Beyond The Basics: Obeying, Serving & Growing (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Father, we are delighted to be here this morning to be gathered together in your name.

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This Sunday, during this weekend, where we celebrate the founding of our country, the granting of so many freedoms that we enjoy today.

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Father, we praise you for that. Just pray that you would bless this time as we look into important matters of the

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Christian life. Lord, would you bless each one here. We pray in Christ's name.

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Amen. Well, you know, I'll tell you what.

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My secretarial skills get worse and worse. I don't know what I was doing when I did this. If you look at the bottom of the page, look at that.

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It starts at number one. It should be number 47. But by the time you print up 80 pages or 80 copies of something, you don't want to redo those.

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So, I changed them later. But for right now, it's just going to be 1, 2, 3, 4, which will be simple.

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We're in beyond the basics 11. Obedience, growth, and service. And this week was an interesting one for the

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Cooley family. A week ago, Saturday, a good friend of ours, actually our daughters,

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Megan and Kristen, their best friends through high school and bridesmaids in both their weddings, their father died last

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Saturday. And he was kind of the coordinator at Grace TU.

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And he died at a relatively young age. It was just interesting.

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I don't know how many of you read the Phil Johnson blog. It's not that important whether you did or not.

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But what is interesting is their response to it. Kristen was out this week. And the girls are just doing great.

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And it just got me thinking about, Kristen sent me an email. She says, you know, it's just remarkable to see how they have responded to their father's death because he really wasn't supposed to die.

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And she goes, I don't know how unbelievers do it. How do they handle something like death, you know, with no hope?

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And I just thought, and I spent some time this week reflecting about the impact that Mike Taylor had had on our daughters and on his daughters.

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And I think this topic is right in line with that. You know, how do you teach your children to obey

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God? How do you obey God? It all flows from a heart that loves him. And this is the gist of what we're going to be looking at.

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What does a child of God, one who loves God, how do they respond to the various circumstances of life?

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We're going to see. First, I want you to see obedience defined. And I took a

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Bible dictionary and defined it, submitting to the will or authority of another.

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It's logical. That's what it means to obey. You know, you say to your child, child, do you ever call him child?

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I never called my children a child. Child, you know, Kristen, Megan, Stephen want you to do this.

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And they say no. And you go, well, that's good. I'm glad you obeyed. No, they submit to your will. That's what obedience is.

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And the Old Testament has no separate word meaning obey. Obey translates the

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Hebrew word to hear. So when James says, you know, do not be hearers only of the word, what does he mean?

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It's the Jewish mindset. You hear and you obey. They're connected.

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There is no separate word for obey. If you hear something, it doesn't mean it just passes through your ear.

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In the Jewish mind, it means that you do what you are told. The concept is also expressed as keeping or observing the commandments and walking in God's ways.

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God punishes disobedience. Halfway through that paragraph in the

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New Testament, Christ is obedient to God. I just want to pause there for a second.

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Do we think about it that way? He certainly said that. He said, I did not come here to do my own will but to do the will of the

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Father. Christ is obedient to the

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Father. And Christians are called to obedience of faith, obedience to Christ, and obedience to the gospel.

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New Testament also reflects Roman social political order in calling for obedience to the state and in later writings, obedience of slaves, children, and wives within the household.

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Another dictionary says this, obedience as a biblical motif emerges primarily from the many examples of individuals whose relationships with God are characterized by faithful obedience.

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Through repeated examples of obedient responses to God's commands, the biblical narrative paints a picture of the fundamental role that obedience plays in a proper relationship with God.

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Again, just focus on that term there, a proper relationship with God.

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How many people in this world say they are God's child? How many times do you hear that?

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I'm a child of God. We're all children of God. Really? I'm a child of God but I don't care what he says.

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I'm a child of God but I'm free to do whatever I want. What kind of child is that? The Old Testament would have a word for that.

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Call it rebellious. Rebellious children were embraced, welcomed into the home, given the seat of honor.

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Or they were taken outside the city walls and stoned to death. It was one or the other. If you're a child of God, you obey

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God. Let's go down to C.

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Zane Hodges, an eminent biblical scholar, relays the story of a man who had abandoned the faith and had even mocked it.

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Now listen to this. He's talking to this man, a one -on -one, and this guy says, you know, I used to believe all these things.

