A New Believer’s Guide To Romans And Real Change

If you’re new to following Jesus and you feel like every Christian voice online is pulling you in a different direction, we get it. I sat down with one goal: bring us back to the only steady ground we have, God’s Word, and speak plainly about what trips up new believers before they even know it’s happening.

I share my own story, not the cleaned-up version: growing up in a pastor’s home, letting God become an addition instead of the center, then spiraling into clubs, alcohol, cocaine, and MDMA after my first marriage broke. That descent taught me something I wish someone had told me sooner about Christian discipleship and sanctification: you don’t “manage” the old life into the new one. Being born again means cutting off what feeds the old you, especially the habits, influences, and relationships that quietly pull you back.

From there, we walk through Romans, focusing on salvation by grace through faith and why you can’t earn your way into God’s favor with performance, penance, or religious hustle. We talk about endurance, trials, and the difference between happiness and the joy of the Lord, using Romans 5 to show how suffering can produce strength of character and confident hope. I also challenge listeners to test every doctrine against Scripture and to choose humility, because pride is a trap that can undo years of growth.

If you know someone who’s stuck in the cycle of relapse and shame, share this with them. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell me what you’re wrestling with right now so we can keep the conversation going.

Transcript

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Welcome And Quick Housekeeping

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Before we get into today's video, I just wanted to say thank you to all of the new subscribers. If you haven't yet, consider subscribing. Hit that bell notification so that you can see every time I put out a new video. A major portion of you that watch my videos haven't subscribed yet, so why not? It's free. You can also find a PayPal link below if you want to give a one time or give a monthly to support the channel. Anything, great or small, is appreciated. Now let's get into the video.

Discernment For New Believers

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to another little short episode from Faith and Failure. So I was on the day of recording this, I was praying. I'm like, you know what? I want to do a podcast episode. I've been so busy with my other two full-time jobs that I have not had a chance to kind of put anything out. And I was just asking the Lord, you know, what would you have me to do? I just want to do something just to do something. I want it to mean something. And I feel right now in our society, in our day and time, we have allowed the church believers, or, you know, you could be baby Christian, you could be a mature Christian, but we have allowed the culture, we have allowed the flesh to infiltrate the church in such a way that we don't even recognize it as being flesh. And we will put whatever label we want on it to make ourselves feel better, but God is not the author of confusion. And so, with that being said, what I really want to do is maybe you're a young or new believer, and I mean young in in your new birth in Christ, not necessarily age, because you can be 80 years old and just find Jesus and and be new, be born again. I want to I I just kind of want to share my heart with you. Like I want you to understand this, especially when you first come to Jesus, you are not going to know what to do, how to do it. You are not going to be able to pick up a Bible and for it to just 100% make sense to you. And and then now we live in a day and age where not only do we have access to things, but things have access to us. So that makes it very dangerous for a new believer because you can be led astray, like for instance, somebody named Catherine, I think it's Catherine Crick or something like that. It is so obvious that she is building a kingdom of flesh and a perversion of something that is actually very real and very true. Not even just based on my experience, but based on scripture. We were just crawling through the book of Romans. What does it mean? Um, line by line and verse by verse. And I think even seasoned Christians can benefit from this because we get on the bandwagon of, well, what's the next thing? I've come to Jesus. Well, now I need to find a church, which is true, which is good. The Bible tells us to not forsake the gathering of fellow believers, and then we've got all denominations or non-denominational, and well, this believes that, and that one believes this, and no matter where you go, whether they have a label to it or not, everything is a man-made denomination, even non-denominational. They like to pretend like they're not, but they pull their stuff from other people's, they gather together and they make up their polity and all that stuff, and I mean they do the same thing. So it's kind of a self-righteous thing to shun or to just be rude to other people that that have decided to stick with a certain denomination. But neither here nor there.

