Biblical Counseling (part 16)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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A loving father, we thank you for this Lord's day. Thank you for bringing each of us here this morning, where we can dwell in your word that we can hear from your spirit and be transformed, oh

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Lord, by your power. I pray that all that we speak and discuss here this morning will be edifying to each of us here and will bring glory to you.

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In Jesus name we pray, Amen. Okay, so let's do what

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I intended to do last time, which was Ephesians 4 and 5, so I'm not going to, well

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I do have one preamble, but that'll be very quick. I was talking to someone at work about St.

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Patrick, with St. Patrick's Day and all, and a few years back I had done a study on biblical spirituality, and during that time

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I picked a few men from the past and had picked Patrick for one

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Sunday school morning here, and it turned out that it was also during the time of the celebration of St.

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Patrick's Day that we have here. And the sad truth is, we live in a very

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Catholic environment, and most of the people's awareness of St.

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Patrick is more on the myths and the traditions that go with it, rather than the true, the man who was truly changed by God and who had such a deep conviction, you know, as you all know he wasn't from Ireland, he was kidnapped into Ireland at the age of 16 and was working there as a slave, and then when he escaped and came back home, he came back home and studied the word and went back to the people with a call and a desire to bring

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God's word to these people who didn't know him. And one of the things that I just wanted to make a comment on today before this is, he has this book called

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The Confessions, it's a small book, easy book to read, it's nothing like all the myths and stuff that you will hear, you get to hear in that book the heart of a believer who is just passionate for God, whose heart is just so fixated upon God that everything he does just flows from his love for God and what

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God has done for him. And one thing that I wanted to just comment is, in The Confessions he says, while he was a slave, you know, there in this alien land, tending sheep, he says, you know, sometimes

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I pray like a hundred times through the day, just praying to God and pouring out my heart and just enjoying his presence, and he does that, and I did it a hundred times a night as well.

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Just this, you know, he has no one else and God was his refuge and his strength.

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And sometimes, you know, when you go through trials, we get to experience this where I don't have any of those things to fall back on, and God and God alone is my strength.

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Yesterday I went for a car ride with the beautiful weather and I was in some state parks and I was just thinking, oh

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God, you are so awesome. Sometimes we just need to be alone with the Lord to enjoy his goodness.

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Okay, so that was just for free. So let's get to Ephesians 4. So in Ephesians 4,

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I'd like us to reread that section that was connected with this aspect of Christian living and sanctification.

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So let's just read all the way from verse 25 through 32, and I just want you to remember those three categories

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Pastor Mike talked about. Oh wait, no, that's the last section, 17 through 32, which is a big section.

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Let's maybe break it up. Let's read 17 through 24. We'll break that into two halves.

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The first half from 17 through 19 talks about the past way of life.

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So as it is read, just remember, you know, this is the old me, the way I used to live.

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This is how the world lives. And then in verses 20 through 24 is your position in Christ, your conversion.

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So your past life and your conversion. So let's actually read 17 through 24. And then 25 on is what we're going to do the study today.

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So can someone read that for me? Thank you. Thank you. So let's just take a few moments and dwell on this before we go into a verse 25.

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So when you look at verses 17 through 19, you know, there are a few attributes of the previous life that are described here.

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You know, actually, before I even say that, if you look at the beginning of verse chapter four, verse one, he says,

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I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

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So there is a command for believers to walk in the way, according to the calling.

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There is a high calling that we have, and we are to follow Christ along these paths.

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And then in verse 17, he repeats that urge differently.

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Now this I say and testify in the Lord, it's a solemn call, as it were, from Paul to you that you must no longer walk as the

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Gentiles do. There is a way in which you are supposed to walk to the high calling, and there is a way that you must no longer walk.

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And what are those attributes? So I'll just pull them out. They walk in the futility of their minds.

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They are darkened in their understanding. They are alienated from God. They are separated completely because of the ignorance in them, the hardness of their heart, their callous, their sensual, their greedy.

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So here are all the attributes of someone who doesn't know God. And this is what we wear.

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So each of you would be able to recognize those aspects of life that you lived before you came to know

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Christ, and the injunction from Paul is that you do not walk in them.

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So that's where he begins. The only reason you look back at your past life is to recognize the pit from which you were saved, and that you remember not to go back to walking in those patterns.

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Any thoughts or comments on the past life? Do you ever think about your past life? And there are some sins and temptations that you used to get familiar with.

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Maybe it was alcoholism. Maybe it was pornography. There were other things that were a pattern in your life.

