The Purpose Driven Myth

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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All right, let's pray and we will get into it. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up Your Word, we ask that You would send

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Your Spirit, help us to rightly understand it, to mark it, to read it, to meditate on it, and really digest what

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Your Word says so that we may be protected from error, that we may know the truth, that the truth would set us free, so that we may know what to believe and what to do.

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We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Today, we're going to start to make the turn to the second table of the

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Ten Commandments. We're still working our way through the book of Exodus, and we're taking our time, using the occasion of the children of Israel at Mount Sinai and the revealing of the

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Ten Commandments to really kind of unpack the commandments and discuss what they are about and what they reveal to us.

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And remember, when we talk about God's law, there are three uses of God's law.

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First use is the use used by the government. The government has been given the sword to punish evildoers, so the first use of the law is to curb evil.

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The second use of the law is to convict us of our sin. But God's law also shows us what a good work is.

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And we've been working our way through the first table of the Ten Commandments, and we've been focusing in on what it means to love the

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Lord your God and have no other gods before him. We've considered in depth the concept of what it means to take

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God's name in vain, and I'm very happy that our students here in Sunday School, some of our younger students, were paying attention during the sermon.

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Apparently, I had a senior moment, and I said Korah's rebellion twice.

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What I should have said was that they had forsaken themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error, second prototype, and then

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Korah's rebellion is the rebellion against the established authority of God. So the Pharisees were involved in both.

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So I was very happy that our students were a little more on the ball than their pastor.

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Sounds like an edit coming in on you. Yeah, right. Note to Josh, if you're listening to this, pick up that audio, would you, there, and put it back into the sermon to make me look a little smarter than I am.

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Anyway. He'll hear it, I'm sure. Future episode of Life in the

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Day. Right, something like that. Now what we're going to do today is we're going to start to make a transition, and there's a topic in particular

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I really want to drill in on. And if you know about, you've heard me mention first table and second table.

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When we talk about God's law, first table deals with our relationship with God this way, vertically.

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But the second table has to deal with our relationship with each other. And so second table is the place where we go to to really unpack this idea of what are good works.

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Now that I'm saved, what am I to be busy doing? Should I make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and should

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I maybe visit Rome and pray to saints, buy some indulgences, look at holy relics and things like that?

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No, that's not really practical in the way of doing things. And so the idea then is that in order to rightly make the hinge from taking

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God's name in vain to rightly understanding what the second table is about, we're going to straight up deal with a very prominent and extremely subtle false teaching that exists within the wider church today.

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And you know this teaching as the teaching of the purpose -driven life.

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Have you heard of this purpose -driven life? And it has morphed in the past decade into different variations of it, and one of the variations,

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I call it the dream -destiny -thingy doctrine. Now the reason I call it the dream -destiny -thingy doctrine is because it sounds specific, but it's really vague when you start to get into the details.

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And the overarching premise of the doctrine is that God has created you for a specific purpose.

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And on its surface, it sounds really, well, that's right, isn't it? Didn't God create us for a specific purpose?

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And our experience tends to favor this thinking, and the reason being is because each and every one of us can point to those classes in high school and college that we liked, and we had like a natural affinity to, and then those other classes that we just never got along.

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I mean, could you imagine what would happen if I were an algebra teacher? This would not go well.

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This would go very poorly, because me and math, we don't get along. And so what happens is, is that we think that because we have an aptitude towards a particular thing, that that must be the thing that God specifically designed me for.

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And the way this kind of plays out in general evangelical preaching, you'll hear phrases like this.

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They will say, when there is a problem in the world, God causes a baby to be born.

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And so you need to figure out what problem God called you into existence to solve.

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That's one way you hear it. And then there's another famous quote that gets kicked around, and the famous quote goes something like this.

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There are two very important days that human beings experience in their life.

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And unfortunately, many do not experience the second day. The first day is the day you were born.

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The second day is the day you discover why. Why? Yeah, the day you discover

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Cabernet, Zinfandel, Merlot.

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No, not wine. Now let me show you another popular way in which this is taught, and then gets twisted, is that you will have sermons on one verse.

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And here's the verse, and it's from a very specific translation. It's the New Living translation. Listen to this.

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I mean, tell me if this doesn't make you feel really important. Ephesians 2 .10 from the New Living translation.

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We are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so that we can do the good things

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He planned for us long ago. See, there it is. You're God's masterpiece. And in the Greek, I mean, the

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Greek word for masterpiece there is poiema. And we get the word in our language, poem, from poiema.

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So you are God's poem to the world. You are His masterpiece. That's right.

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Mike, you are God's magnum opus. That's not exactly right.

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Now, number one, you're gonna note, I'm quoting Ephesians 2 .10 out of context. Number two,

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I'm quoting it from a sketchy translation. And when

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I do this, by quoting it out of context and then from the sketchy translation, where's the emphasis?

