“To Enter the Kingdom” - Dr. Gordon Fee, Part 3b

Covenant Reformed Baptist Church

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“The Ethics of the Kingdom” - Dr. Gordon Fee, Part 4a

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Now I emphasize that because if you don't hear that you're gonna hear the other word of repentance as a word that is

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Kind of disastrous so back to the Zacchaeus story. I Mean here is one bad guy.

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I Mean if you don't dislike the Zacchaeus in this world, then you are a holier person than I am by a long shot.

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I Don't like the Zacchaeus They are working for the enemy

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Ripping off God's people with the hated enemies protection and they're ripping. He's ripping them off at exorbitant prices

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I Mean he's the kind of guy that when somebody puts a bomb under him.

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You don't really feel quite so badly Come on.

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I know that's not very holy of me But that's the way it really is I mean he is absolutely scum

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It's not possible to be gets to be scummier than Zacchaeus I Mean he's the kind of human being that has no friends in Jericho at all except fellow tax collectors

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And that's a nice lot of friends. I Don't know how long

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Zacchaeus had been tax collector in Jericho because the text doesn't tell us But I'll tell you one thing as long as he had been tax collector in Jericho he had been told all his life to repent

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Probably not in very good language Repent you dirty so -and -so.

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I mean, you know, they've got ways of saying it All that they ever did was to tell him to repent and one day

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Jesus of Nazareth came through and He did something that nobody else had ever ever done ever for Zacchaeus He went out to dinner with him he just he just stopped the whole thing and Went to dinner with this scum and that act of love and Acceptance Did what all the years of contempt and hatred and calling for repentance had never done it brought about Zacchaeus?

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repentance And the reason we know he repented

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Is because he gave back everything that he had stolen and then tried to quadruple it if it were possible.

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I Mean that is real repentance Jesus didn't come by and say

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Zacchaeus you repent and then you'll hear the good news of the kingdom He just said

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Zacchaeus let's go have dinner It's so absolutely did Zacchaeus in that he could be loved like that That it brought about his repentance now

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What is repentance? Repentance describes what takes place when we enter the kingdom

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I suppose the best place for us to go to hear the word of repentance and there's a lot of places we could go obviously as as Jesus puts it in one place except you repent

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Turn about and becomes a child That speaks obviously to our need for total dependence, that's what children are like they are totally dependent on parent

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Except you lose your independence become totally dependent turn about and becomes the child trusting dependent but probably the best description of repentance that is to be found is in the words of discipleship that followed

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Jesus disclosure of What it means for him to be Messiah verse 34 chapter 8 of Mark's gospel

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And he called to him the multitudes with his disciples and said to them if anyone would come after me

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Let him Deny himself and take up his cross and follow me

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For whoever would lose. I'm sorry for whoever would save his life will lose it and Whoever loses his life for my sake and the

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Gospels will find it the first thing we need to say about repentance is that it is a dis that is describing what repentance is it is a denial of self

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That's what it means to enter the kingdom To enter the kingdom means the overthrow of Satan's rule

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And that also means the overthrow of all the little Colonies that have bolted to the enemy and our little strongholds for Satan namely you and me

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This is how we're to understand that difficult text we mentioned last night in Luke 1616 the kingdom of God is being preached and those who enter it enter it violently

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The only kind of entrance into the kingdom is a violent overthrow Means an absolute radical total

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Complete overthrow of our existence. It means God's rule comes and that's good news

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Don't forget that that's good news See the reason we hear it as the bad news of the kingdom is because we somehow feel threatened by the fact that God's rule

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Is going to rule over our over our lives and that means that we must lose ourselves and deny

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Ourselves and lose our own vested interests Repentance simply means to deny self

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It means we lose our rights to our self -interest our self aggrandizement

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All of those petty self eachnesses that have made up our lives all of our lives

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We're not talking about self denial You know giving up mushrooms for Lent If you don't like mushrooms

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Now I should say by the way that most Christians. I know including myself could stand a lot more self -denial than we experience

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But what Jesus is talking about is something far more radical and self -denial

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He is talking about denial of self the denial of oneself with all of its vested interests

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God's rule replaces our rule God's kingdom comes and establishes his prior acceptance and his rule and That means all other rules must capitulate

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All other kingdoms must give in and give way to God's rule it means to deny self

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It means to take up a cross Which isn't some kind of burden that you have to bear because God's got one on you a heavy one for you

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The cross is not some heavy burden. You have to bear a cross as a place of self -sacrifice for the sake of others