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Now that you've been saved, when you were saved, you would have recognized the heinousness of those things and said, you know, far be it from me.

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But then when you're walking your life as a believer today, now you are faced with some of those challenges again.

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So now, if there is no change in my life, you know, between past and present, then I have to question, you know, that verses 20 through 24, in terms of, you know, did this really happen to me?

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In fact, that's kind of what Paul says that, if indeed, I think is the word he uses here. He says, assuming that you've heard about him, but taught in him as a truth in Jesus.

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So if it has happened to you, then you have a very different way of looking at that particular sin or that particular pattern of behavior.

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And you know, this is very interesting because there is some sins in my life that, you know, on occasion

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I get tempted and sometimes for a short period of time, I might not even recognize that I'm falling into that old pattern before.

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And sometimes when the spirit of God wakes me up. The thing that I often remember is that, you know, that's who

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I was and God pulled me out of that. And it's almost like pouring cold water on my face.

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It's like, how dare I continue to do this when Christ would die on the cross on my behalf.

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And it's a strong reminder of what he rescued me from and not wanting to go back to that.

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In fact, some of the motivations for how we want to walk after Christ come from remembering what

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God has done for us in Christ. That is Christ mentioned over and over again. And so we will see in sanctification that is helpful to remember and grow.

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Anything else on this section? Looking back? Don't look back like Lot's wife. What a wonderful life

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I had. But other than that, anything else? Looking back? That's excellent.

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Indicatives and imperatives. In fact, in Ephesians, if you look, one to three are mostly, you know, indicative type truths that are given.

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And then four through six are mostly, there's a lot of imperatives. But in this section, even the next section, and this is a good segue into verses 20 through 24, you have a lot of indicatives that are given.

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There are some things that are true about you that you need to remember. And in light of that truth, then you act.

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You do something. There are imperatives or commands that are given. Indicatives state who you are. Imperatives call you to live that out in a specific way that honors

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God. So let's just look at verses 20 through 24 just briefly. So this is not the way you learned

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Christ, considering your previous way of life. So we are in Ephesians 5, 4, 20.

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And so if you have heard about him, taught in him as the truth is in Christ, to put off your old self.

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And once again, we are going to see put off in the rest of this passage. But this put off is not keep putting off.

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This is to put off. This is not you put off as a command or an imperative.

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But this is, there are a few words here that are used are all, I think they're infinitives.

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If I'm not mistaken, to put off, to be renewed, and to put on the new self.

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That's verses 22 and 23. So those infinitives that are given there are at first blush, because you have imperatives that follow in the next section.

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You might think, oh, this is what I need to do. I need to put off my old self and put on my new self. You can't do that.

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This is something God does for you. This is what happened at the time of conversion. God took your old self off the knowledge, the missing the right word.

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It's you are dead, you know, Pradeep died. That's the putting off of the old self. There's no more

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Pradeep and the old self left in me. And then I got a new self when I was born again.

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And that's so a believer has one nature, a new nature. And that is a nature that is renewed, that is mentioned in verse 23.

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So verse 23, that aspect of being renewed does continue.

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And we touched upon this a little bit last time, which is you have a new mind that you didn't have before once you came to know

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Christ, but that mind needs to continue to be renewed. So Romans 12, one and two, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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So we have a responsibility to grow in the knowledge and in the truth as God gives it to us in the word.

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So let me pause here again for a moment, 20 through 24. Any thoughts on your position in Christ?

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What has changed you? Because this is really key in terms of the next step of sanctification or counseling or growth.

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So there is something that is just remarkable. And this is the miracle that happens in conversion.

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Every single believer has a new self. This is one of those big puzzles, you know.

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I know what you meant. What was the word you were looking for? You're thinking of judicial or, right, like Romans 5, right?

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So back to what you originally said. So I think maybe even connecting back to what

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Daniel was saying, it's like, okay, if I'm a new self, I'm still sinning.

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You know, there was the old self that loved to sin. There's a new self that doesn't like to sin, but it still keeps sinning. You know, what

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I know in my... So, you know, when we think of salvation, we have justification. That's the position, the text we are talking about now.

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Then there is a sanctification where our practice grows in holiness. We are declared righteous.

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Now we walk in righteousness. But then there is a glorification in heaven one day when I cannot sin.

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I will not sin. I will not even have the presence of sin in my life. But that's a future state that I'm looking forward to.

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This was my past state, but my parents' present state is confusing. It's like, if I am a new self, then why do

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I sin? And MacArthur says, you know, you're not as schizophrenic with your old self and your new self, you know, back and forth.

