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Part 2 of 20
How To Get Right With God
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Much of the emptiness and void that people experience in life is due to the lack of quality of their relationships. The quality of your relationships will determine the quality of your life. You are the sum average of your five closest friends, so you need to pay attention to who you do life with.
This is why life groups and community are essential. Some of you need an upgrade relationally. You need to surround yourselves, your families, your marriages, and your children with people of standards, values, convictions, humility, and virtue that honor God. You find these people in your local church.
Yes, first interactions are awkward. You have to step into a vulnerable space, but it's worth it. Press through the initial discomfort.
Everybody's carrying something. Life will come looking for you—it doesn't matter who you are. At some point, life is going to punch you in the face. Some people have cancer. Others have addiction, divorce, bankruptcy, or strained relationships. Trouble knows where to find you; you don't have to go looking for it.
The question is not whether you'll face hardship, but how are you going to do your best to carry your load well? When you have burdens to bear, the prudent response is to develop strategies and lean on your faith community.
I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites by smooth talk and flattery. They deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience. So I rejoice because of you. But listen to this: I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Paul includes this in his final thoughts to the Romans. Final thoughts are critical thoughts—they're powerful. In these verses, he's speaking directly to the family of God. If you're not a Christian, this conversation is specifically for followers of Christ, though others may benefit from understanding how we think.
Paul has just laid out his masterpiece—the entire theological framework of the gospel. Now, in his final words, he ties additional thoughts to what he's taught. Last week he commended and celebrated individuals within the church. This week he addresses the faith community and family as a whole.
The beauty of reading Scripture at its own pace is that you discover organic, genuine sincerity. Paul's argument has a pace and process: chapters 1-11 are explanation, doctrine, and theology. Chapters 12 onward are marks of maturity—how the gospel looks in your actual life.
First, Paul taught that you must deeply and sincerely apply this new life in Christ to yourself. Don't rush to force it onto others. Deal with your own heart first. Now he shifts: "But we also need to talk about how you apply this to someone else's life in a God-honoring way. How do you have a critical conversation? How do you make a discerning judgment about dynamics among you that aren't okay?"
Now that you know the richness of the gospel, the goodness of God's character, the brilliance of timeless truth—now that you hold redemption, new life, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and this faith community—one of the wisest things you can do is learn to steward it well and safeguard the community and family of God.
This is why the conversation about dealing with divisive people matters. It's not a comfortable topic, but God's Word embedded these conversations into Scripture because they're things we all need to learn to navigate.
How do you combat division within the local church when you're living in an extremely polarized, divided culture? How does the church keep culture out of the church?
We take our cues from Christ, not from culture. We function differently. Though the world becomes more divided and polarized, God wants His people to be one. He wants us to watch out for people doing destructive things.
Paul ties dealing with divisive people to powerful spiritual language: those who handle divisive people well will crush Satan under their feet. There's a spiritual warfare component here. How things happen relationally is connected to how things happen spiritually. Some people are not taking their cues from Christ; they're taking their cues from Satan himself—the father of lies.
Divisive people, deceptive people, people who use flattery and manipulation—they are connected to the very Satan who will be crushed under your feet when you understand how to deal with healthy relationships.
There is a spiritual dynamic at work. Think of spiritual warfare as a game of tug-of-war: there are always influences pulling you in different directions. Some pull comes from the goodness of God and His nature and desire for your life. Some pull comes from evil and brokenness in the world.
On one side of the rope in your life, regarding spiritual matters, is the pull of:
Yet simultaneously, on the other side, there is the pull of:
Every single day, your heart is being pulled on both sides. On one side is the pull toward the things of God and His desire for your life. On the other side is this constant tug-of-war match for your heart.
Why should a church have these conversations? Because this stuff is at work all the time.
We were taught through comics and culture to expect the devil to show up with big horns, a tail, and a pitchfork. It would be so much easier to say no to the devil if he showed up looking like that. But he doesn't.
Satan's strategy is subtle. It's not spectacular. He's patient and nuanced in our lives. His strategy is also obnoxiously boring—it's predictable. All the way back to the garden, he plants seeds of suspicion, seeds of doubt, seeds of half-truths. It's the same boring pattern. And because it's boring, we don't pay attention to it. We don't want to pay attention to it.
Jesus says, "They will know that you are my disciples by how you love one another."
In a polarized, fractured culture, unity is our greatest evangelistic tool. When people look at the family of God and see how differently we do life, they notice. Non-believers think things like:
They see how believers approach marriages differently, approach friendship differently, and carry grace in their back pocket because they know broken people are going to need it throughout the day.
If unity is our greatest evangelistic tool, then division is anti-evangelistic.
Culture has discovered something through social media and algorithms: the thing that goes viral, that gets clicks and likes, is not positivity—it's negativity.
This is "rage baiting"—tech and social media terminology. The algorithms have us all figured out and dialed in. They know exactly what to populate on every screen and feed to turn up the volume of the echo chamber of your life. They've discovered that if you want to build a platform, gain traction, and go viral, you don't use positivity. You use outrage and division.
We put things out there that agitate people and bring things to the surface. This is what's happening in our world—we are being baited by rage. Culture rewards outrage. Culture rewards suspicion. Culture rewards division. And what gets rewarded will get repeated.
Be careful of the behaviors you affirm. When someone does something shocking and horrific, they see the attention it generates. They see what gets rewarded, and the cycle repeats. This is warping the way we think. The church cannot afford to do this. If the church does not create and counterform people against the resistance of a broken world, we will miss the mark.
Every church should have these conversations because hidden attitudes eventually become public behavior. What comes into your mind comes out through your life.
The biggest reason may be this: Jesus is forming a family, not hosting a crowd. We are building Christians, not crowds.