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You simply bear a cross which means there is that place always in your life of the giving of oneself for others and Then Jesus says that interesting, but most radical thing everyone who is seeking to save his life is gonna lose it

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And you say well aren't we trying to do that Well, that's

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I suppose one of those interesting kind of paradoxes that is in many ways very difficult to understand I mean difficult to explain you sort of understand when it happens, but it's like eating an orange

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You know that it's good, but it's very difficult to explain how How It's the same thing that happens there, but but let's see if we can try there's

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There is that element in us that when we seek to save our life And that's now what

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Jesus is referring to there is that in us in which we are trying to secure our own lives our interest is

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Ultimately basically a self -interest in trying to secure our existence in some way

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We spend most of our lives securing our lives in one way or another you know We rearrange people around us that give us a sense of securing our own existence

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We secure our luck our lives with popularity we secure our lives with with affluence material

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We secure our lives by protecting ourselves in a variety of ways from people who might hurt us we secure our why our lives in every imaginable way and Jesus said the person who is trying to secure his own existence is in the process of losing it

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The only one who's going to find his life is the one who loses it Who gives up?

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Who gives up? the urgency and the attempt of securing one's own life before God that's the person who's gonna find it and The finding isn't

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I mean what let me put it this way. It's it's like Lewis's surprised by joy It isn't that you're going around trying to find your life

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What happens is you lose your life, and then you wake up one day say hey I? found it

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How about that But it isn't I'm gonna find my life So I'm gonna lose it that I mean the harder you try to lose your life the more you're trying to secure it and the

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More you're losing. I mean the more you're gonna lose I mean you know I know that sounds crazy, but that's what you know I I'll try that again

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The more you try to lose your life in order to find it the more you're gonna lose it the wrong way Because the very trying to lose it in order to fight it is effort

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That's working at losing my life The real finder is the one who simply has lost his life

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It means that we're probably not keeping so much track of what we're doing And keeping so much score

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How many times and what many things and all the kind of things that I've done to lose my life today

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So that in losing my life. I might find it the person who has genuinely lost life Doesn't even realize it

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Until one day you know you sort of wake up and realize hey Surprised by joy

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Just bursting into your life God comes in a kind of way and You let him secure it, and then you realize that you can trust him with it

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And of course this is the real problem you see the ultimate problem is precisely where Paul puts it puts it in a different way

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But it comes right to this point the ultimate problem is one of trust we have a very difficult time trusting

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God with our lives and the reason we do is because We know ourselves just all too.

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Well who would trust you Come on. Be honest with yourself who would trust you with your life.

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I mean who you Can you can you believe that God is really trustworthy and just going to accept you the way you are

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Come on. Maybe you've never been in his presence

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Felt the power of his glory. I mean it comes a moment when in the presence of God the first thing that experiences a wipeout

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I'm in a wipeout and the presence of the eternal God. You just don't go running around hip -hip -hooray

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The presence of the eternal God the first thing that happens to people like you and me as well as me And the kind of thing that happens to Job finally and his friends who are so orthodox and so smart the only way

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God can get through their arrogance is finally just Doing a number on him

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Where were you Job when I created the world you're so smart, why didn't I consult you for wisdom?

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Then there comes that awesome moment when you recognize that God accepts you anyway The very moment when you recognize that you should have been absolutely wiped out by the eternal

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God He accepts you That's the day that you've lost your life and suddenly discovered that it's been found

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Not because you found it because God found it for you and Secures it for you.

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God's rule is his security. You understand? It's his coming and because he is

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King he secures our existence. We can trust him with our lives That is the most difficult thing that I know for Christians to truly believe and I mean

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Christians let alone pagans To truly believe that God Accepts me and that I can trust him with my life that he is absolutely trustworthy

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Most of us play a kind of Pinochle or something with God we always have a high

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Trump in our back pocket You know when

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God's played the last card We've got that high ace But God you remember what

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I did And we've got a whole variety of things we're gonna finally Trump God's grace with our good works of a whole sort of And you understand the reason we do that is we have a kind of a just -in -case view of God Just in case

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God can't be trusted to accept me the way I am I'm gonna make sure that I keep a pretty good record of who

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I really am so that when it finally comes down to it It's very difficult for people to trust

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God. It's easier to trust us You know I know I'm a pretty good guy finally Can't imagine a teacher saying that Kenya well,

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I'm only articulating the way we really are most of us Deep in our hearts

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We're not such bad people And when it finally comes down to it

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We're gonna make sure God knows that I mean look

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We want others to know it too Because that helps I mean why pray four hours a day if somebody doesn't know

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Huh, what good is it? I mean all otherwise is just prayer, but if you know that I pray four hours a day, then there's some you know

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I Can handle that one You're looking at me as if I'm crazy well, it's alright.

