WWUTT 1964 Treasures in Heaven, Part 2 (Matthew 6:19-24)

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Jesus said the eye is the lamp of the body, so that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

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But if your eye is bad, your body will be full of darkness when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. Back to our passage today in the Sermon on the Mount. We're in Matthew chapter 6, verses 19 to 24, and I'll begin reading here that section from the

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Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

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But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body, so that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

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But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

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No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

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You cannot serve God and wealth. We get to part two of the sermon today, entitled

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Treasures in Heaven. Focusing on that next part, those three verses 22, 23, and 24, that begins with Jesus saying the eye is the lamp of the body.

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Consider the next section of Matthew chapter 6 verses 22 and 23. The eye is the lamp of the body, so that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

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But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

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Now it almost seems like Jesus is kind of leaving the subject there for a little bit, because we go from verses 19 through 21, talking about where your treasure is, and then we get to verse 24, where Jesus says no one can serve two masters, either he will hate the one or love the other, you cannot serve

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God and wealth. So he's talking about treasure in the first part and in the third part, but the second part, he's talking about light and darkness.

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Where did we go in the subject here? Well, no, he's still talking about exactly the same thing. Whatever you set your eye to, that's what you desire.

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What's your focus on? What do you want? That's the desire of your heart.

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The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. If you're setting your eyes on Christ, what will your desires be?

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Christ. What will be the condition of your heart? Will it be darkness or will it be light?

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We see this contrast between light and darkness constantly throughout the scriptures. John 3, 19, this is the judgment.

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The light has come into the world and the people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

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John 8, 12, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

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John 12, 46, Jesus said, I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

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And John continues this motif even into his epistles. In 1 John 1, 5, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

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We have continued instructions to walk in light and not in darkness. Romans 13, 12, the night is far gone.

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The day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

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2 Corinthians 6, 14, what fellowship has light with darkness? And Ephesians 5, 8, at one time you were darkness before we came to Christ, we were walking in darkness, but now you are light in the

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Lord. Walk as children of light. Even the pagans understand this contrast between light and darkness.

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You can read pagan philosophers who will say that to gain knowledge and wisdom and understanding is light for the mind, but to be ignorant and to walk in foolishness is darkness.

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You will hear from those who commit themselves to transcendental meditation, meditating with the mind or even investing their entire bodies into a certain spiritualness, not a godly spiritualness, but that which we would consider to be darkness.

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Nevertheless, they would say if you meditate, your body will be full of light. The Gnostics, which is one of the greatest heresies that the apostles had to contend with during the writing of the

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New Testament, in the epistles, in the letters that they wrote, the Gnostics believe that we are inherently light.

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But what we read in the scriptures is that we are inherently darkness. We are born in sin.

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We are in rebellion against God. We want to go after that which is not of God. We want to go after the desires of our own flesh.

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We want to go after the things of this world. That is our natural disposition. But John 1 says that Christ came into this world as light.

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And what does that light illuminate to us? He reveals to us our sin, how unholy and depraved we truly are, especially when compared to a holy

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God. He shows to us our need for a Savior. And the illuminating power of the

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Holy Spirit that is poured into our hearts shows us Christ is that Savior.

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When we mourn over our sin and our wickedness that we have committed against God, and having our eyes open to see, we look to Christ who is our

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Savior and our God. What we set our eyes upon, our body will be full of that.

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If we set our eyes on Christ, the body is full of light. But if your eye is bad, if you desire the things of this world, if you want to go after your sin, your whole body will be full of darkness.

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If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? Sometimes I am utterly appalled at myself.

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When there are moments when sitting alone, I get caught daydreaming and I will think back to former days.

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And I will think back to former ways of my own selfishness and sinfulness.

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And I'll think about a particular sin that I did way back when. And this is how corrupt my own human mind is if I were left to my own devices.

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I will think back on that sin and I will think to myself, what if I had just gone a little bit further? What if I had gone ahead and enjoyed that sin then?

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Because I certainly couldn't do it now. I have way more to lose now. So why didn't I just go ahead and go further into that sin back then?