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Who is the emphasis on? You. Remember that song that we used to sing years ago?

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Lord, I lift my name on high. Lord, I love to sing my praises. Isn't that how that song goes?

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So you'll notice the emphasis puts it on me. Now, this is gonna sound like heresy, but it's not.

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This is a narcissistic, self -centered reading and understanding of Christian sanctification.

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And let me tell you how this then plays out, because there's more to this doctrine. So they will preach sermons along these lines that God has created you for a unique and specific purpose.

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And it's important for you to figure out what it is, why you even exist. Why am I here?

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And so you sit there and go, okay, all right, pastor, I bought into this. So what do I need to do to learn my unique purpose?

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Because after all, I'm God's poem, I'm his masterpiece. So I want to be able to achieve my full purpose potential.

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Well, they'll say, well, step number one, you need to surrender your life to Jesus and make

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Jesus the Lord of your life and pray the prayer and become a Christian. All right, you sit there and go, all right, I'm a

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Christian, check. So, all right, so if you really wanna know your purpose, that's step one. Step two, and this is where it starts to get really iffy.

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Step two is you've gotta show the Holy Spirit that you're serious.

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You gotta show them that you're serious. And what we didn't tell you is that when it comes to having your purpose, it may not be one unique purpose.

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There's your purpose, there's a grander purpose, there's a super mega purpose, and then there's like the wow purpose.

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These are my ways of describing it. And see, the thing is is that there's some kind of contingencies here that we need to lay out for you so that you can understand that in the options that are your purpose, that there's some things that really hinge on you.

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So we're gonna need you to start getting busy applying biblical principles to your life so that you can experience life change.

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And the first most important thing we've gotta get you doing is tithing. And it's 10 % off the gross, not the net.

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And then of course, the expectation is that there's offerings on top of that. And then you've gotta clean up your act.

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So I mean, if you got any kind of like sinful habits, you're gonna wanna start to work that out.

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And so God is up in heaven. He wants to reveal your purpose to you, but he's kinda got his hands tied and crossed, and he's waiting on you to kinda show him that you're serious.

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So you get busy applying biblical principles to your life to experience life change and start writing checks, 10 % off the gross every week to your pastor.

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Make it payable to pastor Chris Roseborough, carer of Congregator Lutheran Church. Anyway, so you get the idea here.

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And you sit there and go, so the Holy Spirit's up there. And finally, finally, they let you know that the next step then is that you need to learn how to hear

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God's voice directly. We're not talking in the Bible. You have to actually learn

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God's voice to hear it directly. Because I mean, after all, Elijah went to Mount Horeb and God spoke in a still small voice.

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And so the way the logic goes, because God's talked in a still small voice to Elijah, well, that's supposed to be the same thing for you.

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So God's out there broadcasting on some spiritual wavelength that you need to learn how to tap into so that you can begin to hear the voice of God.

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It's a lot like a radio. This is how they describe it. So there's the Holy Spirit up in heaven going, hello, this is the

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Holy Spirit. I want to reveal your purpose to you now. I see that you've been really serious about cleaning up your act.

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I'm so glad you're tithing now. And I'm gonna tell you your purpose. Are you there?

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And the way they tell it is that God is talking on this frequency all the time, but you need to learn how to listen.

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Okay, so the Holy Spirit's going, is anyone hearing me? All right, and so you need to learn how to tap into this.

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And apparently then, once you get on the right frequency, and of course, they always describe it, like I said, like to a radio station, and you need to tune in.

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And it makes you wonder, what did Christians do to hear the voice of God before there was radios? You know, back in the early days, the first radios were done in Morse code.

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So I mean, step three to learning your purpose is you have to learn Morse code and then tap into the

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Holy Spirit. He says he's going, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. I'm being a little bit silly.

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And then before that, did he use Carrier Pigeon? I mean, I don't know. But you'll notice here, there's already some sketchy stuff being taught here.

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So I need to learn how to hear direct revelation from God. And then once you do that, the next piece of this is you are strongly admonished to dream big.

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All right, you don't want to insult God with small dreams.

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And then they quote Hebrews 11, six out of context. Without faith, it's impossible to please

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God, is the verse they go to. So we all know what that means, right? Without faith, it's impossible to please God.

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So if you really want to receive from God a ginormous dream destiny and a big, the super deluxe size purpose, you have to have a big dream for your life.

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And they'll then go to the story of Joseph and out of context, basically say, look at Joseph.

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He had faith big enough to believe that his own parents were going to bow before him.

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You need to have that size of faith. And he's sitting there going, wait a second.

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He didn't do nothing there except for go to sleep one night and God revealed to him what was coming.

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And so they'll basically tell you, you got to dream big, dream large. All right, all right. So I'm now tithing. I've cleaned up my act.

