Bible, Bros & Brew
Bible, Bros, & Brew is all about helping you navigate your relationship with God in practical, real-life ways. Hosts David and Phil dig into scripture—'chopping up the word'—and bring it to life with insights you can actually use every day. And while they’re at it, they share their favorite 'brews'—don’t worry, it’s not booze! Just a solid lineup of classic coffees and teas to keep the conversations flowing.
Bible, Bros & Brew
Breaking the Cycle of Sin| Understanding Spiritual Freedom| Bible, Bros & Brew
What if breaking the cycle of sin isn’t as impossible as it feels? In this episode of Bible, Bros & Brew, we delve into Romans 6, 7, and 8 to explore the tension between our desire to live righteously and the pull of sin. Together, we unravel Paul’s insights on how the law, though good and holy, can be twisted by sin, and discover the liberating power of Jesus Christ. With a focus on the freedom and hope promised in Romans 8, this episode offers encouragement and practical wisdom for overcoming the struggles we all face.
We examine how societal influences and daily moral choices shape our journey and the personal responsibility of breaking free from spiritual bondage. Through relatable stories and practical metaphors, we uncover the dangers of unchecked sin and the transformative power of renewing our minds through God’s Word. This heartfelt conversation reminds us that spiritual growth is a daily decision grounded in accountability and God’s abundant grace.
As we wrap up, we reflect on what it means to live out our faith with integrity, even in a culture that often opposes biblical truth. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share! Follow us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Instagram to stay connected and continue growing with this vibrant community of believers. Let’s walk this journey together, encouraging one another to live boldly in God’s truth.
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gotbrew@biblebros.net
In this episode of Bible Bros and Brew, we're going to take a look at the final piece of the puzzle as we look at Romans 6, 7, and 8. In Romans 6, we talked about our choices. In Romans 7, we realized we had choices. We know how we came to those choices through salvation and being born again with Christ. But yet, when we ended Romans, chapter 7, we were still struggling with the dilemma that, though we have the choice between righteousness and sin, the thing that I don't want to do is what I do, and the thing that I want to do that's what I don't do, and we find the answer is Jesus, and we're going to see where that leads us.
Speaker 1:Next, in Romans, chapter 8, on Bible Bros and Brew, I am David. With me today is the illustrious Philip Rich, and the always faithful Ryan Holdeman is here today for us. He's on the ones and twos for us, and we're so glad that you guys have joined us for this episode. As I mentioned, we're going to be talking about Romans, chapter eight. We're going to take a little bit of a look back, but we're going to pull ourselves forward into Romans eight and see kind of the end of the matter, if you would for us, even though there's still more to go, as you continue on in your own time reading Romans 9, 10, 11 through on to 16. But before we do that, as always, we're going to find out what's going on in these cups, because we recognize that good conversation is always supported, as Sheldon Cooper would say, by a warm beverage.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna start with you, ryan, this time.
Speaker 2:I've got.
Speaker 1:Pete's Dickinson, where I said yeah, major Dickinson.
Speaker 2:Like that, all right.
Speaker 1:Pete's major Dickinson. That's a strong roast. Brian likes his coffee strong.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about, like you'd take the strength of 10 men.
Speaker 2:This is high octane. Yes.
Speaker 1:And then it's not so funny as it doesn't phase him.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:He's a strong buck.
Speaker 2:ladies and gentlemen, he's an absolute unit, as they say.
Speaker 1:Philip, what are you drinking tonight?
Speaker 2:I am enjoying the newest. Okay, let me not get so dramatic. This is from Peregrinus, their new Burundi called I don't know how to pronounce that Neon Carazzo or something like that.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you willing to take the effort.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know, I mean it's my fault for just being so far behind on that pronunciation, but it has notes of Satsuma orange. I don't even know what exactly that is, to be honest with you. Cinnamon and vanilla pudding I don't even know what exactly that is. To be honest with you, Cinnamon and vanilla pudding. I can go ahead and tell you this coffee is one of the most well-balanced, smooth. It's in my top five of all time coffees from Peregrine. Yeah, it's that serious man. Okay, Shout out to Peregrine. They keep cranking out the bangers. Yes and yes, Peregrine.
Speaker 1:They keep, they keep cranking out the bangers. So yes and yes, Peregrine, I do owe you a new order. Even though I've got five bags, I just still need more. New order is in the process.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:For me tonight. I've been holding onto this box for two weeks, since I ordered it in preparation for this day. What, Ladies and gentlemen? We're moving into the holiday season.
Speaker 2:Oh snap.
Speaker 1:We're getting ready to hit Thanksgiving here where we are, and then we'll be into Christmas and, ladies and gentlemen, it seemed only appropriate that I pulled out the cinnamon sugar cookie.
