working girl, came and sat behind the feet of Jesus. She began to cry with her tears, she would wipe Jesus' feet with her tears, she kissed his feet, anointed his feet with oil. Simon at the Pharisees said, "If this man was a prophet, he would have known what sort of woman this is who is touching me." But she is a sinner, and Jesus is his usual form, tells the Pharisee a powerful. He says, "A certain money lender has two debtors, one owe him five hundred pieces of silver and one owe him fifty, fifty pieces. When they could not pay, he'd cancel the debt of both. Now which one of them would love him more?" Which one? Bigger debt, the one who had the bigger debt. Jesus tells Simon, "You have just rightly turned to the woman," he said, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has been ceasing to kiss my feet. You deny I nought my hair with oil, but she has anointed my feet with oil. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loves much. Be who is forgiven of little loves, little." You see why we preach sin? If you only have little sin, you're going to have little love for Jesus, because you have little need of Jesus. You see that? If you only be forgiven of little things, you're going to love him little. If you have a small view of your sin, you're going to have a small view of God. That's why we preach on it. That's why we talk about it. A growing awareness of your sin is a good thing, because it pushes you more to Christ, shows you need of Christ. I'm not saying this to beat you up, I'm saying this because it impacts your view of Jesus. That's why I want you to have a big view of God, and what I've learned is growing as a believer, as a growing Christ, as I grow my faith, I see more sin in my life. I don't know if you feel that way. God can give me victory with this sin, and then later on, I started saying stuff over here that I didn't see before, like I'm coming in and out of battles with my sin, and that's it. We do that. Because when we think we got something under control, God says, "Hey, Alex, Alex, Alex, what about this?" "Oh, well, I see that." That's the walk, that's the battle. I think because we live in the Bible Belt, this is one of the reasons a lot of people have a small, real sin, because they think of sin just as the external things I do. It's just my actions, like adultery, or murder, or being a drug dealer, or a thief, and so on and so on. Those things. But Jesus says something totally different in the gospel. In Matthew 12, he says, "For out of the abundance of the heart that mouth speak." In Matthew 15, he says, "But what comes out of the mouth of the man proceeds from the heart." This defiles a person. "For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality, death, thoughts, witness, slander, and I'll add pride, self-righteousness, covetousness, jealousy, envy, gossip, and lusts, all come from here in my heart." Jeremiah says, "The heart is deceitful of all things." Who can understand? God can. In Proverbs 4, 23 says, "Keep your heart with careful watch for possible," sorry, "keep your heart with careful watch for possible dangers, for ferment flows to springs of life." I offer my heart, and so if the world's spring of life flows from my heart, but Jesus is also saying, "Out of my heart comes all these different things," then you put it together, you realize your problem in sin is always a heart problem, not an action problem. We do the things we do because it comes from here, and when the Bible talks about the heart, it's talking about my mind, my affections, my will, my conscience. All those things are stained by sin, all four of them. You see, it's easy to modify behavior, it is. I could pretend to be a good pastor, I could pretend to be a nice guy, I can deceive you, and you can deceive me. We do it all the time, but I can never deceive God because he knows this, he knows my heart. He cannot modify your heart, none of us can, he can never deceive God, God knows me, he sees me, he knows what I'm battling, he knows what I'm hiding, he knows what you're hiding, he knows the things we don't want other people to know about us, the things we keep tucked away in the closet, you can hide it from us, but God knows, because he knows your heart. And here's the thing, he reveals them to heal you, not to hurt you, even though they hurt when he reveals it, but he does it, he brings us to the surface to heal you, that's why he does it, not to hurt you. And so God, through the broken of his spirit, changes our heart, if you've ever read these equals, 32 it says, I would give you a new heart, man that's gospel there, I give you a new heart, I would give a new, I'll put a new spirit within you, I will remove your heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to follow my word. That's gospel, when you receive Jesus, when you repent of your sins and receive him, he, God gives you a new heart, he put his spirit within you and he gives you the desire to follow him, the desire that you didn't have before, you see how good he is, you see how powerful he is, that when I was an enemy, I hated God, I