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I've applied biblical principles. I think I'm hearing God speaking on that channel. And then at that point, you're ready because you've been dreaming big to receive your purpose.

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And the Holy Spirit gets on his microphone and says, your purpose is to change the world.

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Thanks, that's great. Okay, so, and it could be anything. You're going to be an

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Academy Award winning actor or actress or something. You're going to X, Y, and Z.

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And people really believe that they're hearing God's voice telling them that this is going to be their purpose. And then the way the preaching goes, they are told that once you receive your purpose, you hear it from God, that that's a promise from God that he is going to fulfill.

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But you at this point have to hang in there because there's this thing,

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I describe it as purpose limbo. Okay, once you've heard the voice of God telling you that this is your specific purpose and that this is what you're going to do, and this is why you were made, does it come immediately?

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No. So you have to apply yourself to this and begin to start taking steps to make this purpose happen in your life while keeping tithing.

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And so you think about it this way. I'll use an absurd example, but oftentimes the examples are really this absurd.

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Duane is good with spreadsheets, but he has heard from the Holy Spirit that he is going to actually go to Broadway and he is going to be a

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Broadway dancer. Yeah, exactly. In fact, the

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Holy Spirit told him that he's going to win an entire season of Dancing with the

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Stars. That's how amazing he's going to be. Praise the Lord. Okay.

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Now, Duane then communicates this to Becky and Becky then says, are you sure that was

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God telling you that? And Duane says, no,

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I'm pretty sure that was God. And so Duane starts to take dancing lessons and still nobody's paying any money to watch him pirouette.

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I'm just saying. Yeah, okay, okay. There's no ad, right.

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But he begins to singularly focus on achieving this death, this purpose that he believes that God told him.

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So he's pouring money and time and effort into us while still tithing and giving offerings.

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And he's in purpose limbo because he believes that the big break is going to come so that he's going to go and win

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Dancing with the Stars. And what I'm saying is actually not actually far off.

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It's really in the same thing as far as what goes on in these churches. And so they are taught then, no joke, that anybody who doesn't support you with positive affirmation and prayers and encouragement for you achieving your destiny, your purpose, you are to cut that person out of your life.

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No joke. Those are haters. And you block them on Facebook. You don't follow them on Twitter.

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You don't let them speak into your life. And so now Duane and Becky's marriage is on the rocks because she knows he ain't going to win

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Dancing with the Stars. And some of the other family members here at Kongsvinger, he's no longer communicating to them also because they had the audacity to say,

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Duane, no, really, serious, keep the spreadsheets. Yeah.

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I don't know where you got all of that from, Ephesians 2 .10. Okay, and you call...

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Sketchy, sketchy, yeah. Okay. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he has planned for us long ago.

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Yeah. Right? Well, there's really nothing wrong with that. The simple reason is he has created us anew.

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He has come into our life. Right. Okay? He is preparing our heart so that we may accept him for his plan that he has decided a long time ago.

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Now, God does have a plan, and we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about this. We're going to put this back in context here.

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But you're going to notice here, you said the thing, I don't know where you're getting all of that from this verse.

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And I'm going to tell you this, evangelicals are getting all of that stuff I've just described from this verse.

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And it's not actually what this verse teaches at all. But what this verse teaches, when you read it in a good translation in context, is actually so much better than this other thing.

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Well, there's better translations. Yeah, but let me continue then to kind of fill out the doctrine then, the way it's taught.

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So now, Dwayne is cut off from people who love him, who are trying to speak sense to him. He is singularly focused on becoming the guy who wins

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Dancing with the Stars. And it's not working out for him. And he begins at this point to have wobbly feelings about Christianity.

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And the reason why is because although he was told, this is a promise from God for you, it doesn't seem to ever arrive.

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And so he begins to hear messages that go along these lines. Don't worry, Dwayne. The Lord is saying right now in this season, this is a season of breakthrough.

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And those of you who've had these promises from God but they haven't shown up, don't worry.

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It's the season of breakthrough. Your breakthrough is just around the corner. It'll be here sooner.

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This is the season that it's going to show up. And so they constantly keep you in anticipation that this dream destiny is going to arrive.

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And guess what? It doesn't show up. Right, exactly.

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Season after season now goes by of Dancing with the Stars. And not only is he not on it, no one's taking him seriously when he does his dance routines and stuff like that.

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I mean, he's even paid for a choreographer to help him. And he's more lonely now and isolated.

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And he's beginning to have doubts. And so he goes to his pastor and says, Pastor, you told me that when I heard this voice from God that this was my purpose that he would reveal to me.

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My purpose is to be a dancer and I can't ever seem to get a break as a dancer. I put a lot of money into this and I've tied a lot of money.

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Why is it not showing up? And he'll say something like, Well, remember when

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Joseph got his dream, how many years did it take? I mean, he had his dream that his parents were gonna bow before him.