Speaker 2:Ooh From Green.
Speaker 1:Mountain. Ooh, I bought this out for you. K-cup enthusiast. Yes, this is the coffee of the week this week, the brew of the week this week.
Speaker 2:Come on.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you, this is one of my favorite coffees and I can drink it year round. It is just smooth, it's easy is one of my favorite coffees and I can drink it year round. It is just smooth, it's easy. Not too much cinnamon, not too much spicing or anything like that. It's just a wonderful mix of natural flavors that help to bring this coffee to its peak of goodness. So we hope that you will run out and grab a bag or a box of these coffees, because we think you'll really enjoy them and then have some good conversation around. Yes, sir, all right, let's get into our conversation tonight. One moment please, while I have a sip to prepare.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's fantastic. The preparatory step yes, I gotta remember that yes, it's necessary, all right.
Speaker 1:So we've been talking about romans 6, 7 and tonight, romans 8, and just to take us back a little bit and in a little short review, as, as I mentioned before, we begin to learn so much about our choices in Romans, chapter 6, that we had to choose between sin and righteousness, that we had to choose between life and death. Now, when we go over to Romans, chapter 7, we're still talking about and seeing through those same choices. But Paul brings something in that we weren't expecting and we recognize that it's very true. It's that, even having made the choice to do the right thing, we're still sometimes pulled away by the desire to do the wrong thing. And so, while we're desiring to go and do this right thing, sin comes in and it deceives us and we get pulled in a direction that we never intended on being. And we learn that sin was a deceiver, that it used the law. The law is good, the law is good, the law is holy, but sin used the law as a means to disguise itself and to trick us into going the wrong way. Paul wraps up Romans, chapter 7 and asks the question who will deliver us? And he ends with the answer thank God, it's through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:And so now, as we roll into the beginning of Romans, chapter 8, and I think we'll start off by looking I want to look at the King James first, if we could. Philip, romans chapter 8 takes Paul'sul's. Well, let's look at the end of seven and let's roll right into eight, because remember I think philip said this last week these weren't written in chapter and verse, they were letters. So all of this kind of flowed together. So let's kind of roll it together the way that the people would have gotten it back in that time.
Speaker 1:So, at the end of Romans, chapter seven, he says, oh wretched man, in verse 24, that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death. I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. So then we roll over into verse eight, or chapter eight. It says then there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus Listen to this who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Now, that's a direct response to what Paul just said. He says that with the Spirit I serve God, but with the flesh I serve sin. I serve basically the ugly part of myself, you know, basically the ugly part of myself. And so he says there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go just a little bit further, phil, and then we can talk about it. It says, because he introduces two laws, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death, for what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, god sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned, sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Okay, that was a mouthful, and maybe we should jump over to the Berean Study Bible and break it down a little bit. But take it from there. What do you give us? That first oversight that you have into the first of this chapter?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's such a good conclusion I don't know if it's even really a conclusion necessarily, but it's kind of like the impact moment from Romans 7 going into Romans 8, because Romans 7 kind of leaves this kind of unresolved tension out there. It's like man, I'm a wreck, whatever I don't want to do, that's what I end up doing. What I'm trying to do, I can't do, because I end up still yielding to my flesh and everything. And then, finally, when he gets to the end of Romans 7, he's like you know, wretched man that I am, he's like I'm a hot mess who can deliver me from this body of death. And he says I thank God through Jesus. And then right on into Romans 8, 1,.
Speaker 2:Here we go and it says you know, there is therefore now. And when you think about the word therefore and that's in the King James I like what I heard one Bible teacher say. He said when you see the word therefore, stop and ask what it's there for. And I think that's pretty neat and it's true. It's like most of the time, when you see the word therefore, it means that it's a continuation of something that was already going on previously, of something that was already going on previously. So, in other words, paul is just because we switched from chapter 7 to chapter 8, paul didn't lose his train of thought here. He's not starting a new subject or anything like that. He's like so then, and that's another substitute you could use for.
Speaker 2:Therefore, you could say so then, or because of this, there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, and we already talked about what it means to be in Christ. We talked about that a few times in the past couple of podcasts, how that refers to people who have received Jesus as Lord, who are, as Romans 6 says, you've been baptized into the Lord Jesus. As Romans 6 says, you've been baptized into the Lord Jesus or you've become one with him through you accepting that death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. That made you one with him. That put you into the family of God, delivered you from the power of darkness Colossians 1.13,. Translated you into the kingdom of his dear son. And now that you're in Christ, the judgment that you receive now is the judgment that was put on Christ, the judgment that was placed on him on the cross.