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Now I don't believe them anymore. And he went on to even make fun of Christianity. Zane Hodges says,

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Oh, how disgraceful for a man to have known the truth and proclaimed the truth and then to deny the truth.

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He has put the Son of God to an open shame. Well, you say, I guess he's headed for hell, right?

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I guess he's headed for eternal damnation. He's renounced his Christian faith. Wait a minute.

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I didn't say that. Let me remind you that Jesus said, I am the bread of life.

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He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And he also said,

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He that cometh to me I shall in no wise cast out. God's will is that he lose no one.

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He has never lost anyone and he never will. And I grieve because my friend and brother has lost his faith, but Christ has not lost him.

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He has lost his faith, but Christ has not lost him. Do you believe in the grace of God?

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In other words, Hodges says it is possible to disobey Christ, disown him, and even mock him, and yet still belong to him.

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Still go to heaven. It's pretty rough stuff.

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I'm sure if we went into the context of the passages even that he quotes, I very much doubt that the idea of he that cometh,

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I haven't done this this morning, but I think if we were to take the Greek and dissect it, I doubt that he that cometh, and then

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King James, he that comes, would be a one -time act with ongoing consequences.

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I doubt very seriously that it would be written in the perfect tense, meaning he came once, that's it. He ran down that aisle.

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He signed that card. He raised his hand. That's all I need. Jesus never called for that sort of discipleship.

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Obedience, Roman numeral number 2, the bottom of page 1, obedience is a calling.

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Obedience is a calling. Believers are to be servants of Christ.

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Let's look at 2 Corinthians 3, verse 5.

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I'm going to be preaching a little bit later on today, one that I did hear some time ago in 2

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Peter about reminding people of things that they already know. Some of these things today, most of these things,

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I hope all of these things, you're already going to say, well, yeah, I believe that. Good. Keep on believing.

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Be reminded of them. Be stirred again. Examine yourselves this morning. Make sure that this is the kind of life that you're living.

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If you claim to be a Christian, a son of God or a daughter of God, a child of the

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King, then live like one. 2 Corinthians 3, verses 5 and 6.

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Who has that in the back? Thanks, Will.

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And we are servants of a new covenant. We are servants. This whole idea of obedience indicates that we belong to someone, that we're following someone, that we are, in fact, we've been purchased with a price.

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All the New Testament terminology. Let's look again at Romans 6 .18.

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On page 2, we are slaves. That's something that people typically go,

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I'm a slave. People tend not to get very excited about that.

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But it has a very specific connotation. Who has

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Romans 6 .18? Go ahead. Okay.

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Freed from sin so that we can become slaves. Why would somebody want to do that?

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Why would you want to become a slave? Bruce.

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Okay. Other thoughts, Pastor Dave? They're already slaves, right?

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Yeah. A much better condition, absolutely.

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Peggy? Well, let's put it in a little different context.

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Josh isn't here this morning, which is a shame. Let's say you went from playing Babe Ruth to the

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Red Sox. Would you be pretty happy? Or would you say, well, the

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Babe Ruth League, they were paying me $50 a game. They don't pay anything. The Red Sox are only giving me $25 a game.

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It's not a matter of that sort of thing. It's a matter of gratitude based on what we've been forgiven and a myriad of other things.

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But, yeah, I mean, our condition before, when we realized that our condition before was we were a slave to sin, we were not free.

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That's the misnomer. The idea being in the world that somehow when you become a

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Christian, you give up your freedom. That freedom was an illusion in the first place. The fact that you couldn't see it, it's a bit like, what's the

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Charles Dickens novel, The Christmas Thing, Christmas Carol, where Scrooge is, you know, visited by these ghosts and they're all in chains and stuff like that.

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Well, that's how life apart from Christ is. You're bound by these chains.

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You just can't see them. You are a slave of sin.

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It's not just that you're enjoying yourself. You have no other choice. And then you're set free from that and with a heart of gratitude, you long to serve your new master, no longer the slave of sin and of Satan, but of Christ.

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Number one there, it says, we can be slaves of our own desires or of Christ. Slaves of our own desires or of Christ.

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Romans 16, 18. Don't turn to Romans 17 because if you go there, you'll be going way too far.