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And the first thing that happened was he was sold into slavery in Egypt. So you're in your Egypt right now. And so you just gotta get through your

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Egypt season so that you can get to your, so that you can finally, like Joseph, achieve your destiny.

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Yeah, well, see, there's the thing. You know this is about you. And that's a twisted reading of the story of Joseph.

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The story of Joseph is about Christ. So then he kind of sticks it out, kind of guts it out a little bit farther.

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And then he comes back to his pastor and says, You know, it's still, I've been in this Egypt thing for a long time now.

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When do I get to my purpose? When? And then his pastor says,

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You know, maybe the thing that's delaying it, Duane, is you probably have some sin issues in your life.

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You're just not believing enough and you probably have some secret sins that are keeping God from bringing your purpose.

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It's all your fault. And at the end of all of this, the average person can kind of stay in this type of church for about three years.

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Some a little bit longer, some a little bit less. But when they leave, and they eventually leave, because the purpose never shows up.

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When they leave, they never set foot in church again. Because Christianity, in their way of thinking, isn't true.

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It promises things that it doesn't deliver. It's scary.

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And they're angry. And if they go atheist on us, they're on YouTube. And they have channels dedicated to debunking

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Christianity. Because they have literally been taken advantage of. Now the question is, does

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God's word teach that you have a unique and specific purpose for which you are created?

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Huh? Well, the answer is yes and no.

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It's yes and no. And the details matter. And we'll talk about this.

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Now, let's go to Ephesians chapter 2. And we're going to start at verse 1. And I would like you to get your finger also in at a cross reference in Psalm 119.

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Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, is a complete thought.

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And Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, follows a Hebrew outline.

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And the name for that specific type of outline is called a chiasm. Do you know what a chiasm is?

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Let me... What was that? It sounds like it hurts. It sounds like it hurts, yes. You go to the doctor when you get a chiasm.

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I've got a really bad chiasm, doc. No, that's not how that word is used in a sentence.

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A chiasm, think of it this way. Let me start with what it isn't. When we talk about outlines, we were taught to use a

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Roman outlining system. Big, bold, number 1. And then subpoint

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A. Subpoint number 1 with parentheses. Subpoint A, smaller case, and on and on.

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And it's a linear way of thinking. If you were to stretch it out, it basically goes on a line. It has a beginning and it has an end.

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That's not how Hebrew outlines work. Hebrew outlines are called a chiasm.

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And you have to think of it this way. It's like if you kind of had an obsessive -compulsive disorder and you had books of the same colors, like similar colors, you would put the two red ones on the outside, the two blue ones on the inside of that, and work it in this way, right?

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That would be Tyler. We'll pray for him. And they do this with their socks and things like that.

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But this is actually an interesting way of doing an outline because what it does is it creates encapsulated thoughts. So the first thought begins here and the final thought is on the same level.

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It bookends it. The second thought is over here and then the second to last is right here.

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So it kind of comes in this way and then out this way so that the opening and ending thoughts mirror each other, almost like opposites.

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Does that make sense? And so it's called bookending or a chiasm. Hebrews, not

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Hebrews, Ephesians 2, 1 through 10 follows this Hebrew chiastic structure perfectly and I want to show you the ends of the bookends.

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The first thought begins this way. Paul writing to the

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Christians in Ephesus says, You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience.

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That's kind of the opening thought. So notice it says that you were dead in the sins in which you once walked.

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Now I have to drill into a concept here. We, because we're 21st century

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American Christians, we are familiar with Christian jargon.

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Christian jargon has kind of hijacked this word walked and let me explain. Have you ever had a conversation with a fellow believer and one of them asks,

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How's your walk with Christ? Or how's your Christian walk? This is the way we talk in these senses.

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And so we've actually taken the word walked and we've unplugged it from what it means in its context biblically and we use it to kind of describe the

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Christian journey or something to this effect. But that's jargon. That's not what

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Paul's actually getting at here. So he says, You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

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Now the question is, what does it mean in which you once walked? And this is a

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Hebraism. This is a Hebrew thought that has come over into a Greek manuscript.

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The Greek word is peripateo, but that's not going to help us. I want you to go and take a look at Psalm 119.

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This is going to help us because we're going to see some of these same words and the

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Hebrew equivalents help us a little bit. Psalm 119, verse 1. Blessed are those whose way is blameless who walk in the law of the

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Lord. Now the Hebrew word is halak and it does mean walk, but the way it is intended to be understood is this way.

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The Jewish mindset is not abstract and philosophical in its thinking.

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Ancient Jews did not think in terms that like Plato or Aristotle taught.

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Those are very abstract ways of thinking. The Jews were very concrete.

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So when it talks about walking here, who walk in the law of the

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Lord, walk, halak, is referring to how you conduct your life.

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How do you walk day by day in your interaction with your neighbors?