Speaker 2:So what I love about this, too, is when you study that word out condemnation in verse 1, it means adverse sentence or an adverse judgment, like, if you can imagine, some dude goes to court, he's accused of a crime and the judge comes back and says you know, we find you guilty and you're going to prison for the next 50 years. I would call that an adverse sentence. Right, you know, let's see. Oh good, thank you, ryan. Punishment following condemnation. Thank you, ryan.
Speaker 2:Punishment following condemnation, penal servitude or a penalty. And then it says the word origin there is derived from the Greek katakrino, meaning to condemn or to judge against, so it's like an adverse judgment. So, in other words, what Paul is saying here is since you're in Christ, there's literally no adverse judgment against you, there's no sentence against you. You can't be sent to spiritual prison anymore, you know, because you are in Christ and whatever judgment could have been placed on you or held against you was placed on Christ and taken care of through his sacrifice for you. And so it literally means that now you walk free, you're innocent in the eyes of God, not because of your own works or lack thereof, but because of how God sees you, because he sees you in Christ. And to me, dude, I mean just that one verse. If we didn't go any further. That's enough to think on for a long, long time, man.
Speaker 1:I agree, philip, and I think there's something there that you're free from sin even if you've committed sin, right right, that, um, you're free from sin even if you've committed sin, right, right. So there's, there's, really there's, literally no chain that is binding you, except as you'll see a little bit later on except you willingly choose to return into this bondage of slavery. Yeah, you have to willingly do that, and that you know. That kind of brings us full circle to about what this whole thing has been about, which is breaking the cycle of sin.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we have to come to grips with the reality. And if I'm saying something too harsh, philip, you know, please fix me, cause I want to be that guy. But it brings us full circle to say that if you are a Christian who has found yourself slave to sin, you did it.
Speaker 2:Bro, I heard it put this way and I can't argue. If you're a believer in Christ, you've already become born again. If you sin, it's because you want to. Right Period. That's hard, that's a hard pill to swallow man. Right Because then that eliminates.
Speaker 1:You know how Urkel used to go and always say did I do that?
Speaker 2:Did I do that yes?
Speaker 1:yeah, you did. Or Flip Wilson used to always say the devil made me do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Not that I was old enough to see the Flip Wilson, I don't know. I just remember seeing the old reruns of the show. But it was a character that he had, who would always say the devil made me do it. And you know Christians are good for that. They're good for blaming old slew foot.
Speaker 2:You know the devil he made me do it.
Speaker 1:And we don't take responsibility for the fact that we made choices and we did it.
Speaker 2:Come on now.
Speaker 1:Even if the devil may have tempted you and the Bible says that he will God doesn't tempt you. James told us clearly that he doesn't tempt us.
Speaker 2:I was getting ready to say that very thing, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if the devil's the only one that's tempting you, we have an option to turn down sin and say no to it. That's right. But we're not. And now, when you reevaluate all the things that are going on in society today, they look very different Because promiscuity that is running rampant in our society today is a choice.
Speaker 1:Nobody's making us do that. Now, if you're in the world, you are of your father, the devil, and you're doing exactly what your father is teaching you and leading you to do. You need a change of life. You need your real father to come into the picture and clean you and make you whole and set you on another path. But, as a christian, if you're out here and you're involved in promiscuity and all this other stuff, that is by your choice. Right now, you can say it's ignorance. You can say it's all of this other stuff, and all of that may very well be true, but it's your choice.
Speaker 1:And now you've got to own your stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, you know, it made me think of that James 1 scripture you just mentioned it briefly earlier. But because people are even willing to go so far as to say well, God was the one tempting me. You know, he set me up to test me, to see what I would do.
Speaker 1:Ryan, can you find that scripture? We got to read that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, james 1, definitely Because you know I've heard people say this, I've heard people say you know, oh God, just you know brought you to that temptation to see what you would do. And first of all, god knows what you would do. So it's not he knows what you would do. So it's not he knows what you would do. If there are a million choices to choose from, he would still know each one.
Speaker 2:But if you scroll down, let's see here, probably around verse well, actually verse 12, it says blessed is the man who perseveres under trial. And the King James says blessed is the man who endures temptation, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. And then verse 13 is where it gets pretty spicy. He says let no man say, when he's tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and neither does he tempt any man. And then verse 14, but every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust. So here we find the actual source of temptation.
Speaker 1:Come on, Philip, talk about it.