From Church Kid To Collapse

SPEAKER_00 4:22

I want to walk you through a couple of spots in Romans if you are a new believer. And I wanted I wanted to just tell you my story. Like, where did I come from? So my journey began as a kid. I was raised in a pastor's home. Meaning, I mean, I I don't know, I don't remember seeing my parents fight. Yeah, there's some times where they got heated and you know, upset, but actual fighting or yelling or screaming, I don't remember that ever happening. And the way I was raised in the Pentecostal church was like service was going because then they had Sunday morning and Sunday night. That's kind of a rarity now. But it was falling asleep underneath the pews or on the pews, or the little tithe envelopes. You'd build little houses with them and stuff, because at my dad's church they had the the cloth, it was actually padded on the back and on the seats on one of his churches. And so you could it would grab the the tithe envelopes pretty well, and you could like actually build stuff pretty high. So I was raised on the on the pew of a church, and I felt the move of the Holy Spirit several times, and I I didn't I didn't go out of drinking when I was in high school. Matter of fact, I had a group of friends that luckily had a group of friends that didn't do that stuff, didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't do anything, and we kind of were just our own little little click. We stayed out of trouble, we did dumb stuff, but we we always had our mind. And we weren't perfect, and we didn't have it all together, but as far as being a teenager, we were pretty good kids. Well then I moved out of my parents' house, my first marriage. And yes, I said my first. And I'm s I'm thinking in my head, my ex-wife, my wife at the time, she came from a from a I guess we call them broken homes. I hate that phrase, but a split home, whatever you want to call it. Her mom left when she was young, she didn't didn't really have a relationship with her mom, so her dad raised her. And so I'm thinking in my head, like that's that's never going to be me. Like I'm I'm gonna be exactly like my parents, and I'm gonna stay together, and I'm gonna no matter what, through sickness and health, right? I mean, that's the saying. Well, we ended up getting pregnant, moving to Orlando, and that's where my my teenager was born. He's about to be 18, and we came from this little small town, and then we moved to Orlando, and this will tell you kind of where my heart was. I I thought I loved God, but God was an addition instead of the center, if that makes sense. I thought I was serving him until I fell so hardened to sinful nature that it became my life. I was going out to clubs. Uh, I tried to get my wife to go, but she didn't want to go. I I think we were pregnant when we moved there. I'm not sure. I don't remember if it was before or after we moved. Either way, uh, I wanted her to go with me because I found these dubstep clubs, and I was like, I'm gonna, this is great. These this is so cool. There's all kinds of people in here. It's like my scene, like people everywhere, just we were getting hammered. And then unfaithful things started happening on both sides of our marriage, and and then she left, went to back back to the little town we came from while I was in class at college, which is actually why we went to Orlando, and instead of clinging to what I knew, I went down this dark path of cocaine and alcohol and Molly, MD MDMA, it was just stupidity, but it was like anything I can do to make me feel happy, to make me feel good, and this is why my church, I'm a lead pastor of a church. Like if you're gonna be in my leadership, you can't touch alcohol. And it's not because I think alcohol's a sin, it's because I think it leads to sin. It can. Not always. So if you're a new Christian and you're having trouble, why is it always the smartest thing to cut everything of your past off? It's because you have to. You are supposed to be born again. That means the old version of you died. So everything that was you must disappear. You can't hold on the pieces that you that you think are okay because I can handle it. And the simple logic to this is like, well, how how do you know how much you can handle without being drunk? Because the Bible says don't be drunk. You're you won't know until that drink when you are. Like there's no way to measure that until you are there, and so it's just better, in my opinion, to stay away from it. So maybe that'll help you. Um I'm I'm an all-in or all-nothing type of guy. If I'm having one beer, I'm having 30. And if I start, I will finish it. And I just want to point out this. Every person has struggles. Coming to Christ and giving your life to Jesus does not mean that you automatically don't have struggles, but now it means you have something that can actually break chains. See, we go through life and we do these mechanisms or these, yeah, these coping mechanisms to where you're trying to find ways to fix the damage or find ways to feel that weight come off of you. And the only way to actually do that, the only way to truly be free is through Jesus. That is the only way.