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And you're going to notice another important word here and the word is blameless. Now, I'm going to show you this from a

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New Testament passage, but this is a very Jewish concept. I'm going to duplicate the tab here.

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I'd like you to go to Luke chapter 1 and I want to show you a distinction that comes up and this is a very

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Hebrew way of thinking. Here's what it says in Luke chapter 1, starting at verse 5.

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In the days of Herod the king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah.

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He had a wife from the daughters of Aaron. Her name was Elizabeth. So this is the story of the parents of John the

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Baptist. And watch this distinction. They were both righteous before God.

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So there's your vertical. Before God, they are righteous. How are we declared righteous?

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Before God, by grace through faith. So they are declared righteous before God.

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So they're righteous before God, and listen to this. Walking blamelessly in all the commandments.

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Walking, again, has to do with how they conducted their life and blameless has to deal with now their relationship with their neighbors.

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Because they are walking in the commandments of the Lord, they are walking and conducting their lives in a way where they are blameless before their friends and neighbors and family.

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Does that make sense? So righteous before God, blameless before others. This is the

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Hebrew way of thinking. And so if somebody has ought with you, you're not blameless. There's blame.

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So we must address that by repenting and being forgiven by our neighbors and then continuing to walk day by day in the commandments of God.

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You see it? So coming back then to Psalm 119, watch how this works out. Blessed are those whose way is what?

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Blameless. It doesn't say righteous. It says blameless. And so in the

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Hebrew mind, this signals how we are horizontally. Who walk, conduct their lives in the law of the

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Lord. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong but, here it is again, walk in His ways.

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So you'll understand then that over and again, in talking about third use of the law, third use of the law is only for Christians and that's where the law informs us what a good work is.

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And that that is described over and over and over again using this

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Hebrew concept of walking, of how you conduct your life.

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It's kind of a holistic way of thinking. And so you'll notice then that God's law is not bad.

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God's law is good. See oftentimes as Lutheran because we make the distinction between the law and the gospel and the law convicts us of our sin and the gospel comforts us of the forgiveness and mercy in Christ, we are tempted to think the law is bad.

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The gospel is good. No. The law is good.

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The gospel is good. I'm bad. You see it? Keep these distinctions.

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So now let's come back to Ephesians. So here's the opening thought again.

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You were what? Dead. You're dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

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Now watch then what it means to walk as one who is dead in trespasses and sins.

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You follow the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sense of disobedience, that's the devil, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

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So to be dead in trespasses and sins, what does that mean? It means that you are conducting your life under the influence of the devil and the world and giving in to your own sinful passions.

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The person who does that, are they blameless? No, they're not.

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Nor are they righteous. Righteous before God. But then you get to the center part.

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So Paul here, we got opening thought, and now he's kind of building off of it this way. In the center though, we got this wonderful stuff.

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He says, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, watch this,

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God has made us alive together with Christ. So you were dead. God has made you alive.

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And this is important. So we're no longer dead. He's made us alive. He's seated us with Christ in heavenly places.

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So in the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

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And now we get to one of the most quoted portions of the New Testament, and you got to keep it together because it's coming out of the chiasm and will give us the closing thought.

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For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing.

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It's the gift of God. So the salvation from beginning to end is the gift of God. Watch this.

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It's not the result of works so that no one may boast. So you are not declared righteous before God by your works.

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You are declared blameless before your neighbor by your works.

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Does that make sense? But when it comes to righteous before God, it is not the result of works.

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Does that mean that works aren't important? No, they're absolutely important.

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So we're not saved by our works. It's a gift of God. It's not the result of works so that no one may boast.

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And now the verse comes into context, and it's the closing thought. It's the bookend thought to the opening thought to being dead and walking according to your passions and under the influence of the devil and the world.

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And the closing thought is this. We are God's workmanship. It's probably better translated workmanship.

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We are created in Christ Jesus for what? For good works.

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Now is works singular or plural? Plural. And this is where the distinction is so important.

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You are not created for a unique and specific singular purpose.

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That's a singular thought. You are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

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Plural. And now this begs the question. If you are created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural, when do you begin to do those good works?

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Now. Let me kind of put it this way. My grandson, Benjamin, has he begun doing his good works?

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Yes, he has. How about Brenda? Has she begun doing her good works? Yeah. She has.

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How about Kinsley? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

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Now you are sitting there going, well actually they have already begun doing their good works. And we are already beginning to see exactly how this is so.

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Good works are not based upon achieving some singular purpose. Let's retweak our strange analogy and make it a little bit more in line with reality.

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Dwayne is amazing with spreadsheets. And so Dwayne is currently working and he is making a lot of amazing spreadsheets.

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Working in access databases, compiling all kinds of really amazing data and making it useful for people to understand.