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Romans 16, 18, who has that? Pretty.

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Okay, and he's talking about in verse 18, people who cause dissensions. And Paul is just pointing out, basically there are two categories of people.

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There are those who are slaves of Christ and those who are slaves of their own appetites.

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Again, dispelling this illusion that somehow, apart from Christ, you are free.

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Our responsibility, our role is to be slaves. Our responsibility is to be true disciples, to be true disciples, to be followers, to be those who want to emulate

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Christ. Let's look at Luke 14 and verses 25 to 35, and I'll read those.

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Now large crowds were going along with him, with Jesus. And he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

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Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

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For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?

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Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish.

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Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10 ,000 men to encounter one coming against him with 20 ,000?

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Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

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So then, none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

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Therefore, salt is good. But if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?

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It is useless, either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown out.

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He who has ears to hear, let him hear. First notice that discipleship is costly.

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I mean, what are some of the things that Jesus says when he's trying to express how much discipleship costs?

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What does he say? He says it could cost you your family.

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What else? Friends, wife, all those things.

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But look at verse 28. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, see if he has enough to complete it?

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He compares discipleship to building something, and then he compares it to fighting a battle.

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Why does he do that? Why does he urge people to consider the cost of being a disciple?

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Because it does cost. I think that's the first point. How many times have we heard that salvation is free?

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Salvation is free. But it costs you everything. And he's saying, consider the cost.

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Make sure that you can finish this race. If you go to the

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Middle East, many of the areas around Jerusalem are controlled by the

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Palestinians. And it's interesting to see the number of buildings that are new in their construction type, but they're partially completed, and then there's nobody working on them.

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And it looks like nobody has been working on them. And every time I look at it, I go, there may be other stories behind these buildings, but it looks like somebody said, hey, let's build a house.

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And they started, and they go, oh, out of money. What good is a half -constructed house?

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In that same vein, what good is a half -constructed disciple? Somebody who's halfway devoted to following Christ.

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Somebody who follows Him for a little while, and then says, you know, I didn't know it was going to be this hard.

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I'm out of here. I've told the story before, but I remember a young man named Jeff. I was not a

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Christian. Jeff was in the army with me. We were military policemen. And Jeff was a hard -charging party -goer.

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And one day, one of the other guys preached the gospel to him, and Jeff said he believed.

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And Jeff lived like, you know, we used to call them Bible -thumpers, you know, whatever, all the other epithets we would throw at these folks.

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And Jeff was preaching the gospel. He was going to Bible studies. He was doing all these things day and night. And then, you know, me,

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I was in the day -room shooting pool and doing all the exciting things I did, raiding the vending machines and, you know, living the high life.

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So, ooh, pizza snack, 75 cents. So those were the days.

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Ah, it's 75 cents. You can't get anything out of anything. Anyway, I digress. Jeff came in one night, and he was drunk as all get -out.

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So I said to him the next day, after he sobered up, I said, Jeff, what happened? You know,

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I thought you were all involved in this Bible thing and, you know, this Jesus deal. What happened? He said, oh,

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I just couldn't do it anymore. You know,

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I just lost it. It's not really for me. And he had pursued it.

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He had jumped headlong into it. But in the end, he hadn't really thought about what it might cost him, the things he might give up.

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Secondly, discipleship changes our priorities. Again, verses 34 and 35.

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Therefore, salt is good, but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?

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What is Jesus talking about here in 34 and 35? When he says that salt that loses its flavor is useless even for the soil or for the manure pile.

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It is thrown out. What is he talking about? Go ahead,

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Barry. Yeah, I mean, exactly right.

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I mean, in the ancient world, you know, they didn't have refrigerators. They couldn't go, hey, we've got leftovers. What are we going to do?

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Put it in the fridge. Wrap it up in tin foil and throw it. You know, salt was the main thing they used to preserve things.

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And he's saying, listen, what if you had some salt and it no longer had its power, lost its flavor, lost its ability to do anything?

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What would you do with it? Well, you know what? Even if you threw it on a manure pile, it would have no impact anywhere.

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It is absolutely useless. And that's the idea. Listen, a disciple that is no different than the world has no impact on that world, has no ability to influence that world, has no ability to save anyone.

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It is useless. And it's no disciple at all. It changes priorities because we need to think differently about everything that we do.

