Godless and Godly Desires and Pleasures

Please stand for the reading of God's Word.

The Old Testament reading today comes from the 47th chapter of the book of Ezekiel.

I'll begin reading in verse one.

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple

toward the east.

The temple faced east.

The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.

Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside of the outer gate that

faces toward the east.

And behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.

Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured 1 ,000 cubits and then led me

through the water and it was ankle deep.

Again, he measured 1 ,000 and led me through the water and it was knee deep.

Again, he measured 1 ,000 and led me through the water and it was waist deep.

Again, he measured 1 ,000 and it was a river that I could not pass through for the water had risen.

It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through.

And he said to me, son of man, have you seen this?

And he led me back to the bank of the river.

As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river, very many trees on the one side and on the other.

And he said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah

and enters the sea.

When the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh.

And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live and there will be very

many fish for this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh.

So everything will live where the river goes.

Fishermen will stand beside the sea, from Engede to Enigleum.

It will be a place to, for the spread of very many kinds of fish of the great

sea, but its swamps and marshes will not become fresh.

They are to be left salt.

And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.

Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month

because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.

Their fruit will be food and their leaves for healing.

Today's New Testament reading will be John 7, verse 37 through

39.

That's on page 893.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let

him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

Now this he said about the spirit, whom those who believed in him were

to receive, for as yet the spirit had not been given

because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Please remain standing.

Morning.

What a good morning it is.

It's always great to see a baptism.

I was so encouraged to talk with Philip, myself, with the elders, and

I was encouraged to talk with Philip's mother about the change that she's seen in him.

It is just a marvelous thing to see the gospel on display like that, and it's great to see it on display in baptism.

It should encourage all the faithful's heart to see someone identify with Christ because it is just so

tempting to identify with the world.

And so it has been a great morning indeed to see that.

And I gotta ask Tim, were you wearing jean shorts or were they just straight up jean pants?

Jean pants.

I thought for sure you were going for the shorts look, but you couldn't quite see it from the outside.

All right.

Let me go to the Lord in prayer and we'll begin.

God in heaven, thank you so much for Christ and him crucified and resurrected.

I thank you, Lord, that because of him, we don't have to live in the bondage of the flesh and the

passions of the flesh and the desires of the flesh.

As captivating as it can be, even to the believer, we know, Lord, that those who believe upon Jesus, we have a new

identity.

We're thankful that Philip has a new identity, that he has a power within him now

that overcomes the power of Satan.

So I pray, Lord, that you would grow Philip in this identity and I pray, Lord, that we as a church

would help him along in that.

And part of helping him along is being willing to point out his sin, Lord, because we know

just how deceptive sin can be.

So I pray that we would be faithful to him and, Lord, that he would grow

mighty in the Lord and he would be an asset to you by your grace and he would serve the church, serve

the body of Christ.

Lord, I pray that you would give him this desire within his heart.

And may we, Lord, now in this moment be attentive to your word.

May I proclaim it faithfully and may you be glorified in all that we do because you are worthy.

Worthy is the lamb who was slain.

We praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, I have been going through the Psalms when I have the pleasure to preach before you.

And one of the, the main theme that I've been trying to grab hold in the Psalms is proper worship,

how we need to have proper worship.

We need to worship God and we need to do it properly.

And one of the things I keep on alluding to that I really wanted to look at more these next couple of weeks as a little mini study

is part of our worship to God is having proper desires and pleasures,

that we cannot worship God rightly if our desires are wrong, if our pleasures are wrong.

In fact, we are called to have desire as Christians.

We're called to take pleasure as Christians.

And the reason why I think it's important to kind of focus on that is if there's one thing that

Christians can be accused of or, and especially Reformed Baptists, is that

desires and pleasure is a swear word or a bad word.

I've heard it said one by someone that a Puritan is someone with the ability

to know that someone somewhere is having fun.

And there's a certain truth to that, that we as Christians can be so anti -pleasure,

anti -desires, that we end up maybe falling into the other side of the ditch in which we say that

any kind of desire, any kind of pleasure is false.