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And let's say he stays at the job that he is at for the next 20 years. And then at the end of that, the family that owns the company, they want to give him a big send -off, and so they give him the gold watch and the big party at the end, and they send him off on his way.

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So day one of Dwayne's retirement, is he now purposeless? If you believe in the purpose -driven doctrine, he is.

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If you believe you were created in Christ Jesus for good works, the only thing that's changed is now where and who he's doing his good works for has changed.

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So think of it this way. When you were a child, you did your good works by honoring your father and your mother.

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By doing your homework, taking out the trash, doing the laundry, the chores, keeping your room clean.

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And you were not walking blameless before your parents when you sassed them and you talked back and said you would do something and then never did it.

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Right? Does Jesus count those works that you did when you were a child as good works?

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Yes or no? Yes. Were you created in Christ Jesus for those? This text says yes, you were.

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Now, when you grew up, some of you are still single, so work with me here.

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But when you grow up, oftentimes you find him or you find her. I mean,

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I found her when I was in high school. You find him or her and then you get married. So in the early part of your marriage, are there any opportunities to do good works?

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And all the wives chuckled the loudest. The senior dance. Yeah, the senior dance.

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The answer is of course. And we're going to read in Ephesians how that all plays out.

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So to walk blameless in your marriage means a few things. But then the kids show up and the dynamic changes again.

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Are there any opportunities for good works once the kids arrive in your marriage?

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Yeah. And we get into that routine and we do the parenting thing and we're hard at it.

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But like every child, they all grow up. And then they go off to college and then they find him or her and then they get married.

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And what do we become? We become empty nesters. Are you purposeless after you've become an empty nester?

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No. Are there good works that you can do? Yes. So you'll notice then that the purpose -driven doctrine has you kind of chasing, well, it's like a snipe hunt.

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This ever -elusive thing that no one ever seems to be able to catch. Just go beat the bushes a little harder.

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Maybe you'll catch a snipe. Whereas what this text really says is that we're created in Christ Jesus for good works.

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The only question now is what's a good work? And when you see this, then what happens is it relieves you in a lot of ways because in the purpose -driven doctrine, you feel like you're not doing the thing that God has made you for.

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Therefore, God's not happy with you and you're stuck in mundane work. See, rather than being on Dancing with the

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Stars, Dwayne is still making spreadsheets. And he's going home and cooking and mowing his yard and painting the fence and fixing all the things that break in a house and all this kind of...

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It's really mundane. And the purpose -driven doctrine causes you to despise, and I mean this, and to think less of the very things that God has called you to do, which are your good works.

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So there he is. He's in purpose limbo. He's still not on Dancing with the Stars. And the whole time, he's still going to work.

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He's putting food on the table, paying his bills, clothing his wife, taking care of those in need.

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And the entire time, he's frustrated and feels like God's angry with him because he has not achieved his purpose.

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And what has the devil done? The devil has got him backwards, upside down, and inside out.

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The whole time, he's doing good works. And he's rich in them. And he despises every one of them.

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And he thinks that God is angry with him because he still hasn't received his purpose.

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And worse, his pastor told him that the reason his purpose didn't show up and he's not on Dancing with the Stars is because he doesn't have enough faith and there's probably unconfessed sin in his life.

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You see it? It's total bondage. Yet, the doctrine of good works is so amazing.

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It is so amazing because it teaches us that we're already hard at it.

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And we didn't even know it. You've been doing this since you were a kid and you didn't even know it.

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And how am I so confident about this? Because when I was in fourth grade, I passed reading comprehension.

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I hate to say it, it's really kind of that simple. Let's take a look at Ephesians 5 now. In the opening chapter of Ephesians, Paul so brilliantly and so concisely assures us that we are saved by grace through faith.

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It's not the result of works. That it is a gift from God. That we are forgiven in Christ.

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That He has bled and died for us. And that the same power that raised Christ from the grave on Easter Sunday is the same power working in our lives and has raised us from the grave.

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And then, because of this amazing truth that you are a new creation in Christ, He then transitions then to how we are to walk.

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And listen to what He says. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. Walk in love.

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And so you see it. We conduct our lives as Christians. We walk in love.

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And here's the reason why. As Christ has loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.

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You see, as Christians, we are now set free. And this is where it gets very interesting.

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A little bit of a paradox. We are set free in Christ so that we are no one's slave.

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And we are set free now to become the slave of anyone we want. So that we can serve everyone.

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That's the idea. So Christ has given us the ultimate way of walking.

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Walking in love. Sacrificial love towards each other. And then note here,

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He gives a warning. A very firm warning. And this is to walk according to the world, according to the devil, and according to your sinful passions.

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So He warns people, those who will not walk in a way that is blameless.

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He says, Sexual immorality, all impurity or covetousness must not be named among you as is proper among the saints.

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Let there be no filthiness, no foolish talk, no crude joking, which are out of place. Instead, let there be thanksgiving.

