I’m out of control!

Week 1 of Greater Reward

October 31, 2021 

I’m guessing that there are many of you that want something different in your life. Maybe you want to be healthy and lose weight. You might want to pay off debt. You might want a better relationship with your spouse, or another family member or friend. Or maybe you’re hoping to become closer to God. Maybe you decide to make this change, and you start out strong, but then you fail pretty quickly. Why is it that we have really good intentions, but we find it so difficult to make change in our lives? 

What we’re gonna do over the next three weeks is we’re going to look at how do we choose a greater reward? And we’re going to look at a guy who’s going to be a tremendous encouragement in this. He is the Apostle Paul. He’s a guy who had an encounter with the risen Christ that made him do a 180 in his life, he had an extreme makeover, Christ edition. He wrote almost 1/3 of the New Testament. He really believed Christianity was for everybody, and that’s why many of us who are Christians are Christians today. As close to God as Paul was, and as impactful as his ministry was, I want to show you his words in Romans chapter 7. He said, which makes me feel so much better about myself. “I don’t really understand myself.” Have you ever felt that way? Paul says, “Because I wanna do what’s right, but I can’t. I wanna do what’s good, but I don’t do it. Instead I do what I hate.” “I don’t wanna do what’s wrong, but I do it anyway.” Then he says, “Oh what a miserable person I am. Who will save me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” Who will help me do the good I can’t seem to do by myself. Who will help me stay away from the wrong I do? Who will help me go for the greater reward? 

Today our topic is, I’m out of control. Out of control and wish I were on a different path. How do you choose what you most want, over what you want right now? If you’re married, chances are you want a good marriage full of trust and intimacy. You want a strong marriage. I don’t know anyone who’s ever said, I wanna be divorced four times by the time I’m 40. Nobody wants that. We want similar things. Most of us say, I wanna feel good, I wanna look good, I wanna be healthy. Nobody says, “I wanna be out of shape. My goal is to be winded every time I walk up a flight of stairs. I wanna look bad at the beach in my bikini.” Nobody says that! 

As far as our finances, what do we want? We want to be able to be a blessing to others. We don’t wanna have to worry all the time about money. We want financial freedom. Nobody says “My goal is to be living from paycheck to paycheck for the rest of my life,” or “My goal is bankruptcy in the next three years.” We all want the same things in life. But desires don’t determine who you become. Why? 

One of the reasons is, willpower doesn’t work. Willpower is like a muscle. If you work it too hard, it just isn’t there for you anymore, it’s tired. Let’s say they bring donuts to where you work, when you decided you’re not going to eat sweets. What do you do? You walk by the donuts the first time with great confidence. Even that chocolate covered, crème filled donut doesn’t tempt you. The second time, you walk by, but you are giving that donut a longing glance. The third time, you decided you’re just going to smell it, that will be good enough. Then the fourth time, you say, “Well, half a donut won’t hurt.” Then half an hour later you come back for the second half of the donut. And you feel proud of yourself because you waited and spread out that donut! The problem is that willpower starts to weaken, and that’s a real problem if you’re a follower of Jesus. 

If we’re a Christian, we know what we should do. We’re supposed to do good, and honor God. We’re supposed to pray and read the Bible, serve others and be generous. We’re not supposed to do bad. We don’t steal. We don’t yell at people at the grocery store. We try to be Christians with all of our willpower: we’re not gonna say cuss words and we’re gonna be nice to our kids. And we try and we try and we try, but eventually our sinful desires start to overwhelm our waning willpower. And before we know it, we took it, we smoked it, we clicked on it, we bought it. We say, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”  

Before you fail, have you noticed this voice in your head? And this voice in your head tends to minimize the consequences of any wrongdoing? It’s not a big deal. Just this one time. It won’t hurt anything.” But after you fail, the same voice in your head connects your failure to your identity in a big way. This is so important to notice. If you look at the apostle Paul, he says in Romans 7 verse 24, “Oh, what a wretched man I am.” “Oh what a miserable person I am.” Paul thinks his identity is, “I’m bad. I’m pathetic. I can’t do what I want. I end up doing the wrong thing.” Paul gets into a cycle of shame. And then it gets even harder to change for the better. Because Paul is saying: “I’m not good! I’m just a miserable human being. There’s no hope for me!” 

So, we can try really hard to go to the gym. I’m gonna stop spending more than I make. I’m gonna stop being a rude person. I’m gonna at least try to be generous. But trying isn’t enough, willpower doesn’t last, and we will have an inevitable failure. After that failure we get stuck in the cycle of shame. “I failed, I’m no good!” 

Here’s the deal: If you want to change, but you fail. And you wonder what’s missing? What’s the secret? There is no what. Paul in Romans 7 is not saved by a what. After Paul says in vs. 24, “What a wretched man I am!” Paul says in the verse that follows: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Who can help Paul, and us, from a cycle of shame? Who can help us see ourselves as more than failures? The answer is Jesus Christ! It’s not about behavior, it’s about identity. I am a follower of Jesus. I am not my past. I am not what I did. I am who God says I am. He says I am forgiven. He says I am redeemed. He says I am free. Who am I? I belong to Jesus! Say that to somebody near you, “I belong to Jesus!” 

Following Jesus means I’m not living by willpower, instead I’m living by Spirit power! I’m following Jesus. I’m asking the Spirit to give me the words to say. I’m asking the Spirit to give me the wisdom to know what to do. I’m asking the Spirit to give me the power to say yes to what’s right, and to say no to what’s wrong. It’s not an instant change. But over time, I’m taking more and more steps in God’s direction. It’s depending on God, day by day. It leads to a greater reward. It’s not, “well, I’m trying to read the Bible.” Instead, it’s “I get to read the Bible.” It’s not “I’m trying to pray more.” It’s “I belong to Jesus, and I like to spend time with Him.” It’s not something that you’re missing. It’s someone: Jesus! Remember you belong to him. 

My challenge for you this week is to ask yourself, what do I want most? And ask God to help you choose, not what you want right now, but what you want most!  

We all want the same things: great relationships, good health, stable finances, we want to be close to God. But we don’t get to that greater reward by trying. We get there by walking with God, living in His strength. We don’t let that voice in our head tell us we’re no good, because I am a child of God! When our identity becomes, “I am a follower of God,” God’s wisdom and power works through us. Where we can’t, God can. Next week, we’ll find out more about why I can’t change, something that’s better than trying. 

Let us pray, Father, thank you for never leaving us to overcome our struggles on our own. Help us to believe with certainty that we belong to Jesus and that through His power, we can overcome all wrong desires and obstacles we face. In Jesus’ name, Amen.