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You've already discovered by now that I am It's This kind of trying to take

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Jesus for what he means that kind of radical obedience Scary business and then all of a sudden you wake up one day and realize that God has done it

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He's come with a gift of his rule. He secured your life and once that happens that will free you forever forever

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It'll just set you free You can lose your life and trust him Now let me just spend a moment, and we'll say a little bit more tomorrow

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We get to the ethics about something, but you know the the the part of the scary thing of course is the

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Is is the fact that that? There is this element of Absolute having to trust

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God and that even by being a nice guy isn't going to count You know the classical nice guy is that rich young man

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I mean he would have been the young people's leader in any church in America that I know any denomination I Mean he's he's coming to the right person asking the right questions, and when it finally comes down to it.

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He is a decent chap I Mean he says something that I couldn't have said to Jesus all of these

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I've kept from my youth up That's pretty heavy stuff that he said he's kept from his youth up. I couldn't say that I Mean you know you and I'd have done with that guy

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Come on. Now. You know we had have done We had a pat on him on the back and said go to it old boy. You're doing fine I mean what else can this guy do?

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Jesus is oh, you're serious He put his finger on the spot and said thou a list here and here and here

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He says oh, you're serious Well, then go sell your goods your material goods and give to the poor and then come and follow me

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He tilt He went away very sorrowful

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For he was very rich it turned out that his goodness his righteousness was evil

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His goodness was non goodness He had never stolen or killed

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So what? He had never used any of his material possessions

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To bless the poor and when Jesus tried to tap that security in his life.

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He went away sorrowful He rejected the gift of God's rule now, let me just suggest in our closing minutes this evening as to why it has to be this way

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Why God's kingdom demands repentance It starts in the garden.

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Let's go back to the garden We've got to get there because if we don't get there we're never gonna get here

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What happened in the garden you remember what happened in the garden? What did even

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Adam do? Disobeyed right? That's right.

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That's the answer that should be given But come on, let's face it Disobedience is almost a symptom of the real disease

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What really happened in the garden thou shalt be as God What was the tree that they were rejected that they couldn't eat of Knowledge and good and evil.

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What does that mean? That mean that somehow they'd know right from wrong after that. I Don't know the word

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Yadah in Hebrew means to know in the sense of a Kind of a claiming a kind of of knowing it's the word that's used for sexual relations a man knew his wife

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There's this intimacy It has to do with the fact that the person who knows good and evil is the one who determines what good and evil is

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That's what it means to know good and evil Who doesn't want to play God at that point

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I Mean I determine good and evil. I Mean I'd like that tree because I get to be as God Determining good and evil and you understand no

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God makes any sense who doesn't have that as his divine prerogative of determining good and evil And Satan came and said you eat of this tree and you can be like God You can determine good and evil

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They bid on that and so you and I God was intended in creating the universe and out of this universe

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All of these beings Adam Eve Eve was raising

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Cain Abel It's okay. It's terrible. I know

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Along comes Gordon My wife's name is Maudeen You put your own name in there get a few others

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What God intended was a universe a Single center with one will and all other wills

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Doing his will and Precisely because there's only one will being done all other

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Created beings are in perfect relationship with all others Because all are doing that one will that's why in the

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Lord's Prayer the prayer thy will be done on earth As it is in heaven, you cannot imagine a better world than that You can't imagine one for every created being is doing

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God's will on earth as it is being done in heaven What did

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Eve do to our diagram? It's very important at this point.

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What did Eve do to our diagram? Huh Put herself in the center

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How many would think that's what she did? Sorry about that.

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Let's try another option. What's the other option? She tried to make the center out here

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Hey, it wasn't that she tried to usurp God's place here in the center She didn't mind him having his place what she wanted was to have it out here the new center

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She was going to be as God here. So what is she to do if she's going to be God here? Huh, what does she do?

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Yeah, it's not what she has to do what she what she have to do the rest They have to rearrange around her.

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Well, what happens when Adam does that? There comes a moment you understand when my good and your evil

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Are going to come into conflict Just as sure as I am here that's going to happen.