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It's you have a new self, a new identity, your old is gone, dead, nailed to the cross.

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It doesn't exist anymore. But the Bible uses a different language to talk about why the new self still struggles with sin.

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You're right. So in the glorified state, we will not have one thing that we have now today.

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And the biblical term for that is flesh. You still struggle with the flesh in your redeemed new self that you are.

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You have a new self now, but you still have something called the flesh, and that flesh will not be there with you in your glorified state.

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Now, what is the flesh? I think, you know, we can just spend the rest of our Sunday school talking about it, but it's not just your, it's not your body.

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You know, sometimes it's like, oh, my flesh, you know, I take off all my muscles. I'm just a skeleton. I'm probably good. No, that's not what it is.

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There is a sin principle that is still at work in the redeemed believer's life.

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I think Pastor Mike quoted somebody when he said, it's your sin hangover from your former life.

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And I think I'll just leave it at that. So there is a future state, but we will not have that happen.

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But our new self still has to struggle with the flesh, and we will grow in righteousness. And I think that's the beauty of sanctification.

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When you look at your conversion and you look at, you know, the day before you die, you have a new heart, you have a new mind that is renewed.

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It was a dead mind, a futile mind. It was a calloused mind before. And now what you have is a mind that is being renewed.

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It was renewed one time, and it will continue to be renewed. And you get to see the power of God that has been, that worked in you, now continuing to work and transform you until one day you step into glory.

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All right, that was a short answer. Yes. Amen. I love

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Philippians 2. I think I've used it many times here. You know, it's God who is at work in you, both to will and to do.

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So you have something that is just unthinkable in your past life.

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You have God himself who is at work in you. And that's the hope that we have in the midst of our sanctification.

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It's like, yeah, I can't do it, but God can. And I have the responsibility to work it out.

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Like you said, I can just emphasize, oh, I'm positionally great, coast, you know, oh, no, that's not, that's exactly the opposite of what a

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Christian life is. And that whole past, which is the putting off, and then the future, which you're pressing forward to and you put on, and those are crucial in our walk in holiness and following after Christ.

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And all of that stems from being in Christ, Christ being our savior, our friend, and our redeemer, not just in position, but through life as we grow.

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All right. So I think that's a great place to go into the next section, which is the sanctification, putting off and putting on.

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This is an ongoing thing that you need to live while you still have the flesh on this side of eternity.

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So let's have someone read 25 through 32, and we'll walk through it.

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Thank you, Ian. And you can see in this section, there is more contrast, right, falsehood, truth, thief stealing versus working and giving, corrupting talk coming out of your mouth versus words that build up and give grace, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice on one hand versus kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness.

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So you have these contrasts constantly listed out by Paul, just to remind your past way of life, your new person in Christ and what you should press on.

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But it ends with this, you forgive as God in Christ forgave you.

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So let's maybe do this. We have maybe 15, 20 minutes or so.

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Let's just pick a couple of these areas. In fact, if you scan ahead into chapter five, there's a few more there that are listed as contrast.

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So let's just pick a couple and then work through them. So which of these would be helpful for us to engage in terms of sanctification today, in terms of how we can grow in righteousness, in terms of putting off things that are ungodly and putting on things that are

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Christ -like. Excellent.

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So let's start right there in verse 25. Having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

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So here, talking in terms of body life, as we are talking with believers, we are members of one another.

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I think one of the commentators said, just imagine you have one member of your body, physical body, wanting to communicate with another part of your body, which is your eye.

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And your eye decides to lie to your hand. Your eye is now saying, okay,

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Pradeep, your Bible is here. You know, it's transposed like, you know, whatever, that water stick in the water bending type illusion.

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It's now lying to your eye and saying, it's here. And you're like, okay, where is my Bible? You can't kind of function as a body if all of your members don't kind of communicate truthfully to each other and work together.

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And here in the church body life, each of us are members of Christ's body.

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And we can't function as God's body if we are not speaking the truth with one another.

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So that's kind of the broad focus. But now let's just kind of apply it more specifically.

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What are some of the challenges that Paul is trying to address? Put away all falsehood and then speak the truth with your neighbor.

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How does this look like in real life? Okay, you took us down a slightly different path, which

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I could spend the rest of the Sunday school on. That's a great, honestly, that was a great point. And I'll get your hand in the back in a moment.

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And I think, you know, you want to always speak the truth. So you know, you don't, like you said, speak falsehood just for the sake of pleasing people.

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We are not men pleasers. But I was kind of going somewhere a little different. I think yours might have to do more with courage, wisdom, and how do you engage with people with differing viewpoints.