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For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is, present tense, sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of God.

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So let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

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Therefore, do not become partakers with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the

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Lord. Walk as children of the light. Do you walk as light in order to become light, or do you walk as light because you are light?

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Because you are, you is, you is light. Got it? And this is why we are to walk this way.

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There was a song that way. Anyway. Right, yeah, walk this way, right?

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So walk as children of the light. For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.

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And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.

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Instead, expose them. It's shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

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For anything that becomes visible is light, therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper.

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Rise from the dead. Christ will shine on you. So then look carefully how you what?

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Walk. This is halak. This is how you conduct yourselves among your neighbors.

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How you walk. Got it? This is everything to do with how you conduct your life.

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And we as Christians, because we are light, we walk in the light, and because we are set free, we now serve, and because Christ has loved us sacrificially, we love each other sacrificially, and this is the way to walk blameless before your neighbors.

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So look carefully then how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise. And if you want a crash course on what this looks like, read the

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Proverbs. And when you're done reading them, read them again. And when you're done reading them, read them again.

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Making the best use of the time because the days are evil. So don't be foolish. Understand what the will of the

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Lord is. Don't get drunk with wine. That is debauchery. Be filled with the

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Holy Spirit. Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody to the

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Lord with your heart. Giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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And listen to this. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So we are set free now.

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And as those who are set free, we submit to one another. No, let me serve you.

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No, let me serve you. And now we get into how this plays out in the different vocations that God has put into.

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It begins with wives. And I would remind all of the husbands in the room and all of the men in the room that the thought does not end here.

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And there is a way in which this is abused. I'll talk about that briefly. Ephesians 5 .22

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says this. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the

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Lord. I'm glad it says the word own so that you don't have to feel like you have to submit to somebody else's.

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Difficult enough as it is. Let's not complicate it. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to whom?

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As to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.

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Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

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Now unfortunately, I've heard this preached as if there is a full stop here and the next verses do not exist.

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And this kind of preaching, oftentimes I like to characterize it as that kind of angry fellow who says, well, there it is, woman.

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Says submit. So you better get to submitting. Yeah, that's right. I'm the head. You better submit.

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It says it right there in the Bible. So you disobey me, you're disobeying God, woman. Now go get my slippers and give me a foot rub.

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Unfortunately, we know that fellow. And if we're honest, some of us have been that fellow, right?

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But see, that's a twisting of God's Word. It says to submit to one another.

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Next verse. And this is the important part. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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A good way to picture it is this. We've all seen a crucifix where there's the dead body of Christ on the cross.

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Next time you see that, I want you to think to yourself, that is the most masculine thing

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I have ever seen. You want to know what it's like to be a man. To be a man is to sacrifice yourself for those you love.

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To lay down your life for those who you cherish. That is true masculinity.

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Anything short of that is phony. American masculinity basically got a bunch of guys on Muscle Beach lifting weights, kissing their biceps.

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Look at me, I'm a man. I have a goatee, I've got tattoos. Well, I do. You say, there's this manliness.

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We do man things, right? We spit nails. That's not manliness. True, and I mean this, true masculinity is

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Jesus dead on the cross. Period. That's the standard.

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You want to be a real man? Show me that. And here's the reality.

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You women know this, it's true. If your husband loves you this way, you'll have no problem submitting to him.

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But the man who has to demand respect and demand that he be submitted to is the one who is serving himself, not his wife.

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And we're all guilty of this. So true masculinity, to walk blameless in love before your wife looks like Christ dead.

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Period. Full stop. Husbands, love your wives.

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Love them as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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Listen to this. I mean, the church is the bride of Christ and listen to these literally just dripping with love words.

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"...so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the

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Word." That's referring to baptism. But notice here that the one that Christ loves and cherishes,

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He bleeds and dies for and washes and cares for her and makes her holy so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing so that she might be holy and without blemish.

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Who's doing all the making holy? Christ is. And so if you sit there and say, yeah, but you don't understand how difficult my wife is.

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I would claim that Jesus has a crazier wife than you do. He is set about and focused on the task of washing her, making her holy, dressing her in splendor, presenting her without spot or wrinkle despite all of her warts, her sin, and the filth of her own sin.

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That is love. In the same way, husbands should love their wives.

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So notice, Christ then is held up as the example and you husbands, me included, you love your wives as your own bodies.

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He who loves his wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh, but he nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are all members of the body.

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Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two will become one flesh.

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And yes, this is teaching that there are only two genders. And yes, a man is to leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, not to some other fellow.

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This is what it's saying. So this is a profound mystery. I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

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However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

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So in other words, your marriage is a type and shadow of Christ's relationship to his church.

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And when people look at your marriage, the goal here is that when they see your marriage, they see a perfect picture of Christ's love for his church and the respect and honor that the church gives to her

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Lord. Now that's a totally different standard than what we're taught.