Speaker 2:Dude, and don't get me wrong In Matthew 4, it does say the devil, it calls the devil the tempter. 5.4, it does say the devil, it calls the devil the tempter, but and a lot of times he'll use those things that he knows are buttons that he can push. That maybe it's a weakness that you have, you know. Maybe it's something that you're prone towards or something that you've dealt with before you got saved, Like you had repetitive sin in a particular area. It could be drugs, it could be sex, it could be greed, it could be whatever it is. And so he has a little bit of a track record on you. So he's going to obviously try to use those things against you when you become born again, you know. And so up there it is. He's looking for those buttons to push, and the lust or the whatever you're dealing with, um, is something that maybe, even though your spirit's brand new because you got born again, um, it doesn't mean that your mind changed at all. You know the things that used to trip you up when up before you got saved. If you don't get the Word of God on those things and start to understand what God says and thinks about those things, it's very possible to slip right back into the same old stuff you were doing before. Because if you don't proactively seek out the Scriptures, seek out God's thoughts on that matter, what's going to happen is you're going to default to the way your flesh has always done it. It's no different than default settings on a computer. It's like when you get your laptop or whatever, and they always have a default font and a default this and that, and if you don't do nothing else, you don't actively change it. It's going to just be that way. And it's pretty much the same way with your flesh. You know, if you don't proactively get the scriptures on a certain matter, maybe something you've dealt with in the past, then after a while, if you don't deal with it that way, scripturally, you will end up drifting back and defaulting to the flesh once again. And so that's what he means in verse 13, when he says or maybe verse 14, when he says every man's tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed. And then it says I think it's verse 15, it says when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin, and then sin, when it is finished, brings forth death, and so we have this kind of a cycle that happens, or this process that happens where lust gives birth to sin. Eventually, if it's unchecked and there's no opposing force applied to it, guess what's going to happen? You're going to fall into sin, man Period, and sin, when it is finished, will bring forth death.
Speaker 2:I know I've already said a lot, but just real quick. When it says death there, it doesn't mean that every sin you commit you could potentially die from it on the spot. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about death in terms of separation from the life of God, separation from fellowship with God. Because, believe me, if you separate from the author of life, you from fellowship with God. Because, believe me, if you separate from the author of life, you're heading towards death. You know one way or the other. So, and death, when you really think about it in terms of separation, instead of the end of life or whatever, spiritually speaking, it deals more with creating a gap or a distance between you and God in that way. But I know I've already said a lot and I'll probably need to say more to clear some of that up, but that's the James 1 passage about that.
Speaker 1:No, philip, that's good. And then the other thing, and you kind of mentioned it in there. The other thing, and you kind of mentioned it in there. This is also why ignorance is not an excuse.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because when we get born again, one of the first things we should desire to do is get to know our Heavenly Father, and the primary way that you get to know him is through his word. And so we've got to begin to develop a hunger and a thirst for God's word, a desire to want to dig in and to find out about him. What's God like? How does he perceive things? What are some of the things that he's done in the past? What is he trying to tell me about how I'm living my life? What is he trying to tell all of us about certain things God is communicating to us through his word, through the Bible, and so many of us try to have a relationship with God, but we want to skip the Bible.
Speaker 1:And we can't skip the Bible and have a relationship with God because there's so many gaps in there. That's one of the ways people become deceived. I've been looking at YouTube here lately and I'm seeing some real disheartening things about some of these churches and some of the things that they're doing.
Speaker 1:But, you know when there's conversation about accepting. You know homosexuality as just a norm in the church when there is. You know when you're swag surfing more than you're actually digging into the word in church. You know more of the words to the lyrics to swag surfing than you know to the actual scriptures that are supposed to be saving and changing your life. When you are hearing things that are just off by a little bit, you don't realize that a lack of knowledge of the scripture will allow you to be deceived. And now you're in a place where you don't even know they're off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't take. It doesn't take much off to get your life shipwrecked. You have to realize that's what the Bible talks about. It talks about how, in different times, in different places, how people allowed their lives to be shipwrecked, their faith to be shipwrecked because they believed wrongly. So you've got to make the word. We talk about this over and over again. You've got to make the word your first priority as a Christian believer. There's no way around it.
Speaker 2:Good point, man, and this is why it's so important to study your Bible. Get yourself some study tools, get your concordance, get your Bible dictionaries, find some good commentaries of people that know the word and just dig in. You know how it says in Hosea 4, I think it says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. But I'm telling you there's so much deception out there right now it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:And Philip, it's going to increase.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I'm talking about within the body of Christ.
Speaker 2:I'm not even talking about what folks are doing. I'm talking about people who are standing in front of hundreds and thousands of people claiming that they've seen God and have visions of God and oh and God looked like this, and all this kind of stuff like that, and getting people all riled up about something, like Colossians said, things that they've seen vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's like you got to be careful, man, stick with the word of God. And that includes this issue with sin, because right now there's a whole movement all over the place where people are trying to ease up off, of telling folks hey, man, sin's not good for you, now it's more of a thing of well, he just gives us grace, man, it's not a big deal, and I understand that God does have a whole lot of grace. But I also understand that the consequences of sin, just even naturally speaking, they haven't changed. God knows the things that tend towards life and the things that tend towards death. He knows it more than anybody. That's why he tells us to stay away from certain things, because he knows how it's going to end up and he knows what will damage us.