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Then I could have the memory of what it was like to have done that, to have experienced that. And then

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I'm just absolutely beside myself that I would think something so wicked.

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If only I could have had that sin back then. How wicked is that? Why can't my desire be,

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I wish I had been walking in righteousness back then and not flirting with those awful, wicked, sinful desires that so very nearly destroyed me if not for the mercy of God.

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This is how dark and corrupt my own heart is. And I repent in those moments that I even wish for something back then that was against God.

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And ask God to forgive me and give me light in my spirit, not longing after the things of darkness, but going after the light that is

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Christ. Jesus goes on in Matthew 6, 24 to say, no one can serve two masters.

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You're either standing in darkness or you're standing in light. You cannot have one foot in the darkness and one foot in the light.

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Either he will hate the one and love the other. Or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

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What is Jesus talking about here? Well, he cuts to the chase in the last sentence. You cannot serve God and wealth.

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There's another way you've heard this, right? You cannot serve God and what? Money. I heard money, right?

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Some of your translations may even say that. You cannot serve God and wealth. You cannot serve God and money. What's another word?

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Mammon, right? You cannot serve God and mammon. What is mammon? Well, some might say, well, this is a

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Greek word for money, right? After all, the gospel of Matthew is translated from Greek.

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So you just have the Greek word for money and that's translated into money or wealth.

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No, the word mammon is actually a Chaldean word. And it was the word that the

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Chaldeans use for the personification of wealth. Basically, if your money could be a personality and it could step up and walk around and you could be friends with it, that's mammon.

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But instead of just being friends with mammon, it actually becomes your master. And you want to do everything that you can to please your master mammon.

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Because if I please this master, he will give me all the stuff that he's got that I really want.

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It's like a covening after a person who doesn't really exist. If I could just get what he's got, then

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I would be content, right? Then I would have peace. Then I would finally have all that I could ever possess and I could go through life with joy.

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But God says you cannot serve God and mammon. This made up God, this false

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God named mammon that you're trying to serve, you can't. Serve him and serve God.

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You might even try to quantify it out. Well, I give 99 % of myself to God.

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There's just like 1%, just like a little part of me over here that just wants these things. And if I could just get that, then

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I would truly be happy. What you've just confessed is that 99 % of God is not good enough for you.

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I have to have this one little tiny speck over here in order to truly find contentment.

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And you've really made that your God, because that's what you really need in order to be happy.

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That's what you've set your sights upon. That's what you worship. Remember, we talked last week about fasting.

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The quote from John Piper, what a person hungers for, that's what he worships.

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You can translate that out many other ways. What you set your eyes upon, that's what you worship. What you desire, what you yearn for, what you long to possess, what you think you need in order to be happy, that's what you worship.

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Jesus says you cannot serve God and mammon. You're going to love one and you're going to hate the other.

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In Luke 17, 32, Jesus gave a very simple command. Remember Lot's wife.

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You know who Lot's wife is, right? Remember when I was a kid, I was handed a coloring page of Lot's wife.

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My friend Isaac was sitting across from me at the table that I was sitting at and we're looking at this page and we're supposed to color

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Lot's wife. We just talked about Sodom and Gomorrah. We were excited about coloring

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Sodom and Gomorrah. We get to color fire. This will be fun. That's what we thought as kids.

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But we didn't get coloring pages of a city burning in flames of thousands of people being killed under the righteous judgment of God.

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No, what we got a page of was a picture of Lot's wife. We're supposed to color this. She turned to salt.

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How do you color Lot's wife? Well, I'm done. There you go. Slide the paper across the page.

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There it is. White Lot's wife. God's judgment was going to come down on these two wicked cities.

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Sodom and Gomorrah and everybody else that lived there in the plains. Abraham pleaded with God that he would not destroy them.

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He begged, God, if there's 50 righteous people there, will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?

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God says, if there's 50 righteous, I will not destroy them. Abraham starts whittling it down.

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45 righteous, 40 righteous, 35, 30, 20, God, what if there's only 10 righteous people there?