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If we're going to follow Christ, if we're going to name the name of Christ, we have to be different.

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We have to think differently. We have to be different people. We have to be willing to be that salt that changes things, changes people.

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Now let's go on to number C. How does God view obedience? Is it optional? Is it like Zane Hodges said, you know, hey, don't worry about that guy.

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I don't care if he's blaspheming or whatever. He once told the truth and if you did that once, you're good to go.

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I just heard this morning and I haven't really... I meant to check this out on the internet. Maybe somebody's checking it out on the internet right now, but I heard that one of the most famous pastors in the country was yesterday preaching to a bunch of Muslims and telling them that our obligation as Christians is to work together with Muslims, the two largest faiths in the world, to make a difference on poverty and all these other social issues.

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And I heard that and I go, I don't know, but that sounds like the salt losing its savor. It sounds like, listen, there are bigger issues than souls going to heaven or hell.

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I've counted the cost and I'm not willing to pay it. I'm not really that interested in those things.

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I would rather make sure that people have clean water, that people have clothing, that people are not dying of malaria.

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Those may all well be good things, but if we could eradicate malaria and still be ushering people into hell,

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I don't know how much value that has. But how does God view obedience? Is it optional?

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Can you take it or leave it? The answer is no. It's always been a requirement of God's people.

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Let's look at Deuteronomy 10, verse 12. Deuteronomy, fifth book in the

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Bible. What does Deuteronomy mean, by the way? Second law, exactly.

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There will be a quiz at the end of the class. Deuteronomy 10, verse 12.

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Who has that? Go ahead. You say, well, that was the

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Old Testament. God doesn't require that anymore. Is that right?

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I don't think so. No, absolutely not. I mean, if you just said, now church, what does the

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Lord your God require from you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love

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Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul? And if I was to put mind and strength in there, it would sound very familiar to something else.

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So let's look at Mark 12, verses 28 to 31.

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And who has that? Bruce. Sounds pretty familiar.

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Very similar, right? Jesus, in fact, quotes that. And before that,

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He put the Shema of Israel, which is Deuteronomy 6, 4. And after that, again, just adding another bit of the

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Old Testament to Leviticus. And what's

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He saying? He's saying, listen, this is still the commandment of God, has always been the commandment of God.

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When it says, first, these are the things that you need to have as your preeminent priorities.

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This is where you need to live. How does God view obedience as optional? No. The idea of a

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Christian who can just dismiss the commandments of God is nowhere found in the Bible. How does

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God view obedience? Well, it's also a standard for judgment. Let's look at Ecclesiastes 12, 13, and 14.

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We typically think of Ecclesiastes as a book of wise sayings about how to live life.

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Solomon. Who has

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Ecclesiastes? Where was I? Yeah, I'm just having trouble reading my own typing.

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Oh, 12, 13, and 14. Who has that? Go ahead, Casey. Which implies what?

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Whether something is hidden or not, God is going to judge it.

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Fourthly, how does God view obedience? Well, it's one of the ways in which we show our love for Christ, so it is a necessary component of life, of those who say that they love

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Jesus. Let's look at John 14, verses 15 and then 21. In case you think

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I'm taking it out of context, cutting and pasting, feel free to read it in context, and it will mean exactly the same thing.

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John 14, verse 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

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And then verse 21. He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my

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Father, and I will love him and will disclose myself to him. Obedience is an indication of how much we love

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Christ. If we say that we love him and we do not do what he obeys, or what he says, then what?

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The truth is in us. Somebody help me out with that. Did I mess that up,

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Pradeep? Okay, what is the right way to look at that? What's that?

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We would be lying, 1 John would tell us. How does

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God view obedience? Well, it's also given as a reason for assurance of salvation. Who can read

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John 15 .10 for me? John 15 .10.

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Yes, Pastor Dave. Okay, and how would that give us assurance of salvation?

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What does it mean? Go ahead, Peggy. That's right.

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Excellent point. You can't lose your salvation, so the issue with Jeff most likely, and hopefully at some point he got saved, but most likely if we were to look at the parable of the soils, what happens sometimes?

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The word or the seed is spread indiscriminately. People go around and preach the gospel.

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We do street evangelism. We want people to hear the gospel, to receive the seed, receive the word of God, and then what happens?