Speaker 1:Right, and it takes us back to Romans 6, which is where we started, which was you know, should we sin because we got grace? And it was like by no means.
Speaker 2:God forbid yes.
Speaker 1:Don't do that. Grace and we talked about it, remember grace is God's empowerment not to sin, amongst other things. Right, God's empowerment not to sin, amongst other things. Grace will help you to walk through this life and get victory as you're walking through it. It's not a get out of jail free card in the sense of, well, I can sin a little bit and slip up to the club and everything will be all right. You never, you just you know. I've seen a tragic situation over people who didn't really take god seriously and lives were lost in the midst of it because everything was too casual yeah, yeah and god and I'm not saying that god took the life.
Speaker 1:I don't believe that god did that but when you're in places where you have no business being, you are subject to what's happening there. That's right. I've never intended for you to be in that place in the first place. That's right now. You're there and subject to the territory, and it's just like. Lord, help us.
Speaker 2:Dude, that word territory, that's the key right there, Because there is light and there is darkness. And if you're doing things that are native to the kingdom of darkness, guess where you are, Guess where you're dwelling, You're in darkness. And I remember this guy man and I love this dude man. He was a guy I used to work with and one day I came to work and he was always fun to be around, always just cracking jokes and stuff like that. But then one day I came to work and he pulled out this wad of money, like a huge, just stack of money, and I'm like dude, where in the world did you get all that money from man you know money. And I'm like dude, where in the world did you get all that money?
Speaker 1:from man, because I knew what we made on the job. So yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's like, after a while it kind of got found out and this is a guy who's a Christian, a guy who's a Christian, been a Christian his whole life. Later it was found out that he was dealing drugs. He got wrapped up in that whole world because of course I'm assuming he just wanted to have more money. So all of a sudden, dude, one day we come into work and he doesn't show up and we're like that's odd, because he didn't call in. Nothing you know nothing about. We didn't hear from him at all. So of course you know we're concerned, but we're thinking, okay, maybe he was sick or whatever, whatever. Next day still doesn't show up. All of a sudden we're getting real concerned because we never heard from him. And so a couple of his friends went over to his house. They found him dead with a bullet in his head.
Speaker 2:It turned out that he had gotten on the wrong side of some dudes who were obviously wanting some money from him. Maybe they were his suppliers, whatever, whatever. And next thing, you know, um, he, he was wrapped up in that world. He was over in darkness where he should not have been. Nope, and when you're in that territory you are going to be subject to the things that can happen in that territory. Man and it was a tragic situation, man, it was to this day I think about that guy. It's just, you know, I think. Ultimately I do think he went to heaven. I have no doubt about that, but it's just. The situation didn't need to happen, you know.
Speaker 1:But when you step in that territory, you're going to have the consequences that come with being in that territory you're going to have the consequences that come with being in that territory, right, and you know, romans 6 goes on to tell us the wages of sin is death, yeah, yeah, and I think, philip, that part of the problem is that we read these things and I think we sometimes think of them as mythical.
Speaker 2:Or we see them as you know well't it doesn't mean what it says.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and it's like yeah folks, it does, yeah, it does, and it means sometimes we play too much yeah it even.
Speaker 1:it even gets kind of into the conversation we were having before we started. It's that when you don't, when you don't value things the way that you should, then you're, you're, guaranteed to just mess it up. Yeah, you don't know that you're ever going to get the chance to fix it. I know. Yeah, you never know. So why not just live fixed, yeah, and what I mean by fixed? I mean live doing the best of your ability to walk uprightly before the lord. That's all he asked of us that's right, man, that's right walk uprightly before me.
Speaker 1:I believe that's in colossossians.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And to just do that. And that means when he talks about walking uprightly. I think God recognizes that as human beings we will be imperfect and at times sin will take effort to draw us away, and we may foolishly allow it to draw us away. Yeah allow it to draw us away. But when we are walking in Christ and we're walking in the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, God will always work with us to come back to where we're supposed to be.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:But when we give ourselves over to the flesh once and then again and again and again, we're now in a cycle of sin where we're now slaves to sin and now we need something more.