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Will you wipe out these entire cities and the righteous along with them? But God knew who was truly righteous and who was truly wicked in this city.

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He said, if there are 10 righteous, I will not wipe them out. There was only

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Lot. And the angels went into Sodom and rescued

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Lot and his family out of there. And we know how wicked his family was. I don't have to give you details.

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They said, you have to flee and you need to run far, far away from here. And I will not destroy these cities until they are wiped out.

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And Lot said, what you're telling us to do, that's even too far. Let's go to this little town over here. Let's go to Zoar.

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Let us stay there. Is it not, you know, habitable? Can we not go right there?

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And the angels said, sure, you can go to that town, but you must not look back.

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And as they were fleeing the cities, as the judgment of God was raining down on these two wicked cities,

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Lot's wife looked back. She stopped and looked at the judgment that was coming down upon these wicked places, and she turned into a pillar of salt because the desire in her heart was not for the salvation of God that was being given to her.

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The desire in her heart was for the cities that were coming into destruction, and she would rather have had that than the salvation of God.

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And so, Jesus says, remember Lot's wife. My friends, we are presently fleeing cities of destruction.

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As we are in Christ, we are running to salvation, and we are running away from the wrath of God that is coming against this fallen world.

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And this world is so wicked. If you don't see that, it might be because you still want the stuff of this world.

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What the LGBTQ movement wants to do to your kids is so evil and so bad, it would make

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Sodom and Gomorrah blush. That's how wicked this world is.

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Don't desire it. As we are fleeing the destruction that is to come, we are passing people on the way who are walking to the cities of destruction.

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Like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, may we say to them, flee from the city of destruction.

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Come with us to the celestial city. Jesus Christ, who is our Savior, who died on the cross for our sins, who rose again for our justification, who has ascended into heaven where he has promised us,

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I am preparing a place for you. And if our desire is

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Christ, we are saved from the destruction that is coming against this world of judgment.

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Sodom and Gomorrah serve even as examples, it says in Jude verse 7, of the punishment of eternal fire that is to come.

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Flee from the judgment. Go to Christ. Cling to him.

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Hold fast. He is our salvation in these wicked days.

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Remember Lot's wife. In 1

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Timothy chapter 6, we read in verse 17, command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty or to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

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The wonderful things that we can enjoy in Christ are not just for the eternity that is to come, though that is the wonderful precious promise that we should hold dear to our hearts even as we live in these present days.

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But the joy that is in Christ Jesus is something that we can enjoy even now.

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He is our contentment. He is our peace. Paul goes on to say, command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, and to be ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasures of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

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Earlier in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6, Paul said, Godliness is actually a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.

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For we have brought nothing into the world so we can take nothing out of it. And if we have food and covering with these, we shall be content.

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But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare in many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

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And you've heard this verse many times. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils.

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And some, by aspiring to it, have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many griefs.

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My friends, I stand here this morning to tell you that there is a solution to your griefs. There is a joy to your pain.

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There is a hope in your suffering. There is forgiveness for your sin.

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There is righteousness that covers over your wickedness. And it's in Christ.

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And you set your eyes on Christ. You set your heart upon Christ. You do whatever it takes to put off this world that you may put on Christ.

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And you will have life everlasting. If you are here today and you don't know

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Christ, then I pray that you'll remain. You will talk with me. You will visit with Andrew.

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You'll talk with David. You'll talk with Mark, any of the pastors, Doug, any of the Sunday school teachers because we would love to share with you what it means to be a

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Christian and a follower of Christ. To know that you're saved from the destruction and wrath of God that is to come.

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And we have eternity above where Christ is. Forever with God in glory.

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Let's finish there with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness toward us.

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Forgive us our sins. Search us out, find any hidden faults. May we be convicted of our sins so that we may come before you and repent and be washed clean.

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That we may open our eyes and look upon Christ and the darkness in us be vanquished.

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Fill us with light. May our desire be Christ and our hearts set heavenward where Christ is.

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It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. This has been When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .wwutt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.