Jesus, the one and only first begotten Son of God, laid down his life for every single one of us. Because of the sufficiency of the cross, we are now adopted into the family of God. We are now siblings in the faith—brothers and sisters. God is building a family.
Your eternal future reality is being in harmony with one another. We don't disregard people superficially. We are genuine in relationship because this is a family, not a crowd. It's not for your entertainment; it is for your engagement. You are a part of something so great—the bride of Christ, the family of God.
Paul brings this masterpiece to a close by saying that when you hold the book of Romans in its entirety, you realize how beautiful God is and what he desires to do in our lives. The gospel and what's been made available to us is beautiful. That's why Paul says, "You have to guard it. You have to guard it."
In the book of Revelation, Jesus calls divisive people "the synagogue of Satan." How can we know if we're being pastored by the devil? How can we discern this in our own lives? Here are 20 red flags:
1. When complaining feels more natural than gratitude. Every single one of us gets jolted by life. What fills you is what spills out. Is it complaining and negativity and pessimism, or are you a person of hope, faith, and gratitude? Do you complain more than you express thanks? What you say has more to say about you than anything else. Evaluate your words.
2. When suspicion feels easier than trust. Trust is hard. We start out as innocent kids, then realize people keep taking our trust. Relationships take time and a whole lot of grace. It's easier to assume the worst than to lean in and develop trust.
3. When bitterness feels safer than forgiveness. Our entire spiritual reality hinges on an act of forgiveness. On the cross, Jesus paid the ultimate price. Scripture says, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Forgiven people should be forgiving people. We think bitterness is insulation, but it's imprisonment. Bitterness is not a padded room; it is a prison cell.
4. When isolation feels more appealing than community.
5. When pride feels more comfortable than humility.
6. When outrage feels more righteous than obedience. This is big. The loudest voices are rarely the wisest voices. We masquerade and try to justify our outrage as an act of righteousness, when true righteousness is reflected in the daily meek, gentle, humble virtue and character of God in radical obedience to following Christ. That's righteousness.
7. When preferences feel more important than scripture. Church people fight over stupid things. We all have opinions and preferences, but we make mistakes when our preferences start to take more weight than scripture.
8. When spiritual comparison feels more motivating than spiritual growth. You are giving yourself over to spiritual influences that are moving you in a divergent direction from what God has in mind.
9. When your opinions feel more authoritative than God's word. Follower of Christ, you have to decide how much weight you will give God's word. Opinions are always changing—what was healthy when we were kids is now considered bad, and sometimes it makes a comeback. But one thing remains: the timeless truth of God's word carries the weight. Christian, no matter what church you are at, God's word carries the authority. Not you. Not me. God's word.
10. When correction feels like an attack instead of a gift. Scripture says, "Wise are those who receive a rebuke."
11. When comfort feels more urgent than calling. God is not making robots; he's raising children. His goal for your life is not comfort and convenience. It is courage and significance. Know the difference in how your heavenly Father is parenting you. He is parenting you towards courage and significance, not comfort and convenience.
12. When secrecy feels more strategic than honesty. In this life in Christ, you push things into the light.
13. When anger feels more productive than prayer. There's an impulse to take matters into your own hands. Anger sometimes feels like a better option and a more productive tool than prayer.
14. When cynicism feels more reasonable than faith.
15. When "my truth" feels stronger than God's truth.
16. When small sins feel less dangerous than big ones.
17. When spiritual shortcuts feel smarter than spiritual disciplines.
18. When winning arguments feels more urgent than winning people.
19. When comfortable Christianity feels safer than costly discipleship.
20. When your personality becomes your permission slip. The moment you start to self-justify—"I'm running around acting like this, it's just the way I am, it's just my personality, it's how I talk"—at some point we've got to stop justifying our personality as permission to mistreat people and ask, "Am I guilty of any of this? How do I self-evaluate? How do I have productive conversations to assess whether we're giving ourselves over to the wrong influence?"
When you can name it, you can limit it. The moment you identify what is happening, you can safeguard yourself against its destructive effect. Paul says when you do so, it is like crushing Satan under your foot.
When the people of God know they are a family—brothers and sisters from all walks of life, all being marked by this gospel, all being pastored by the same shepherd, all trying to figure it out—we are a family. That has to mark the way we embrace one another in community.
We're not a perfect family, but we're being made into one. And this is what Christ is returning for. He calls it his bride. He says, "The church is my greatest longing, adoration, and desire."
Christian, be careful when you mistreat the bride. Keep in mind that at some point you stand face-to-face with the groom. We would not let anybody spit in the face of our bride and not have a conversation. That's not acceptable. We do not participate in things that dishonor God and harm the family of God.
Paul is saying at the end of this letter that everyone has to play their part to protect this. This doesn't happen by accident. You need to serve. You need to give so we can keep moving forward and set up the next generation. You need to lead. Some of you need to join a life group or lead a life group. Be a part of this. We could have a huge impact in our community and set our kids up with spiritual momentum.
If not at Northview, that's okay. Just go buy into a church. Buy in. We're all on the same team. Find a church where you will go all-in. God is calling people to this house for this season for such a time as this. God is swinging the doors wide open and positioning us for influence where vision is outpacing resources.
If the people of God would rise up and buy in, we could unleash evangelism throughout our communities, go after the next generation, build community, empower leaders, and do things in a dignifying and redemptive way.
I want you to honestly and sincerely pray: What would happen if you truly gave your life—truly gave your life—to selling out for the mission of God upon you? The calling, the purpose, the destiny, the design, what God has in mind, the life Jesus died to give you. Go all-in.
You cannot go all-in without strong engagement in biblical community. It's impossible. You can't go all-in on your faith if you don't go all-in with the family of God.
That's the whole sermon in a sentence: You can't go all-in on your faith if you do not go all-in with the family of God.