Speaker 1:Well, not more in the sense of like now Jesus needs to do a special dance. He's done everything that he's going to do, but you're going to have to take action, specific and determinate action, to get out of that situation. And I'm telling you, when you're in sin and you're in the cycle of sin, I'd be lying to you to tell you it's not hard as all. Get out to get out of it.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, it's like trying to run through waist-deep mud, sometimes Seriously, because you don't want to lose your spiritual momentum, and I think we talked about that before. But that's what sin does Sin kills your spiritual momentum. You could be going along just great fellowshiping with God, having a great time hearing from him, being led by the Spirit, and then you just act a clown one day and just yield to the flesh and all of a sudden, now you've put your, your momentum's come to a grinding halt. And so now you've got to okay, deal with the guilt, deal with the shame you might feel, deal with the condemnation that you're, you're tempted to feel, get over all that, ask for forgiveness and then try to find your way back into that flow again. You realize after a while that it's not worth it. Man, it's not. You know, it's a rough, tough road to hoe, as they say.
Speaker 1:All of those things are obstacles to you getting back on track.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we don't get back on track because we're worried about what people will think about us. Sometimes we get worried about how much effort it's going to take. Sometimes we're going to get involved in a level of guilt where we just don't even believe we can get back on track to where we were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Then there's the condemnation that comes in and is ashamed of what you've done. And I'm telling you that God looks past all of that stuff and all he wants is you to come back by his side. That's where you belong. You belong by his side, where he can put his wing around you and healing can happen. But you've got to be willing to walk. Start walking to that point and God will meet you as you walk, and you'll then begin to realize later on he was dragging you anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, I mean dude, it's like that footprints thing from back in the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you, man, something I heard a long time ago. It blessed me so much. I'm telling you, it's something I've learned to live by when you sin, don't run from God, run to God. Don't run from God, run to God, because he's the only one that can help you. Number one. You're not going to be able to help yourself out of that situation. It's His ability, his grace that's going to help you get back on track. And, plus, there's no reason to run away from Him, no reason to hide from Him.
Speaker 2:When you think about what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned, the first instinct they had was to go hide. And God had to walk through the garden like, hey, adam, where are you, man? And he said and it was interesting. He said I was afraid, and I hid myself. And isn't that what condemnation does? Isn't that what the result of sin produces? In some way or another, you've got to deal with the fear of gone it. Man, I'm screwed up.
Speaker 2:It doesn't produce any level of faith, and I think that's one of the reasons why God is so serious about us staying away from sin. Not for some kind of behavior checklist thing. I think it has more to do with the fact that it hinders your ability to fully believe Him. It hinders your ability to fully put your trust and faith in Him because you have this lingering thing in the back of your mind. I can't really believe for my prayer to get answered when I know what I've done. You know what I mean. Those kind of things start hitting you. It's like I mean I remember talking to somebody one time and it's like you know we started talking about prayer. He said man, I'm not even sure my prayers make it past the ceiling, you know. And I think the only reason why someone would think that is because they don't really know how they stand before God. They feel like they just, whatever they've done, they probably are rejected in God's eyes, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:That'd be something good for us to talk about on a couple of episodes how you stand before God. Yeah, Because God definitely sees us differently than we see ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if I can just be completely transparent, I'm sitting here saying that to you and I know it to be true, but I still struggle with it.
Speaker 2:Dude, join the club. We meet every Wednesday at 7 pm. It's true, though, it's one thing to talk about it and even, you know, teach about it, but when you're faced with those things yourself, you feel them. You know, it's a personal thing sometimes, man and um, it just goes to show you, man, we all have some growing to do. We all. You know, none of us have arrived, and probably never will, until jesus returns.
Speaker 1:Philip, I got a great comment from the YouTube chat that I want to share from Stephanie yeah, yeah. She says something that's really good. It appears that this false understanding of grace was the prerequisite of a lot of the sin we are seeing in the church or we are seeing in the churches. And she's absolutely right, because the only way that you can do some of the things that are going on is you first have to eliminate the obstacle of sin.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And once you eliminate and deal with the obstacle of sin, it becomes a free-for-all, and then you can engage whatever thing you want to, because now that you've got your answer for sin now you can say whatever. I heard a man on instagram the other day talking about if you've got hair on your face, you've missed god. That's like well. Well, I'm almost 100% sure Jesus was not clean-faced.
Speaker 2:Where in the world would someone get that from? That's so weird.
Speaker 1:See the doctrine of in. And you're just sitting there and you just don't worry about it. Get out of the way here, just like. Like you know, the other thing is um, and I know that we're not allowed, we're not going to talk about this, but it's just like all this stuff that's been going on with the election. Yeah, in the churches it is our duty as christians and believers to vote. I believe that we have a God-given right to vote.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But then there becomes a whole nother thing when the pulpits of the church are used to stomp for candidates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1:And in order to do so, you begin. I've listened to so many people make excuses, mm-hmm Again. I've listened to so many people make excuses. And then I've heard so many people teach the word and say, when you're looking for a candidate, here are the things that are important to God. Now go make a decision. That's good Bible teaching about how to vote.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Versus bringing a candidate up and then excusing whatever stuff they got going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And why they believe what they believe, in order to advocate for it, for your congregation.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's a crazy thing, and we've already talked about it allowance of homosexuality in the church, the allowance of all kinds of wicked sin, promiscuity all of it drugs. I know I keep harping on the same things, but it's like if you're looking at this stuff and you're looking at the church, you begin to wonder.