And if we are living that way, we might not say that, but if we're living that way, we are going to have a very faulty

worship because our worship is supposed to be met in desires and pleasure.

What does that look like?

Where does that come from?

What has happened to that?

This is the sort of things that I wanna look at these couple of weeks and how that applies to you who are unbelievers because there are

unbelievers out there right now, and to you who are Christians because there are Christians out there right now.

What is up with our desires and pleasures from whom have they come from and what has happened

to them and how should they play a very vital part in our worship today as Christians?

There is a novel called 1984 and it was published in 1949.

And it became very popular these last few years because of the different issues that are going on in our current culture.

In the book, the authoritarian government is doing away with the standard

English called Oldspeak and is making a new language called Newspeak.

And this new language, Newspeak, it takes words that we're all familiar with and it

changes their meaning so it can fit their political agenda.

That's what Newspeak is.

It takes Oldspeak, the normal English, and it makes it new to make it fit their agenda.

We have seen the leftists do that in our own day to day.

Words we know and celebrate are being turned to mean something else like justice,

inclusiveness, love, gender, mother, father.

The list goes on.

These words that are Oldspeak are being changed to Newspeak to fit an agenda.

Such a tactic is not anything new, but it's something that Satan has done from the

very beginning.

Now, before I go on, you might be thinking, are you calling the leftist ideology Satanic?

And the answer is, of course I am.

But Satan has been doing this from the very beginning.

He rules by lies and he uses desires and pleasures to lure and keep his victims and he's

changed what desires and pleasures should be.

He has changed it to mean something different.

But we must understand that desire and pleasures were created by God and to be enjoyed by us.

He created it, not Satan.

In the beginning of the Bible, we see that God has created desire and pleasure for

our good and that Satan hijacked those things to mean something very

different.

God is all powerful.

He's an all powerful God.

He created by his power.

But in regards to your desire and pleasure, he is also very good.

God created in power and majesty and might.

But in regards to your pleasures and your desires, he's also very, very good as well.

He created all things in power but has done it in a way to be enjoyed.

That is, he has done it good.

For example, in power, he has made it to where you can eat lunch after the service and

get strength from it, right?

All these things that go into this creation providing you with life, he has done that in his power.

But not only has he created in power in that way, but that lunch that you're going to eat, it's going to taste

good, isn't it?

Especially if you eat here, it's gonna taste really good.

So eat here.

It's gonna taste good.

Why does it need to taste good?

What's the point of it tasting good?

Because our God has created it good.

Not only can we be nourished with life but that can actually taste good and enjoyment.

We can take pleasure in our food.

God has created all things good as well.

You run through creation account and you see his goodness on display.

Genesis 1 .3, light was good.

1 .10, the dry land and the sea were good.

Genesis 1 .12, the vegetation and the fruit produced.

Were good.

Verse 18, the sun to give light to the earth during the day and the moon at night were good.

In verse 21, the creation of his fish in the sea was good.

In verse 25, it was good when God created the living creatures on the land to creep around the earth.

And in verse 31, when God creates man and puts him in this good earth, we see that it was then very

good.

It reminds me when making a coop for my chickens and ducks and as I was making all the different things with the coop,

I could see it, all of it had its own purpose and that purpose was to create this environment, this life for these chickens and

ducks to enjoy.

And so all these little different parts as it contributed to that main goal, it was good, it was good, it was good.

As it all came together, I mean, it was kind of good.

It does the thing but it could have been better but it was good but then it was very good when I placed those little

chickens and ducks in there and I saw them going around and enjoying the coop and living and enjoying themselves.

That was really good.

And it's the same thing with our creator God.

He created all these things good, he puts man in it, he sees man enjoying it, taking pleasure in it

and it is now very, very good.

So God made all things good and when he places us in creation to enjoy his good

creation this is called very good.

And so we need to see that desires and pleasures, that's not just something that the world gets to do in their

sin but God has created you to desire, God has created you to meet that desire and for you to

find pleasure, we are to live a pleasurable life.