cursed God, God said, I'm going to love you, I'm going to change you, I'm going to make you love me, I'm going to give you a heart so you're going to love me, that's what I'm talking about, that's the gospel, that's truth, you are a new creation in Christ, the old has gone, the new has come, that's who you are, when God sees you, he sees Christ blood over you, do you want forgiveness, if you don't know Jesus is one, do you want forgiveness for everything you've ever done in your life, then it's available through the gospel, through the cross, he will forgive you, he will counsel all your dead, and when you stand before God, you are dead free in Jesus, nothing else can do that, nothing else can save you, that's the gospel, and it's the sweet, but we still battle soon, and what you have to learn here is that when you become a believer, you are a new creation, but the old man still there, that you battle, and now when you become a Christian, you are able to fight your sin now, what you couldn't do before, because God spirit lives in you, because of God's spirit, he gives you the ability to say no to sin, and when I say your sin, your flesh hates you, I say hate it back, be a hater, hate your sin, because it hates you, hate it back, hate it back, don't love it, don't play with it, don't make a truce with it, don't make a truce with your sin, hate it, God's changing of our heart, it happens throughout your lifetime, it's not overnight, it's a process, as Nick Saban says, y'all know what that word means, if you're an Alabama fan, it's a process, and Nick Saban is right, being changed into the image of Christ is a process, people, it's a process, so I give him the same some credit there, it's a process, and so he continues to reveal sin in our heart so that we can repent more, that's the thing, he reveals it so you can repent, so you can plead the petition, and so if I'm a believer, I can stop pretending like I have no issues in this admit that I do, if I don't believe where I can, I can stop living in despair and ask the Holy Spirit to help me to live in that mercy, I don't have to live in despair, Jesus doesn't want you to live in despair, he wants you to be broken if you sin, but not in despair of it, he wants you to receive the rest in that grace, in that mercy, and repentance, as I said before, it takes the monkey off your back, but it also helps us not to make a peace treaty without sin, which we are always tempted to do, just accept the way I am, that's just me, I'm just gonna deal with that forever, so I just make a peace treaty, that's just who I am, but repentance reminds us, repent of it man, God forgive me of my debts, so repentance helps you fight your sin, because sin is no longer your master, but it is now your enemy, and you have to see it as such, at first it was my buddy before I knew Jesus, it was a good company to be in, but Jesus sent you free from that, and so now it's your enemy, the things you see in your flesh is your enemy, it's not your friend, it's not your friend, and so you have to fight against it, sin is a bully, the spirit is of your big brother, so bring him with you when you go to battle, God's word, bring him with you when you go to battle, because I've said this before, either your fight is standing in your life, or it will kick you around like a red-headed step child, I want you to fight it, it's a gift to you, if you ever read the book Moby Dick, or if you sing the movie Moby Dick, you realize Captain Ahab, he chased his great well across the sea, the great well he was possessed with capturing his great well, and in the last part of the book he mowed these words to the well, he said, "Twas thee I roll, thy all destroy my unconquering well," to the last I grew up with thee, from hell's heart I stabbed at thee, for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee." I'm reading the book called "The Enemy Within," and the author takes a unique twist on that quote, and he says, "Because of God's spirit in us as believers, we can say these same words to our sin and flesh, we can look at our sin and our flesh, and we can say, "Toward thee I roll, thy all destroy my unconquering flesh," to the last I grew up with thee, from heaven's heart I stabbed at thee, and for love's sake I spit my last breath at thee." See what I'm saying? That's what you can say now in Christ, spit your last breath at your sin, spit it by living out the fifth petition, praying the fifth petition, praying daily, daily, let us pray. Father God, thank you that because of the spirit, I can spit at my sin, I can hate my sin, and I pray that I will hate it more than I do, than I will rest more in the mercy of Christ more than I do, and so I pray, Lord, for everyone that wherever they are this morning, whether they're down in the salvation, or if they have no sin or small sin, I pray to the Spirit, you meet them where they are and show them what they need, they both need Jesus to rest in the mercy of Jesus for them, and so while thank you, I pray to you for all of this in Christ's name. [BLANK_AUDIO]
I plead the fifth (Matthew 6:12a)