Salvation By Faith Not Performance

SPEAKER_00 10:14

And we are to try to be perfect, we are try to try to do good works, but those things do not create salvation. You cannot be perfect enough to earn God's salvation and make it into heaven. You can't do things. This is why I believe, and and I'm gonna get in trouble saying it. You could say whatever you want, I don't care. Um, I am not about this close to saying that Catholicism is a false religion. Because, let me show you a simple thing right here. I'll do this. Okay. You have what the word of God says is salvation. This is the way, the truth, and the life. Okay. And then you have Catholicism, then you have Catholicism that from far away looks like it could be the same. But then when you get closer, you realize that the lines are actually different, and so you have to be aware of these things, because they'll say that Mary never sinned, and if Mary never sinned, then Mary could have been the sacrificial lamb. Everyone needs Jesus. The Bible says everyone, everyone. She was not excluded because she did something great for the kingdom, because all of us have that opportunity. And so to say certain things, to worship, and it is worship of how they treat the popes, how they treat the um I I I could be completely wrong, but I think Catholicism is going to be the religion when the Antichrist comes back, it's going to be what unites everybody. I'm just saying, that's what I think. I'm not trying to prophesy, but I have a deep hurt in my heart for those people because they think, and let me explain it in simple terms. Besides all the stuff they try to add to scripture that you have to do, their way of salvation is the opposite of everything the New Testament teaches. So if that's the case, then that makes it a false doctrine and a false religion. That's not my opinion. If it's going against the word of God directly by saying that you can do things, you can say things, you can read things, you can acquire things, you can put money in to help. Their cathedrals and all that stuff are always so beautiful because people are paying their penance, and just I think it there's a reason that the Catholic way is the religion of the stars, meaning actors and things like that. I don't I I just I the older I get, the more my eyes see clearer, and I just feel like it's a false religion. And I'm not trying to bash people, but at the end of the day, it's not gonna matter if you really understood it. Was if you if you hear this and you argue with it or you hear this as uh Romans 14 and James, once you hear it, you have heard the truth, and you need to decide in your heart, not what man says, but what does the word of God say. Always build everything, and this is this is a life lesson for anybody new to Christ. You need to build your life on Christ's solid rock, on his word. That is where you start and build from there. In Luke 9.23, Jesus simply says this, and I tell my church this all the time, because it's so necessary. Most people want to manipulate and twist up things for their preferences and how they feel things should be, but yet they're not actually led by the Spirit, it's not the flesh. It's obvious to those who have eyes to see. And we are called as believers to take up our cross daily. Now, some may say, well, isn't that a work? Yes, it is. Because it takes work to be sanctified, to be um to be saved, to decide you're going to. Salvation is a free gift. But to stay saved and to choose God every day is a choice. We have free will and we have to decide every single day. I told my teenager this the other day. He was saying that you know he's the he's one of the only kids he knows that's trying to go in the direction of God, and it's lonely. I was like, Yeah, it is. The Bible even describes it as the narrow road. And these religions, they open their arms wide and they say, No, just anybody can come in. You can just be who you are. You were created that way. Just do whatever you feel is right. And that is the opposite of what scripture says, and so we have to listen to scripture, not man, and not back down from the bullies that are out there that are probably gonna comment on this video as soon as I post it, which is fine. I may just title it the false religion, Catholicism, and see who bites. I probably won't, that's my flesh, but just saying it makes sense. If you think with a clear mind, I know if you were raised, I I got several Catholics in my church, actually. Um but they're now free from that because they realize that it is a false doctrine and a false religion. That's why they did not stay. Romans 3 23, and it says this for everyone has sinned, everyone. That's including Mary. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet in God yet God in his grace freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through his son Jesus Christ, when he freed us from the penalty of our sin. For God presented Jesus as a sacrifice for our sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that Jesus was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in time past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in the present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just and makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