Look at what the scriptures say when God placed Adam in the garden in Genesis 2 .9.

And out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is

pleasant to the sight.

Look at that, look at those words.

Genesis 2 .9, and out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight.

It didn't need to please the sight but it does please the sight.

It's pleasant to the sight and it's good for food.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

What was around Adam was a manifestation of the goodness of God to man.

Pleasant to the sight, good for food, it was pleasing.

It hold creation for us to have life in and enjoy.

For our desires to be had in the goodness of God, what he has given, and for our desires to be met

which produces pleasure deep within our hearts.

This godly desire and pleasure, if you notice, it's simple, it's very simple.

And that's the same today.

To find pleasure and delight in your life, it is not a complicated affair, it is actually

extremely simple.

And the moment it becomes unsimple is the moment that you have missed it altogether.

It is a simple affair.

So not only has God created in power, but in goodness.

That means he created you with a capacity to desire the goodness that he has created and to

find pleasure in that goodness.

He has created you to take joy and pleasure in his goodness.

In fact, doing so, when you are living a pleasurable life, doing that is

actually good for you and glorifying to God.

And so, do not be satisfied with a worship that is not pleasurable, right?

Do not be satisfied with a worship, and I've been saying this, that is not pleasurable.

That is not true worship.

Worship is pleasurable.

Do not be satisfied when it's not.

Do not be satisfied with no desire for walking with the Lord.

In prayer and scripture meditation, do not be satisfied when those things have lost its

luster, there's no pleasure in it.

Do not think, well, this is just a Christian life, because it is meant to be so much more.

Do not be satisfied with a boring Christian life because God created all things good and for you to find pleasure

in his creation by worshiping him in it.

Now, we're gonna get to this, especially next week, but there's a time when it is not desirable, it is not

pleasurable.

What do we do in that?

Well, we're not satisfied in it.

There is a battle, but we'll get to that later.

You wanna know the saddest thing about someone who is addicted to alcohol or drugs or pornography, whatever it

may be in this world, video games, that the pleasures they are seeking to those things and those things is

found in abundance in the simplicity of living a life in God's world for his glory and honor,

enjoying what he's created, but instead, they go away from the simplicity and they fill their minds with goofy

things.

Why do you have such a hard time desiring and taking pleasure in God?

Why is that the most difficult thing you'll ever do in your life?

If we're created for it, why is it so hard?

Or if God has made us to desire and have pleasure, does that mean what God wants you to do

is to follow all the desires of your heart today?

Well, the answer is no.

Why?

If he created a beginning and goodness for us to enjoy it, why is it so bad to then just follow

whatever our hearts desire?

Why is it so hard to have proper desires and pleasures?

Well, again, we need to go to how Satan has hijacked those things,

desires and pleasures, and changed it dramatically to make it what it isn't.

It's at this point that we must see what Satan did in capturing desire and pleasure, which

fuels his kingdom and makes it dangerous for us to pursue without reservation.

So in other words, how did desire and pleasure go from Oldspeak to Newspeak?

Changed by deceit, by Satan.

Well, let's go right to the fall in Genesis 3, 6 and see that.

Let's go right to the fall.

Look at Genesis 3, 6.

The temptation he provides Eve to see how Satan hijacks proper

desires and pleasure.

Look at Genesis 3, 6.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, notice again, good for food, it's

a language we've already looked at previously in Genesis, and that it was a delight to

the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and

ate, and she also gave some to her useless husband who was with her, and he ate.

The tree that was forbidden by God

was used by Satan to tempt Eve, but that tree was good.

It was a good tree.

It was desirable.

It was good.

Echoing back to how God made everything good and desirable.

It was delightful to the eyes.

Notice how even though God commands that they eat not of this tree, it still has the marks of a good creator God

on it.

This shows that our pursuit of pleasure must come under the authority of God and not creation

itself.

But what does it say next?

It's very important to see.