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Some people hear it, and it just kind of bounces off them.

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For some people, they never actually even hear it. For other people, they hear it, and it seems like they're receptive, and they shoot up really fast.

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They take off. They're evangelizing other people. They're running off to Bible studies, and then one

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Saturday night they come in drunk because they're just like, you know what? It's not for me because they were the rocky soil.

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They had no roots, and the old temptations, the old ways of life came back to their mind, and they just walk away because they weren't really saved in the first place.

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Pastor? My disciples.

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That's right. And again, you know, back in John 15, 10, if you keep my commandments, it's not a one -time keep.

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It's not, you know, hey, I kept them for a week. I'm good to go. No. It's an ongoing keeping, and it's interesting too because it's an ongoing abiding.

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You will abide. You will remain in my love. And then look at the comparison he makes.

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Just as I have kept my Father's commandments, did Jesus keep them in an ongoing way?

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Absolutely. Perfectly. And abide in his love. So the picture is, listen, if you do what

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I say, you will remain in my love, and those whom Christ loves will not go to hell.

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And in the same way, he says, listen, this is what I did. I did my Father's will, and I did it perfectly, and I remain in his love.

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I am his beloved, and you will be mine if you do as I say. So it is a great reason for assurance of salvation.

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Why? Because, you know, first of all, you cannot obey on your own strength, as Peggy was saying.

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You don't have that capacity to just say, well, you know, I'm going to obey. I'm going to lift the weight of the law all by myself, because by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified.

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We cannot do it on our own.

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Number six. Obedience is our ticket to heaven. What?

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What are you saying? We can work our way to heaven? Well, I don't know, but let's go to Romans and have a look.

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Maybe we can. Maybe that's what I am trying to say. I doubt it, or I'm really going to fire me as my secretary.

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Romans 5, verses 9 and 10. Who has that? Barry. We are saved by obedience, but it's not our obedience.

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How does God view obedience? Well, our obedience is not optional. It's mandatory. But are we going to perfectly obey?

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No. Ultimately, our ticket to heaven is not our own obedience. It's not our own righteousness.

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We get to heaven on the basis of perfect righteousness, perfect obedience, but it's not ours.

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It's Jesus'. And that's what Romans 5 is telling us.

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We've been reconciled by the death of Christ, and we are saved by His life, meaning we've been brought back into fellowship with God, but we get to heaven on the basis of His perfect life.

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Double imputation. I mentioned it weeks and weeks and weeks ago. Our sin credited to Jesus on the cross.

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His perfection, His obedience, His perfect keeping of the law put into our account.

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It's the best transaction in history. All of our sin, all of our violations of the law on Christ, all of His righteousness to us, we don't get to heaven just because He died for our sins, but because He lived the perfect life we are commanded to live.

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Questions or comments about that? Double imputation. There will be a quiz. Okay. Point D.

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How men have and can wrongly view obedience. Even just thinking about that,

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I'm reminded of what the Book of Mormon says about grace, that grace kicks in after all that we can do.

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We give it our best efforts. It's like if it's a 50 -foot long jump. We run and we jump, and mighty

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Steve makes it three feet probably, I'd guess, these days. And then God goes, whoa, he's not going to make it.

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Here's grace, the last 47 feet. That's really not grace at all.

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How men have and can wrongly view obedience. Saul is a classic of mostly obedience.

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He was mostly obedient. He mostly did the right thing, mostly, until later on, but not so much then later on.

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1 Samuel 15, 1 to 9. Samuel, Samuel, Kings, Kings, Chronicles, okay.

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1 Samuel 15, 1 to 9, and I'll read that. Then Samuel said to Saul, the

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Lord sent me to anoint you as king over his people, over Israel. Now, therefore, listen to the words of the

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Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself up against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt.

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Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him, but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

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Then Saul summoned the people and numbered them and tell him, 200 ,000 foot soldiers and 10 ,000 men of Judah.

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Saul came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley. Saul said to the

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Canaanites, Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you with them.

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For you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt. So the

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Canaanites departed from the Amalekites. So Saul defeated the

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Amalekites from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt.

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He captured Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

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But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good.

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And were not willing to destroy them utterly, but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

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Did Saul do anything wrong? He disobeyed

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God. But you know what? He got rid of the worst of everything. He got rid of all the bad stuff, right?