Romans 5 On Trials And Joy

SPEAKER_00 16:41

So you may ask yourself, you may been going to church for years and you may not even know if you're saved. Your church may not preach truth. If you want to hear a church that preaches truth and you want to join us online, go to Connect Church Long Longview on um Facebook, Instagram, um, YouTube is where we go live every Sunday. But we literally go line by line, verse by verse, preaching the scripture. Like we're called, I'm not here to make friends. I'm called to get people ready for Jesus' return. And the only way we can be ready is to know how we're meant to live, and that is through this book right here. It's not by a man, a singular man or a pope or a some prophet or whatever it is, it is by the word of God. It was written and established so that we can take it, use it, and apply it to our lives. James tells us to be not just hearers, but to be doers of the word that our faith in Christ requires action. Faith in Christ requires us to walk away from everything that looks like the old us. If not, it will resurrect and it will come back to life, and it will consume you, and you will be exactly where you started. Matter of fact, the Bible even talks about uh demons going and returning, and then when they return, they're bringing their friends. Because we allow that to come back, and when it comes back, it comes back worse. And it's you can't love God and love sin. You can't love God and live in the flesh. You cannot. This is not a message of perfection, but this is a message of pleading to tell you that you must sacrifice everything to follow the cross. Like the little Mickey Mouse things where people try to make you feel good and like, oh, you can just be however you want. It's okay, it's fine. That is in direct conflict with the word of God. That is not what the word says, and so you can't take it as truth because it does not measure up to the actual truth. Look over in Romans. If you have a Bible, look this up and and and highlight it. Actually, let's go back. I'm gonna go back to Romans 5. Let's just start it. I'm gonna start at uh verse 1, if that's okay with y'all. Therefore, since we have been made right, here is talking again about being saved. We've been made right, we've been made right. He's talking to new Christians, he's talking to new believers, he's talking about people who don't understand Christian culture because Christ is a new concept. We've been made right in God's sight by faith. We have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand and we can confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory. We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. So let's pause here for a second. If you came to Christ looking for an easy life, you were misled on what being Christ-like is. Look at just the very word of Christian being Christ-like. It is literally for us, as as God said, Jesus said in um what was it, Luke 9.23 to pick up your cross daily. We have to sacrifice our flesh daily. We have to make that trek down to crucify our flesh every single day. Why do we have to do it every day? Because if we skip a day of crucifying our flesh, it will find life again. If you don't cut off those people in your life that you should have walked away from, if you don't cut off those influences that have been speaking into your life when really you should have walked away from them, some people are better loved from a distance. And just because someone sounds wise or they're older, doesn't mean they have wisdom at all. We can rejoice, we should rejoice when things happen, when we run into problems or trials, because who gives God the more glory? Is it someone who never experiences anything wrong and their life is just smooth as butter and everything goes right? Or is it the person who runs into trials, who has issues, who has problems, yet, in the middle of all this, they still serve and love and praise a God that saved them. I think it's the second person. Now, not belittling those that never have anything go wrong, glad for you, hallelujah. But for those of us who don't live in that world, and we have to sometimes claw our way out of places, and we have to climb our way up the mountain to make it out. Be joyful in it. The Bible even says that the joy of the Lord is our strength. We're not trying to find happiness. Happiness and joy are not the same thing. Happiness comes by material, comes by relationships, but the joy of the Lord is not established outside of us. It is given from the Creator and it is established inside of us. And so from there it flows out. The joy of the Lord is our strength. So if you're feeling weak, maybe you lack the joy of the Lord. Maybe you lack the peace. Maybe you lack the comfort. The Holy Spirit is the comforter, He brings the peace and endurance. Verse 4 of chapter 5. And endurance develops strength. Okay, so it wrapped up with the verse 3, and it says, when you run into problems, when you run into trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. Well, okay, so I'm supposed to be allowing these things to develop something, to pull something out of me that maybe if you've ever been pushed far enough before, there's probably something that rose up inside of you and helped you get to that next place that you didn't even realize was there. And so Paul's pointing this out that it helps us develop endurance. And then what? Verse 4, and endurance develops strength of character. So going through trials, going through tribulations, there's issues, there's drama, there's trauma, whatever the case may be, this is developing endurance, and endurance is developing our character. And then our character does what? It strengthens our confident hope of salvation. So we've come from needing God and not having him and being far from him. Now we have him. Now he is mine and I am his. And so all of these things that are happening to me, whether whether they were before or now they are more, because the enemy tries to distract and dismantle everything that the Lord's been doing in my life, that I he's the devil is trying to shake my assurance and trying to rewrite how I see myself when in reality he needs to get his own business because my life is not his. But when we get that endurance and we get that strength of character, and character strengthens our hope of salvation. So we don't worry, we don't have to fret about inside of us because we have character built by endurance that has come from problems and issues, and we become strengthened. In verse 5, and this hope will not lead to disappointment. I tell my, I've been saying this a lot in personal conversations and in the messages that as Christians, sometimes we can get so short-sighted. If it's not right in front of our nose, we lose focus easily. But we need to learn to play the long game. And the long game is endurance, the long game is character, the long game is understanding that the hope that we have in our salvation will not disappoint. For we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. I don't know about you, but that's pretty awesome. And then it goes on in the next verse of chapter five, and it says that when we were utterly helpless, I asked God for one thing all the time. I ask for godly wisdom, I ask God for character, and I ask God for humility. And the way I ask God for humility is I ask him to never, never let me forget where I was when he found me. I don't want to remember all the bad stuff I did, I don't want to remember the other drug dealers' names, I don't remember I don't want to remember the faces of anybody that was involved with anything. But the one thing I want to remember is exactly how dirty and disgusting and sinful I was when he saved a wretch like me. Someone that did not deserve any love, any mercy, any grace and yet like if you would have seen my life twelve years ago, you wouldn't have recognized compared to today, compared to now. I almost lost my child because of drug addiction and alcoholism. But the Lord protected that and made it where now he lives with me. I was in my living in my car when I was arrested for the second time. If I would feel any drug possession, and now I'm in my second home that I've owned. It's all these things that that did not occur until I realized how much and how desperate I needed God. Verse 6, when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now listen to this. Now most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation. I apologize for, but man, it just the scripture gets me when it tells me of how much he actually cares. Like in the depths of my disgusting was when he chose to handle me. Do you understand what I'm saying? In the in the depths of when nobody should want to care for me. He not only cared for me, but he reminded me that he sent his son to die for me. I don't know about you, but that's a pretty big deal for me, it was. When we realized that there are no exclusions from sin, and yet God still loved us when he knew how dirty we would be today, yet he still sent his son. That alone, now we have all these other descriptions and characteristics of God and what Jesus' blood does, and all these other things that are far beyond. And then you introduce the Holy Spirit, and now there's a power element that wasn't just every once in a while that God would move on a prophet. Now it's like on the earth with us, empowering us, speaking to us, and doing things that we on our own could not do. Besides all that great stuff, He cared enough to save me and to make a way for me. So if you're a new believer, maybe you're a seasoned believer and you've forgotten this component of your Christian walk.