It says, it was desirable to make one wise.

This tree, this forbidden fruit, this forbidden tree was desirable to make one

wise.

Where does that come from?

Where did that desire come from there?

This is the first desire that is not from God, but it comes through the temptation of Satan

through disobedience.

Satan tempts Eve by saying, God just doesn't want you to eat of it because then your eyes will be open and

you'll be like God knowing.

You'll be wise, wisdom, knowing good and evil.

We can call that worldly wisdom.

So Satan is tempting her and saying that this tree can actually provide you that kind of wisdom.

So this desire, it'll make one wise, isn't actually, it is a disobedient desire.

This is the first time that desire is used and it's through the temptation of Satan for something that is not what God intended

it to be used for.

So that desire to be wise here is anchored not in a desire from God, but from

disobedience to God.

And this counterfeit desire by Satan is typical of the desires and pleasures he offers you today.

It's very typical.

What you have is never enough, is it?

You always need more to be happy and to find true pleasure, isn't it?

You should be unsatisfied with that and desire more.

This is the same way Satan works today.

There always needs to be more.

What God has provided you and the pleasures you can have in that is not enough.

You need to seek more.

You need to seek more.

The desires and pleasures found in God are always simple, though.

It's always very, very simple.

The new speak of Satan is always more complex and demands more until you are eventually

dead.

And sadly, once you are going down the road of satanic desires, it is harder and harder to

find delight in the simplicity of what God has for you in creation.

Have you ever noticed that?

The more you're in sin, the simple things of life that God has given to you for your good, for you to find

pleasure in, it becomes less and less pleasurable and you need more and more of the complexity of

his false desires.

That's the way it works and snares and kills you, destroys you.

Satan tells Eve not to be satisfied with the wisdom God has given her, but to desire more,

to know as God knows.

She and Adam act on this disobedient desire and their eyes are open, all right.

Remember, he says, your eyes will be open.

And the scriptures say, yeah, their eyes were open, all right, but not quite to the fulfillment of the desire Satan has placed

with Eli.

Genesis 3, seven, then the eyes, after they ate, both were open.

And it was a grand new world and Satan was right.

Man, this is the best ever.

No, not quite.

They both knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves

loincloths.

Why did they do that?

Because they were shamed.

That wisdom to know evil and good, oh, they know it all right, but it's not in the same way God knows it from afar.

And they know it intimately and it creates devastation, death to them and they are ashamed and they want

to cover it.

So we can see from this little story that godly desire, desire that is

godly desires, desire rooted in obedience to God and it always delivers what it promises.

And it promises pleasure and joy always, always.

And it always offers it and gives it.

That was the original state of humankind, that was old speak.

Godless desire, their desire is rooted in disobedience, it promises the same thing,

pleasure and joy, life and desire met in pleasure, promises the same thing but it never delivers

but only brings death.

Humankind, mankind has been stuck in this lie of Satan and he's running it even now in the same

way.

Godless desire always has immediate pleasure, immediate pleasure as you consume it.

That's how godless desire works.

It's immediate pleasure but eventually it turns into bitter poison in your stomach as it works

now.

Godly desire sometimes tastes bitter at first but yet it yields a great harvest in the future.

Think about that the next time you're tempted with sin that provides immediate pleasure.

That's the way Satan works.

Think about that the next time there's something that you are tempted with that's gonna provide immediate pleasure.

You know that on the other side of that tunnel or door or whatever is your death, that's the whole

point of it.

The true pleasure thing is to go without now and receive pleasure later.

It is more pleasurable to go without that immediate pleasure now and to find it truly later.

Pornography is a great example of this.

It's a great example of this because it offers immediate pleasure right away, intense pleasure right away, right?

That's what it offers and that's why people are so given to it.

But on the other end of that pornography tunnel is death and decay to yourself, to your relationships, to everything because

it is cancer.

But to see that temptation for what it is and turn away from it, immediate pleasure, you will receive true pleasure

later on since you are not engaging in a cancerous activity.