Speaker 2:this is why the Bible says there's going to be a remnant. Yeah, and you know, yeah. Well, the bottom line is, man, anytime that the fear of the Lord kind of vanishes from the conversation, this is what you end up with Any and every time.
Speaker 1:That's hard to interrupt you, philip. That's the other thing that has to go. Yeah, no, fear of the Lord and the obstacle of sin have to go.
Speaker 2:That's right and that's what's so crazy about it. It's like to me what fear in the Lord means. It has nothing to do with being afraid of God. To me, what it means is you're very aware of his presence in your life. You're very aware and you respect the fact that he's there. You're very aware and you respect the fact that he's there. You know, because if I know he's there, would I really want to go watch porn while God's right there seeing what I'm doing? You know what I mean. Would I really want to cheat on my spouse if I know God's watching what I'm doing? Would I want to lie or embezzle money on the job or whatever else it is, if I know God's watching? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:To me, it's like if you're caught in these blatant sins, these unrepentant sins, it's almost like you really don't believe God's there. You don't believe he exists or something. There's no way you can do this stuff and think that he's actually a real entity that you have to deal with and have to be accountable to. You know, and so that that, to me, has kept me out of a lot of crap I could have gotten caught up in, and the times when I lost sight of that. I did slip and do stupid stuff, you know, and so it's like man keep the fear of the Lord first place.
Speaker 2:Dude no-transcript. He said how could I do this great evil and sin against God? He didn't even say sin against Potiphar. He said how can I do this evil and sin against God?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He was way more aware of the fact that God was watching versus Potiphar watching.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And to me that's where you got to be, Because, dude, I'm telling you, there can be situations where you can do stuff in the dark, in the back in the booth, and all that, and nobody could ever find out. You've covered your tracks, you've done all the stuff right, but God sees it man.
Speaker 1:Right, if God sees it, then it's in the streets, y'all come on now, man, and not because god puts it in the streets, but when god knows, I mean. And then we're we're so bad about it ourselves. We put on these glasses of whatever affliction we have been in, whatever sin even and involved in, and we look at the world through the eyes of that sin.
Speaker 2:Goodness, that's true.
Speaker 1:So then we start looking at people like do they know, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Sheetal yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, it's so so you know it's such a bad place to be in life. It is.
Speaker 2:And dude, I also believe in that scriptures in numbers because I've seen it happen over and over again that scripture that says be sure, your sin will find you out. Dude, there's a true story. You've probably heard of this. I'm not going to name the name, but a very prominent minister at one time. He had a mega church and had a wife and kids. He was on the pulpit and railing against gay marriage, talking about this stuff, and had thousands of people in his church Come to find out. Just at random, he decided to go on this little weird, I don't know adventure off to the side and he hired a gay prostitute, a male prostitute. They end up having regular relations, quote unquote, and were doing drugs together while they were having relations. And all this stuff's going on now that the prostitute don't know anything about who this guy is. He don't know the ministry, nothing, all of a sudden dude months and months later who this guy is.
Speaker 2:He don't know. The ministry, nothing. All of a sudden, dude, months and months later, this guy's been doing this stuff the whole time and just acting like everything's peachy. Then the male prostitute was in the gym one day, just at random, and they had a TV in the gym and here comes that minister on the TV. The male prostitute sees the minister is like holy smokes.
Speaker 2:I know that guy, I've been sleeping with this guy and he's over here preaching against gay marriage. He got mad, mad, mad and so he ended up going to the press about this thing. Told the guy's business, put it all out in the street. Next thing, you know, this minister gets busted and now he's having to make up lies as to you know that's not happening and all this stuff like that, and having to explain it to his family and having to go through this hell on earth, you know. And next his church falls apart, ends up shutting down. I mean, it was truly a situation where, because there was no fear of God, eventually his sin found him out. You know, and in one sense, dude, I can look at that and you know what I think. Man, that's the mercy of God.
Speaker 1:Right, talk about it.
Speaker 2:Dude. It's the mercy of God that he got found out, because, man, you could end up in a situation where, like in 1 Corinthians 5, paul talked about it. He said we're going to deliver this guy over to the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit can be saved. And I think that's something that's maybe a part of God that we don't fully understand that there could be a situation where your eternal life is at stake. I don't know how all that works, but it does seem like sometimes these things happen on this side of life so that you may not end up in a place where you are truly not able to repent anymore. You know, I think it's like a reprobate mind, that type of thing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a seared conscience. We just had a comment come in. That's what I'm talking about a seared conscience, like in I think it's 2 Timothy. It talked about how some people have a conscience that's been seared with a hot iron. You know, you don't ever want to get to the point where you're incapable of repenting because your heart is so hard after a while. Man.
Speaker 1:You can't even see it. Yeah is so hard after a while, man you can't even see it, mm-mm-mm-mm. Yeah, dude, that's wild man. That is the wild. First of all, that story is wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and look how it all, there's some more too.
Speaker 1:We should share some more later, because there's plenty of object lessons out there, that's for sure man, Y'all what we're trying to tell you is that it's better to live for God and live for righteousness than to live in sin and have the cycle of sin take you out. There's no comparison. Nobody ever thinks that pastor never thought about or maybe he did but didn't say it out loud about getting found out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think he thought his secret was safe and he was covered and had it all under control.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:But nobody plans for the day when your sin is found out.
Speaker 2:Right, come on, dude. Tell us, man, that's the day nobody plans for Dude.
Speaker 1:Well, that's wild, phil, that's wild. I want to read one more part of Romans, chapter 8, before we wrap up here. In verse 5 and 6, it says yeah, it says those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Those who live according to the spirit set their mind on the things of the spirit. The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit is life and peace.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God, and that kind of helps us. To sum this part up, we've got a little bit more to go, so we'll pick up with Romans 8, but there it is right there. Those who walk, live according to the Spirit. Not just walk, but live according to the Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit. And those who walk and live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh.
Speaker 1:There's only two options out here. There's none of this gray area that people will tell you about there's this gray area that people try to create. It's either flesh or spirit. Come on and there's nothing else and we've got to choose one or the other doesn't mean you may not make a mistake from time to time, but I'd rather make a mistake walking in the Spirit and get back on track, than to continue to make mistakes over and over again, walking in the flesh, because the end result of that is sure to be death.
Speaker 1:Goodness man Phillip, what are your final thoughts on that and all that we've covered as well?
Speaker 2:It's so much man, good Lord, I feel like we didn't even really get started with Romans 8. But as far I love that scripture you just said in Romans 8 about those who are after the flesh have their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are after the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. And it says to be carnally minded or to be fleshly minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Um, think about the importance of what you're thinking about. I would, I would implore you, because it's something I work on every day and what I have found, and maybe other people can relate to this too.
Speaker 2:If I don't purposefully set my mind on the things of the word, it's easy for my mind to drift off into things that are not great, for your mind to drift off into thinking of all the crap you've seen on TV or stuff you saw on the web that you wish you wouldn't have seen, or whatever else it might be. It's easy to get into that when you don't purposefully, intentionally spend the time to set your mind on the things of the Word. So to me, this thing about carnally minded versus spiritually minded you have to take your thought life seriously. You have to have to take your, the intentions of your thought life seriously.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think if there's something that sticks out, it's life and peace.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, that's what we all want. We all want long, healthy, good lives, and we've talked about it in episodes building up to this. There's nothing like the peace of God. Yeah, you don't know how much you love it and appreciate it until you have it and maybe lose it for a minute. Then you realize you know the old song. You don't know what you got until it's gone.
Speaker 1:Until it's gone, yes, and then you go back and get that thing quickly and never let it go again and go and get God's life and God's peace. It is so much better than being carnally minded and living according to the laws of sin.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Living a life out that is ultimately unfulfilling.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And inevitably shortened, because sin shortens life true indeed so go live in life and peace, everybody.
Speaker 1:That's gonna wrap us up for this episode of Bible Bros and Brew. We are so glad that you joined us and we hope you got some inspiration, some edification, from this particular episode. Now, if you want to well, not if you want to, we command you. No, I'm just kidding we want to ask you to do us a favor to connect with us on social media. First of all, you can find us on any of the podcast platforms that you're listening to, whether it be Apple Podcasts, spotify, amazon Music we're in all of those places, so you can go out and you can connect with us. You can like us on those podcast apps. You can also comment on most of those podcast apps and we track that, so we'd know if you have something that you want to say or share. Also, know that you can like and subscribe on YouTube, on Rumble. You can also follow us and then like our content as we are dishing it out to you on Instagram and Facebook. We are so glad again that you joined us and remember, if you want to have us talk about something particular, or you have some questions or want some help on the side, you can always again hit the comments section or you can take another step and you can email us at gotbrew at biblebrosnet. That's gotbrew at biblebrosnet.
Speaker 1:Alright, that's David. Well, I'm David. That's Phil. That's got brew at Bible brosnet. All right, that's David. Well, I'm David, that's Phil. We are out of here. Thanks, everybody.
Speaker 2:Peace, thank you.