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That's the nature of sin in our human lives You know how it is

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Adam and Eve God's son were having a party and Eve had spent all day

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Cleaning the whatever cave whatever Getting things in good order She had it spit and polish

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Adam had spent the whole day out in the field slogging it out doing the work and he came in the middle the afternoon

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Rest for a little bit before the party and he came and walked right across her nice clean floor and plopped down on her

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Couch sofa Davenport, however, you call it wherever you're from and put those dirty feet up on that and you know what

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Eve did? She came over and she just hugged him and said Adam You're such a tired man.

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Let me take your shoe. Did she do that? Come on. Come on What what who do you know in the world? It would be like that She said

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I've been working all day you dirty and so how does

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Adam respond? Oh, I'm so sorry Get off my back egg

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Worlds in collision why? Because my

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Will is being done on earth and I want it to be in heaven. I got a

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Got some kids. I Can just tell by the way,

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I'm going that we're not gonna make an hour I don't know what I'm gonna do with this crazy video these evening things when I don't have notes just do a number on me

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We got these four kids two of them are boy, I mean there are three of my boys, but the two youngest ones are boys 16 months apart

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They have this marvelous love -hate relationship. They did have their they're grown now and they Genuinely love one another we sort of guessed that when they were growing up, but you could never quite tell it

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Whenever Whenever they were apart They couldn't stand being apart from one another and then whenever they got together

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None of the rest of us could stand for them to be together And I'm not exaggerating it was really that way

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So when they were four or five We were gonna solve the Christmas problem.

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We bought them identical trucks identical Tonka trucks blue wrote the name

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Brian across the one and Craig across the other Solved it

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One day I was and my study was at home, Southern, California and the boys were out in the back playing the sandlot and I heard this blood -curdling scream

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I Mean kids dying You know he's dying.

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I mean, that's the only scream like that when you're gonna die it's the younger one and I race out to see what's going on and There are those guys in the sandbox and he's not dying at all

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What's happened is that the older one has decided he was going to have a trucking Empire? He Has said in effect what's mine is mine and I'm going to keep it and what yours is mine and I'm gonna get it and he had both trucks and The younger one was much slighter of Bill and younger and he had to call in outside reinforcements in order to protect his kingdom

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Don't laugh too loud at those four and five year old boys. That's how we've lived out our whole existence from the day

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You know I was in the airport in st. Louis just a week ago Saturday, and I saw this thing worked out again

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It was a marvelous demonstration Two boys three and five Nice kids and and and a mother that was for clear

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I sat and watched her watch them for an hour, and it was clear that she was really one superb mother but as they walked in this one kid the older one had a box in his arm and He had you know and he was just sort of getting around and what happened

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They started to turn to go to where their seat wasn't he turned he just slightly bumped his brother and that box and it turned out to be

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I'm trying to think of a word of biscuits. It's a Donuts not cookies, but doughnuts these kind that each

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Claire that kind of stuff You know they got the nice creams and all all over the floor And you know

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The mom was excellent. She she didn't get on his case at all She just simply helped him to put it up in the box, but the kid is embarrassed

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He's five years old, and he's embarrassed as he can be And the thing and you think you could just tell she looked up and and and I didn't hear it

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But you could tell by what she did she asked him what had happened And he's kid he pointed his finger at his brother, and he gave his brother all

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I mean you couldn't believe what he did It's just he knocked it out of my hand mama He pushed it and this kid was carrying on a seat, and he had the little kid the three -year -old hadn't done that at all

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He had to protect his kingdom His kingdom was at stake I mean he was the center of attention in the airport and the only way he could protect himself

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Was to get on his little brother's case That is the nature there is not a single thing in all of our existence not one

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That the Bible calls sin that doesn't come from that not one every single thing pride is the ultimate sin

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Pride not meaning that I'm proud of myself pride meaning that I'm in the center of myself

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My existence is what counts when God's rule comes.

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He's trying to undo the garden in us He's trying to get us to pray the

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Lord's prayer Our prayer all our lives has been

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Gordon let your name be hallowed If you don't think so I mean

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Shakespeare was right who steals my purse steals trash But he who robs me of my good name takes from me that which benefits him not and makes me poor indeed

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Don't take my reputation from me. That is the most important thing I have Gordon let your name be honored

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Let your kingdom come Let your will be done at home as it is in your office

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After all you're the Papa and the Papa gets to have his will done at home

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Oh, I love being the Papa And what

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God is trying to do is to break that disease He's trying to teach us to say father your name

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Your kingdom Your will it's got to come a moment in our lives when we experience repentance

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Repentance means to deny self To take a cross to lose life, but all friends it means to find it

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If you put the emphasis on the loss you're gonna lose It's the finding

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You wake up one day and discover that God's found you Secured you and that you didn't have to secure your own little life anymore.