This is the way sin and death work.

It offers immediate pleasure but it gives death.

So godly desire and pleasure is rooted in obedience.

Godless desire and pleasure is rooted in disobedience.

It offers immediate pleasure but it always is followed by death.

So we see in the next chapter of Genesis, in chapter three, that such godless desire

is baked into the makeup of humanity now.

Okay, so it's not like there was a godless desire, Eve gets into it and God's like, okay, that's okay, it's only gonna happen once.

Now it's like baked into our DNA itself.

If you notice, we can see that in one part in Genesis 3 .16, we'll look at that in a more general part later.

But in one part we see in Genesis 3 .16, remember God says to the woman, I will surely

multiply your pain and childbearing and pain you shall bring forth children, your desire shall be contrary to your

husband but he shall rule over you.

You see, the marriage relationship, it was meant to be something that was good and nurturing and

growing, but now there's going to be a natural desire in the woman that's gonna be contrary to her husband.

And so we can see that those godless desires, those disobedient desires is now baked into the

woman's DNA to where now she's going to have just a natural disposition against her husband instead of it being for

her husband.

I've already saw one wife laugh at her husband in the crowd, I just saw it.

This is a specific example about how now, instead of desires being just good and natural within us to enjoy

God's creation and simplicity, now there's something within us, we'll see it more generally speaking, there's something

within us that desires not God and desires something else.

Not only in this fallen state do we lust after sin, but sin lusts after us.

Not only do we have a natural thing within us to lust after this disobedient desires and pleasures, but disobedient

desires and pleasures, sin, it lusts after us.

You remember what happened to Cain?

That story of Cain and Abel, remember Abel provides a better sacrifice, Cain is not happy about it, he's angry at

his brother.

You remember what God says to him in Genesis 4, six through seven, the Lord said to Cain, Cain,

why are you angry?

And why has your face fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, its desire is contrary to you,

but you must rule over it.

Notice what it's saying there, sin is crouching at the door.

Sin is, and Satan as he uses sin, it's deceitful, it's sneaky, right, it's crouching,

it's sneaking on you.

And its desire is to rule over you, its desire is to pounce on you, its desire is

contrary for you.

Although it promises so much pleasure and delight and you'll enjoy it, it is against you,

it is cancer.

And what does God say?

Because of that thing, of it being so bad, you need to rule

over it.

You cannot be passive to those evil desires, but you must conquer it.

Therefore, fallen man is captive to godless desire.

You in your natural state, you are captive to godless desire.

And godless desire has a constant desire against you in your fallen state

and in your renewed state.

And it's not for your good, it's for your evil, even as it promises so much good.

And so God says in this new fallen state of man after the fall of Adam, you must rule over this natural desire

for something that wants to kill you.

And a major theme of the rest of the scriptures of the Old Testament is that man, you

cannot do that on your own.

You cannot conquer, you cannot rule over this sin that's crouching at the door that wants to destroy you.

God tells Cain, you have to rule over it.

And the rest of scripture is to point to the fact that in your own ability, you can't.

You cannot do it.

If you are by your own ability right now trying to live a moral life, you are down a very deceptive

and bad road.

You cannot do it.

The rest of scripture is all about the fact that you cannot do it.

What did Cain do?

What a great image right there.

Did Cain end up ruling over that sinful desire in his heart for anger?

No, Cain murdered his brother and was exiled, right?

And that's a great picture in minor form of this great reality that all those sin is there waiting for us, we must

conquer it and we can't, you cannot.

Why is it impossible?

Why can we not?

Well, again, Paul gives those great verses in Ephesians two that tells us why.

In Ephesians two, one through three.

When he says that you are dead, you're dead in your trespasses and sins.

You once walked in your deadness and trespasses and sins and you're following the course of this world, you're following Satan,

the prince of the power of the air.

You're following the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

Among whom, Paul says, we all, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.

Passions are a good thing, but not whenever it's after fallen flesh, sinful flesh.

But that's where we were, carrying out the desires of the body,

a fallen man and the mind.

And so we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

See, God has created you to have a desire and to seek pleasure, for sure.

But in our spiritual dead state, because being dead in Adam, we will find that in following Satan and his

kingdom of sin.

That's what we do by nature.

Our hearts' desires are corrupted in finding pleasure in disobedience.

We are convinced this is our life, this is where pleasures are found.

And so left in this natural state, you will find pleasure in this life following Satan, and not following God, period.

Satan was successful in changing the meaning of desire and pleasure to fit his agenda, his kingdom.

And he rules with this deception.

So there are people listening to me right now who are living in sin because they are

following their fleshly desires.

You know it is disobedient to God and what he has commanded in his word, but it is too

precious to you to give up.

It just feels too good.

I cannot imagine my life without it.

I can't give it up.

You need to wake up now and see that such a mindset is deception

and is an indicator that you are no child of God, but you are a child of wrath.

You are living in a lie.

You are believing newspeak.

You need to repent of such fleshly desires and passions and turn to God, the one who offers us true pleasures.

Your desires need to submit, in other words.

You need to not submit to your flesh, but to the spirit.

As Satan brought a major revolution in the garden, so Jesus brought a major revolution of restoration at

the cross and at the tomb.

This is what we will address next.

What is our only hope in this life?

When we're talking about pleasures and desires and how they're so corrupted and that we follow our lust of the flesh of sin

every single time, what is our only hope?

Well, it is not to just get more moral or to just get better.

I'll do better tomorrow, I promise.

I'll do better.

No, beloved, it is for you to repent and look to Jesus who offers you a lifeline.

What is that?

Well, the spirit.

Remember, he says, I go, but I will leave you with the spirit.

The spirit is the agent that brings new desires in your heart.

And by new, I mean as it was before Adam fell.

The spirit is the only agent that brings restored desires to your heart.

There is no other avenue for you.

There's no other way for your desires and pleasures to be made right again.

The spirit is the only one who can do it.

What Cain did after God told him to rule over the sin that wants to control him, shows just how much man

fails at this by his own fleshly power.

And the rest of the scriptures show that to rule over sin that is constantly encroaching, takes nothing

short, but a divine miracle within your soul.

A divine power within, it takes the spirit of Christ.

As God breathed into man to give him physical life.

You ever notice that?

Genesis 2 .7, the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the

breath of life.

The man became a living creature as God breathed into Adam and gave him physical life.

So God must breathe into you now and give your soul spiritual life.

It's the only way for your desires and pleasures to change.

Ezekiel 37, go there with me please.

Ezekiel 37, five through six, we get this new covenant promise of the spirit to come.

For life to come.

The prophet says, thus says the Lord God to these dead bones.

Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.

And I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin

and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord.

Look at Ezekiel 36, 26 through 28.

What does this life consist of?

What does this new breath of the spirit within us consist of?

What does it look like?

Well, look at Ezekiel 36, 26 through 28 and I'll give you a new heart.

I'll give you a new spirit.

I'll put within you a new heart and a new spirit.

And I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

And I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, my laws, and be careful to obey my

rules.

You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I'll be your God.

There's that promise that Israel, although they were disobedient and dead in their sins, God says that one day I'm going to send a

savior and from that savior will come a spirit that will renew your heart and now you will walk

obediently to me.

And then if we had more time, we could look.

And then from you will come this gospel message to the Gentile world in which we are receivers of that

promise now.

Well, the point that I'm getting at here is what does this new heart do?

Well, it gives us new desires.

And what are those new desires?

What do we do with those new desires?

We obey God from the heart.

Instead of the lie of Satan that my pleasures and desires are found in disobedience to God, we know

that no, the truth is, is that my desires and pleasures are found in obedience to God, which is

only made possible with a new heart that gives you those new desires.

So your only hope is for God to supernaturally take your dead heart out and put a new

heart and liven it, regenerate it within your very soul.

Your only hope is to have new desires, new pleasures found in him that he has done through Jesus Christ.