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But this is what it means to walk in love. Chapter 6.

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Children, obey your parents and the Lord. This is right. And so here we go.

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So a child obeying mom and dad, doing their chores, doing their homework. This is a good work.

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And I know it because God's commanded it. And if God's commanded it and you're doing it, is it a good work?

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Yes or no? Of course. Honor your father and your mother.

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This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you, that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.

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Man, I wish that wasn't in there. But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And now watch this.

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In the ESV it says bond servants, but I really do think the Greek word doulos here should be translated as slave.

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Slaves, obey your earthly masters. Slaves. So you sit there and go, wait a second.

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Is this text actually saying that a slave can do good works? Somebody who in this life does not even own themselves.

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And there's still slavery today on the planet. There really is.

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So let's say you decided you were going to go with a friend. They invited you on their yacht and you were sailing off the coast of Africa and Muslim slave traders raided your friend's vessel, took you all into slavery and sold you to some fellow in Sudan.

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And there's no way you're getting out of this. The rest of your days on this planet are going to be spent as a slave.

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What do you do? Well, when you're done crying, then what do you do?

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Well, I'm going to be here for a while and I remember that God's word says that I can do good works even in this situation.

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I can do good works in this situation. So whoever your owner is, you say, how may

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I serve you today? What would you like me to do? And he gives you some orders and you get to it.

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And you do it absolutely with the best that you have to offer. That's what this text is saying.

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Slaves, obey your masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would

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Christ, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, those are lazy hypocrites anyways, but as bond servants, as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will, as to the

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Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the

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Lord, whether he is a slave or is free. So if you find yourself sold into slavery and you're in Sudan, then you have to see it this way.

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The man who owns you or the woman who owns you, who is giving you the commands, stop looking at that person and see who your real master is.

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Your real master is Christ, and it is He whom you are serving through them. And these are good works.

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And then of course, there's commands also for those who own people to not threaten and things like that.

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And so now we get a bigger, fuller picture. Good works can be done anywhere, for anyone, under any circumstances, whether you own yourself or not.

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And these are the things that you were created in Christ Jesus to do, and He prepared them for you before the foundations of the earth.

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So whether you are a husband, a wife, a child, a grandparent, an employer, an employee, a slave, or even a slave owner, you have good works to do, and you were created to do them.

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And we know because God's Word says these things, that they are good and pleasing in God's sight, and you never are without a purpose.

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You were created for good works, plural. And you keep doing your good works.

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You will stop doing your good works when you stop breathing. Now, one of our

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Elithians, her name is Janet Rutenbeek. You remember I went to visit her.

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She has MS. She's near the end of her life. She can't even roll herself over in bed.

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She has no mobility, and she's in a lot of pain. But I will tell you this.

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That woman is rich in good works. You think, how so?

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She can't do anything. She prays for everyone. She is such an encouragement to all the other

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Elithians. It's amazing, her interaction with the other Elithians, with what all she has is her iPad and the ability to talk to people on Facebook.

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So she prays, and the other thing is is that she's in the vocation of what? Patient. Have you ever thought of patient as a vocation?

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It is. And so your good works as a patient are done by allowing other people to do their good works to take care of you and to encourage them.

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You will never have a day on this planet where you cannot do good works.

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So much better than purpose. So much more realistic. Now the question is, who do you see that's in need, that you can help, that you've been called to help, that you have been put in a vocation to help?

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Duane's business needs spreadsheets, and now they have the best spreadsheets that there are. Your daughters need to be educated, and you're doing a great job of teaching them.

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People need to be fed. And you're putting crops in the ground this week, and this isn't even an exhaustive list.

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Stuff needs to be delivered. His company, his company, drives trucks to take these things that we all need and deliver them to us.

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Have you ever thought of it this way? You pray daily in the Lord's Prayer. Give us this day our daily bread.

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How many people does God use to answer that prayer for you? From the farmers who put the crop in the ground and harvest it, to the people who put the seeds together and the pesticides to keep these crops from failing, to the people who buy the grain from the market, process it, turn it into bread, and the bakers who bake it, to the grocery stores that sell it, and all of the supply chain necessary to put all these things on the shelf for you.

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How many people did God use to answer that prayer? Give us this day our daily bread.

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And then think of it this way. All of the good works you're doing, so many of them,

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God is using to answer the prayers of other people that you've never heard, but He has. Your good works are the answer to other people's prayers.

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That is exciting. That's worth getting up for every day.

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That's worth pouring your life out for like a drink offering, so that at the end of the day, you're so exhausted that you just get into your bed and you fall asleep.

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And God has given you 8 hours to recharge your body, refresh your mind, give your spirit a little bit of rest, so that when you wake up, you can get back at it.

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This is so much better than a purpose. We'll leave it there.