Humility And Cutting Ties That Pull

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I want to tell something very specific to you. You owe God everything. Stop acting like a spoiled child that is entitled when we bring humility, humility to the center of our hearts and our homes and our churches. God can work with humility, but God opposes the proud. That's his word. And that's not that's not he dislikes, that's not he uh doesn't doesn't care for. It didn't use light verbiage, but God opposes the proud. That means he is in opposition with the person that is proud. So if that's you, think about where you are positioning yourself against the Lord. You are on dangerous ground, and you will not succeed. In February of 2014, I was kicked out of the street, on the street from my dad's home. All I had was my car and my clothes, and I had my camera gear, which is crazy because now, 12 years later, that's what I do for one of my full-time jobs. I have a company, and that's how I'm able to set this up and actually know what I'm doing. Although it got super dark, though, didn't it? Yeah. Um, but it was just this perfect little world that I had, but I would not stop sinning. So my father had enough and he sent me out. And you know what I did, as all of us do, it's never our fault, right?

unknown 29:57

Blinding me.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

It's never our fault when we sin or when we mess up or when we do something stupid. It's always everybody else's fault. And it took me crashing and crashing hard to realize how selfish, self-centered I was, how I used my parents not only to get what I want, but broke into their house a couple of times. I mean once that I remembered for sure and stole a lot of stuff that I thought was trash, but that was just me justifying the sin. That was disgusting. Ruined one marriage. Thank God that when I met my wife I have now, that was after the Lord got a hold of me. I had a big beard down here, I had long hair down the middle of my back. And after we took this church over here, my dad sent me the photo of when he took me to get a haircut. Every time he saw me, hey, you want to get a haircut? No, I look cool. He took a picture of me from the side, and I remember on the other side of that, looking at that photo, and I'm like, wow, I look disgusting. But I couldn't see my true self with my fleshly eyes. Once I had received salvation, I could see truth and I could realize how dirty and disgusting I was. So I want to leave you with this. If you haven't dive into the book of Romans, I I'm really thinking about diving in and just going line by line on the podcast like I did for my church, because I really think it'll be valuable at least to somebody, maybe. But the whole point of this episode is this there is no one too far gone. And if you're trying to live for God and you keep messing up and you keep going back to old habits, I want to tell you one key thing that will help you succeed. Get into a healthy church and surround yourself with people who are going in the same direction you are. Because if you don't, you'll always keep circling back. Because it is impossible for you to be in relationship, not a sexual, just any type of relationship, friends, when you're unequally yoked. We often use that scripture for marriage, but it's also the same in just friends. Because if they are, they are always going to weigh you down. There's no there's no ifs about it. You need years of separate. I maybe two years ago now, maybe three years, there's a guy that I used to do cocaine with over in the town I came from. He called me, he sent me a message, and I wrote him back and I said this on on Facebook. I said, Listen, the guy you knew years ago is not the same guy. I'm a pastor of a church now, I have a family, we have little kids, or I have, you know, almost a grown an adult living in the house now. I said, I'm not about that life. Oh no, man, I was just talking to see how I said, okay, I appreciate it. I I don't want, and I that was 12 years ago that I was in all that trouble. And him and I ran around a lot together. Do I think I'm strong enough to talk to him on the phone? Yeah, absolutely. Do I think I'm strong enough to meet up with him and have lunch? Absolutely. But I also know that the enemy is very cunning and that he will set traps and make you feel so comfortable and you're so strong, and you'll walk right into the lion's den and not even realize until you're devoured. And so I want to caution you. If you're really trying to live for God, you've got to let people go. People is one of the biggest things that bring sinners or save people back to their sin, is surrounding themselves with people. Whoever you surround yourself with is your future. So surround yourself with people that pray, with people that read the word, that believe, that um that understand scripture. Don't be the smartest guy in the room. Let other people lead you and guide you and disciple you. Let people correct you. If they're doing it from biblical standpoints and they are trying to help you grow closer to God and further away from your flesh, let them help you. Well, thank you so much for sticking around. And if maybe this video wasn't for you, maybe share this video with somebody that may be struggling just to let them know that God sees them and he will give them the strength if they will give over control to him. Thank y'all. I love you, and I'll see you next time. Faith and Failures Podcast.