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But that's not what God said. He was mostly obedient and mostly obedient.

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You know, all these laws I've kept my entire life, I've done everything that God has ever commanded.

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Okay, well, if that's all true, then get rid of your things. Mostly obedient.

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I only sin Monday through Saturday. On Sunday, I am really good. Achan and the sin of it's a private matter.

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Let's look at Joshua 7. The Old Testament provides some excellent examples of what we ought to do and what we ought not to do.

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Here's another example of don't do this. The sin of Achan.

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Joshua 7, verses 16 to 26.

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So Joshua arose early in the morning and brought Israel near by tribes. And the tribe of Judah was taken.

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He brought the family of Judah near, and he took the family of the

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Zerahites, I don't know why I'm reading all this. Let's go to 19.

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Then Joshua said to Achan, My son, I implore you, oh, he's looking for... Let me just kind of set it up.

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They lost this battle. And before that, they'd won another battle, and they'd sacked this camp and all this other stuff.

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And when they lost this battle, they were surprised. Let me go back to 7, verse 10.

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So the Lord said to Joshua, Rise up. Why is it that you have fallen on your face? Israel has sinned, and they also have transgressed my covenant, which

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I commanded them. And they have even taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and deceived.

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And we're going to find out who that was here in a minute. Go on to verse...

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They'd won this victory, and they were commanded not to take anything and destroy everything utterly, and they didn't do that.

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Verse 19. Then Joshua said to Achan, I implore you, give the glory to the

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Lord, the God of Israel, and give praise to him, and tell me now what you have done.

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Do not hide it from me. So Achan answered Joshua and said, Truly I have sinned against the

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Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did. When I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold 50 shekels in weight, then

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I coveted them and took them. And behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it.

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So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and behold, it was concealed in the tent with the silver underneath it.

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They took them from inside the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the sons of Israel, and they poured them out before the

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Lord. Then Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zerah, the silver, the mantle, the bar of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that belonged to him.

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And they brought them up into the valley of Achor. Joshua said, Why have you troubled us?

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Talking to Achan. The Lord will trouble you this day. And all Israel stoned them with stones, and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.

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They raised over him a great heap of stones that stands to this day, and the

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Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Therefore, the name of that place has been called the

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Valley of Achor to this very day. I'm glad God doesn't deal with my sin the way he dealt with the sin of Achan.

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It's not a private matter. Achan thought he could do something when no one was looking, and it wouldn't concern anyone else, but it had an impact on initially the nation because they lost the battle, but then his entire family suffered.

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Number three, Ananias and Sapphira, and outward appearances. We're familiar with this story.

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I'll just go through it quickly for the sake of time, not realizing how late it was and needing to get on the road.

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Ananias and Sapphira, they make a display out of selling their land, giving the money to the church, and then what happens?

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Peter says, wait a minute, is that all that there was basically? He says, they had withheld some of it, and he confronted first Ananias, and Ananias had lied to the

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Spirit, to God, and he dies, and then Sapphira comes in, and the same thing happens to her.

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Why? Because they had convinced themselves that as long as nobody else knew, as long as they were putting on a show of their righteousness, of their obedience, of their faithfulness, that that would be enough, and it's never enough.

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It's always a matter of the heart. God wants our hearts to follow him, not just our outward actions.

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It's always a matter of the heart. Comments or questions? Okay, let's pray.

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Our Father, we are reminded of the great, I don't really want to call it a debt or an obligation.

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It is a responsibility, but the great joy we have of being able to obey you, being able to follow your word now that you have opened our eyes, you have unstopped our ears, you have given us a heart that beats for you, that loves you.

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Lord, would you encourage us this week as we're out in a world where many say that they are your children, where they may even name the name of Christ, but they do not want to obey you.

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They do not want to follow what you have to say. They dispute, discard, disdain the

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Bible. Father, would you give us hearts that not only want to obey you, but are willing gently, humbly, but with a heart that loves you to correct those in opposition to the truth, those who say they love you, but by their very actions deny you.

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Father, would you keep us ever mindful of our need to obey you, to be reflections of you as we long to be, in some respect, worthy of being your children.

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Father, we know that no such worthiness could ever come by our own works, but through Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray.