SWYC 2010: Stand

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GYC Southwest

For Women: Godly Relationships

Nicole Parker

Chasing the Knight in Tarnished Tinfoil

Water Lily White in a Sewer Pond World

Crystal Fountains and Slimy Cisterns - Part 1

Crystal Fountains and Slimy Cisterns - Part 2

Alright, crystal fountains and slimy cisterns.

We're talking today about how God works to deliver us from the root sins that lead to some of the fruit sins we were talking about yesterday.

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer first.

Father in heaven, we ask for your spirit to be here with us.

Lord, you know I cannot do anything on my own, but you promised to flow through any willing soul.

I just surrender myself to you and ask that you will speak to every heart here, every single person.

You know it will set them free from the chains that bind them.

All of us, Lord, we're just on a journey to heaven and there's so many ways that we need to grow.

Please help this message to help each 1 of us understand how the gospel applies to our lives.

All right, today I'm going to be talking about how God's Word works to truly set us free.

I want to start out by telling you about a Bible worker that I knew.

I'd known her for years, the sunny, bright, happy girl who was always on fire for ministry.

And then 1 day she called me and she said, can I talk to you, Mrs?

And I said, well, yes, go ahead, what is it?

And she said, I haven't been able to tell anybody about this.

I don't even know how to talk about it, I'm so ashamed.

But she said, I'm addicted to pornography and to masturbation.

And she was just sobbing by now and just saying, I don't know what to do here.

I'm leading people to Christ, but my own heart isn't right with him.

I'm bringing people to know him, but the gospel isn't working for me.

How can I tell other people it works when it doesn't work for me?

So I prayed with her and we started talking about what were the root issues that were leading to this.

I explained to her that the sins that we commit are often the results of sins that have been committed against us or are sinful ways of relating.

You can't just excuse your sin, but if we just Try to deal with the fruit since it's like having a dandelion out there in the field, you know You go out there and in the morning and wake up and say oh look, they're dandelions.

I better cut them off So you go out with scissors and you cut all the dandelions in your lawn This is not going to be very effective in fighting them fight against the dandelions, right?

How many of you have ever weeded and tried to deal with a dandelion?

They have this deep tap root that can go way down into the ground.

And if you just pull on the leaves, they'll rip right off.

She would fall into sin, sexual sin, and she would feel terrible.

And she would pray and agonize before God and confess.

But when she got up from her knees, She still felt so dirty and defiled, so bad.

And then, as time went on, eventually she'd fall again and pray and just feel so discouraged.

You can imagine the despair that she felt, right?

All of us have struggled against sin in some ways and found ourselves coming up short in the battle once again.

Well, for her, I explained, here's what happens.

In your fight against dandelions, it's not bad to go out there with scissors and cut them off, right?

If I told my daughter, get rid of all the dandelions in our yard, she might go out there with her little kiddy scissors and cut them all off, and she'd have done a good thing, right?

Because it's going to take a little while for the dandelion flower to come back.

If we just leave them there, they'll all go to seed, and then there'll be thousands of dandelions where There were just 5.

Many people in their fight against addictions, they'll say, all right, I'm gonna set up the computer in the living room where everybody can see it, I'm gonna put on filters, I'm gonna have an accountability partner, and those are great things to do.

Great things that stop the spread of evil so that it doesn't consume your whole life.

But it's not enough, because if you don't get out the root, it's gonna keep coming back, keep coming back, keep coming back.

God is in the business of taking out root sins, not just fruit sins.

As I talked with this girl more, she explained that she had been sexually abused and that now the things she was doing were the same things that had been done to her when she was sexually abused.

And suddenly the lights went on in my mind.

I love it how the Lord just helps us to put the pieces together.

You know, often in counseling, I'll hear this person and it's all over the place.

I'm like, oh God, where do you even start?

And then I'll start seeing, wait, there's a central sin issue that keeps surfacing in all the things they're saying.

And for her, I said, is it possible that what's wrong here is that you have fallen for the lie that you are that kind of person.

You are bad and now you can't break free from it.

This was what rang through her mind, you know.

You're bad, you're dirty, this is the kind of girl you are.

And so when she would get up from her knees after praying and confessing and repenting, she still felt dirty.

And because of that unbelief, she was unable to claim God's forgiveness and walk in newness of life.

That very feeling of shame that the devil was continually heaping on her, saying that you are bad.

Remember we talked about the difference between guilt and shame yesterday?

Where before, before she would pray, she would feel guilt.

Here's guilt saying, you've done something bad, come back to me.

But when she'd pray and confess, and she stood up from her knees, she still felt guilty.

She thought, I'm still under the condemnation of God.

And she'd work hard to try to make things right between her and God, confess more, repent more, go out and do more ministry, feverishly trying to earn the favor of God.

If we think that we have earned the gift of salvation, then we become proud and selfish, like the Pharisees.

They thought they earned it, and it made pride.

So I said, you know, you've confessed your fruit sin, the sexual acts that you've been doing, but God wants you now to confess the root sin of unbelief, that when God said, I have forgiven you, If you confess and repent, I wash you whiter than snow, you've said God says, but I feel.

And I feel has weighed more to you than God says.

Now you need to meditate on what God says.

When God says, I have washed you whiter than snow, believe it.

I said, write down the promise on your hand if you need to.

Look at it every time you're tempted to believe that you're dirty.

And you know, God broke the bondage of shame for her that day.

Even though she was tempted different times after that, it was gone.

You see, the world will tell us, once an addict, always an addict.

You're an alcoholic, you're always gonna be an alcoholic.

But God is in the business of setting the prisoners free.

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Series

For Women: Godly Relationships

Crystal Fountains and Slimy Cisterns - Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

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