That's your only hope.

With a new heart and new desire, we obey God and we find pleasure in that obedience.

But it comes through the work of Christ.

And the Psalms assumes that when we are talking about true worship to our God, this is

our full delight and pleasure.

Just listen to me as I read some of these verses.

Verse eight, I delight to do your will, oh my God.

Your law is within my heart.

Psalm 119 .16, I will delight in your laws.

I will not forget your word.

Psalm 119 .24, your testimonies are my delight.

They are my counselors.

Verse 47, for I find delight in your commandments, which I love.

Verse 92, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

You see, these new covenant promises comes upon the believer, changes their heart, gives them new desires, find

pleasure in obedience to God, no longer following the lies of Satan.

This is your only hope, that you would receive the new covenant promises, that you would receive a new heart and desire God

truly from the heart.

This isn't just an Old Testament thing, obviously, this is a New Testament.

This is all God's word.

First John 5 .3, what does the apostle say?

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

Are God's commandments burdensome to the non -believer?

Yes, they are, because they have an unregenerated heart,

unregenerated desires and pleasures, and they want to follow Satan and his kingdom, whether or not they know that or not,

and they want to do his will.

And so when they see the law of God, the obedience that God commands, that is a burden upon

them, because that goes against their fleshly desires.

But to the one who has been made new in Jesus Christ, when we show our love for

God and keep in his commandments, and they become no longer burdensome by the power of his grace.

They are not burdensome because of the spirit that has been given to us to renew our desires.

They're burdensome without the spirit changing us, because we lust so much after sin in our natural state.

The Bible's just amazing how it knows us perfectly.

It knows us perfectly.

I'll never forget becoming a Christian and reading the scriptures, because I had new desires to actually do it, and I remember thinking,

this thing knows what it's talking about.

It explains me perfectly well prior to Christ, and now after Christ, this is explaining what's going on in my

heart to a T.

What does Jesus say in Matthew 11, 28 through 30?

"'Come to me,' he says.".

Matthew 11, 28 through 30.

Jesus says, "'Come to me, all who labor "'and are heavy laden, and I'm gonna give you rest.'".

He says, "'Take my yoke, my burden.'".

Take, you know, a yoke was something that kind of brought you up with a two, cattle would come under one

yoke to work together.

He says, "'Take my yoke, take my yoke upon you, "'and learn from me, for I am

gentle and lowly in heart, "'and you will find rest for your souls, "'for my yoke is easy and my burden is

light.'".

See, Jesus Christ enables us to follow the commands of the Lord, his

commands, and we do it joyfully from the heart.

And so that's what he means.

It's not like we go and we're lawless people.

We are told how to have delight and true pleasures, and that becomes everything to us, and it's through Jesus Christ.

He says, "'Come to me, and you'll find that rest.'".

Now, I'm talking to a room of people who have responded to Jesus' call here.

As I know there are unbelievers in this room, I know that most of us make up the saints of the Lord in this local assembly.

Praise be to our God.

I'm talking to a room of people who have responded to Jesus' call here.

We have responded to him.

We have said, yes, Jesus is the only way.

He'll renew me.

You have repented of your sin and have looked to Jesus and have received the spirit of promise, amen.

What we will look at next week is what happens when the spirit takes up residence in someone who still

has a flesh of sin left over.

You know what I'm saying?

When you've believed upon Jesus and he has sent his spirit within you, our flesh doesn't

wanna leave.

It's still there.

We're in this life here until we die and are fully transformed.

We're in this flesh.

It's still there.

So what happens?

This is what we're gonna look at.

What happens when the spirit takes up residence in someone who still

has a flesh of sin left over?

What should be going on in your soul right now as a Christian?

If you're a believer in Christ and you claim the promises of the new covenant that you have a renewed heart, what should be happening in

your heart, soul right now?

Anything less than total war is absolutely unacceptable to Christ.

Because if the spirit of Christ is there and you have your flesh of sin there, they don't get along too well.

And if there is not complete, total war as Christ dominates that sin, slowly but surely,

that is unacceptable to God.

That is unacceptable to Christ.

Our God is a God of war.

You know that?

Our Christ is a king and he demands full submission and he comes with a sword coming forth from his mouth to conquer.

And when the desires of our flesh come up against the desires of the spirit, war within your soul is the

only option.

So in conclusion, there is no good reason not to deny your flesh and follow Jesus.

There's no good reason for it.

The flesh, sin, the whole system is made to kill you.

It works through adverse desires and pleasures and it promises so much, but beloved, it is going to kill you.

There's no reason to deny that.

Go to Jesus who says, come to me, my yoke is light.

I will make the law that comes forth from me no longer burdensome because I'll change your heart and you'll desire to honor me

from your heart.

There's no good reason for you not to follow Jesus in that reality today.

For you who are unwilling, know that you are believing the lie of newspeak and

its whole aim is to kill you.

It is a deception, it is a lie twisted from the very beginning and you are falling prey to it.

You need to stop following the lies of your fallen desires and pleasures.

You need to submit those things and you cry out to Jesus instead who will send you

his spirit to change your wayward desires and pleasures.

And for those who have done that, your life now is found in warfare.

Your life is found in a battle.

Your life is found in active obedience by the power of Jesus as you do the hardest thing you will ever do

but it's the most glorious and pleasurable thing you will ever do.

Your life is one of warfare that is animated by the spirit of Christ.

You have been given the spirit whose whole purpose is to do war against the leftover flesh that desires to kill you.

Again, as I say often, there's no such thing as boring worship.

There's no such thing as a boring Christian, a lazy Christian, because there's a constant battle going on.

One of the things about a nation when it doesn't see battle for a while, their men start to turn into little wimps.

I don't know if you notice that.

When there's no battle and there's nothing to grab hold of and defend your family and everything, you tend to get weak.

A Christian doesn't have that problem because the flesh is always there lusting after the spirit.

Paul says walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

The desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these

are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

And so next week we get to look at this glorious battle that Christ has given you to do and he has

given you the ability to win.

And so we'll look at the beautiful life of the Christian and battle against the flesh animated by the spirit of Christ.

God in heaven, I thank you for this battle.

I thank you, Lord, that you didn't give us to our sinful passions and desires.

Lord, to think that you could have left us in that state and allowed us to just be enslaved to these things and to see that there's life in them

even though as they captured us to death.

I'm so thankful that you sent us Jesus Christ.

He is the fulfillment of everything.

He, Lord, did what we could not do.

You told us to rule over our sin or else it will conquer us and we have proven ourselves unable to

do that but Jesus Christ has proven himself able.

I'm so thankful that he came and died for sinners like me and like people in this room so that when we look upon

him, he gives us the blessed spirit who changes us from the inside out, gives us new desires and

pleasures so that we no longer are slaves to what has came before but we look to Jesus and

his law.

I'm so thankful that I don't need to live in disobedience.

I'm so thankful that when I'm tempted with sin, I can say, who am I?

I am no longer the one who is before Christ who is dead to my flesh but rather I am renewed in

the Lord.

My new identity is found in him and so therefore I have the power to no, don't fall into this trap but rather

overcome it.

I'm so thankful that you give everyone who looks upon Jesus this power.

So I pray God for those who are before me who have not truly looked upon Jesus, who have not

believed upon him and received the blessed promise of the new covenant, I pray that they would repent today, that they would see that

the sins that they are holding onto dearly, that they find delight in, it's nothing but a lie.

It gives momentary pleasures but it only brings about continuous death.

And I pray that you would awaken them up to that reality and that they would see that it is good

to look to Jesus and be renewed.

I pray that for those believers, we would gear up and get ready for battle, that we would take every sin seriously and know that this

whole purpose of our Christian life is to rely upon the spirit to do battle against sin.

May this be our great aim today and for all the rest of our lives that we have as we enjoy you into eternity.

In Jesus' name, amen.