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And let me pause there because I think you have a comment in the back. Excellent. And I think, you know, that's kind of the direction where I was going to go, which is there is a couple of things here.

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The most simple basic thing is don't lie, right? Don't lie. Don't lie explicitly.

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Don't lie implicitly. Don't lie with, you know, a lot of white elephants, white lies, right?

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Not white elephants. I'm mixing two things. You know, whiteness, brown. I mean, Pastor Mike referred to this in his message.

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It's like I can find a thousand different excuses to bring falsehood without necessarily recognizing it.

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And some of that falsehood, as you just mentioned, is me believing something that is false, contrary to the truth of scriptures.

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So lie, the father of lies is the devil, right?

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I mean, Jesus and John talks about you lie because you are of your father.

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No, that's murder. I'm mixing verses. So does anybody remember where Jesus says? Nobody does.

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Okay, I'll find it and I'll let you know. I just don't remember where right now, but you're right.

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Okay, so let's come back. So just lying, is that a struggle for believers or is this one of those glorified state of believers that everything that comes out of my mouth is 100 % true all the time?

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It's that previous first section that we just read, you know, darkness, futility, you don't have it, callous, and unless the spirit of God works, you can't quite see it.

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That's excellent. Actually, this is kind of bridging the gap between the two of you, what you said, you know, you use like, you know, more physical truths, like whether it's masks or whatever, you know, that you believe to be true.

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And here you're talking about theological truths that are masked by some practices. And both of those have to do with courage and wisdom and how you're going to engage.

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And in fact, actually, on Friday, I had a lunch with a colleague who was Roman Catholic, and our cafeteria served up fish.

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And so, voila, here's a great conversation. And the truth is, theologically, this person didn't know what the difference was.

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And it was fine. You know, this is an opportunity to be able to speak the truth and do it in love and explain that there is a difference between the motivations for certain practices.

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And here is the marvelous truth of it is finished on the cross.

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Absolutely, when you're talking about, you know, encountering different worldviews, different belief systems, you want to be able to be faithful and true to God and speak the truth and do it in love.

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I was going somewhere slightly different with this, and I'll come back to you, I was going to ask you because you speak truth.

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One of the things that you would have with Ephesians would be like, you know, if you think of Cretans, all Cretans are liars.

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You know, that was their practice. You know, they like, and actually, I don't know if I could say all

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Indians are liars, but there is a there is a certain ways in which the culture does certain conversations with people.

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And there is, you know, that falsehood can be either black and white falsehood or it can start to creep in where you start to say things that may be shading the black and white into more gray stuff.

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And so that could be a danger if you are an Ephesian and or or a

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Cretan and you're used to this way of life and you're like going to put away all falsehood. That's not the way we know.

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Everything that comes out of my mouth is true. Just hold on. Let me get Gary first. Yeah. Yeah. So there is a right way to deal with conflict within the church.

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And Matthew 18, you're talking about if someone. You have an offense, you have something between another believer, you go talk to them in private and then keep doing that.

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Just don't talk to them once and then escalate it. And then if you can't work it out between the two of you, then get someone else.

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And then so that there's a third person with which you can work this thing out. And if not, then you bring it to the church.

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And then there is a way in which you deal with sin and error inside the body. And that's a great point.

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So let's oh, OK. So there was he does not because I thought he said he's the father of lies there.

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But I remember it's a murderer, but it does say talk about truth as well. They're OK. Absolutely.

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And I think that's kind of where I was going is like, OK, what are some of the challenges we face here? You know that we want to be careful of and grow in.

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Oh, OK. Great. So we did find the right passage. John 8. OK, thank you.

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So, you know, I'm not going to belabor this, but. You know, we normally have the example of taxes, right?

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Don't cheat in taxes is one of those things where you're like, OK, you know, this looks somewhat gray enough.

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And I don't know whether this is the right thing. I don't know. Always be honest and open. That's not not towards believer this towards outsiders.

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And OK, let's pick something else that's a little more stronger that we can directly apply within here.

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So is there any other aspect of putting off? Or did you have some excellent?

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I'm so glad you you laid all of those things out there, because, you know, when you are a believer,

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I like to say this. You have the word of God shining on you. Your mind is illumined to the sins that are just so heinous and surrounding you.

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And you want to put away all of these things. But you still don't know all that the word of God is speaking. So the more you get immersed in the word, as his light shines in your life, that circle starts to expand.

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And then you get to see, oh, you know, there are other things I need to deal with. And that's one of the beauty of church life is, you know, you have immature believers who just out of the womb, as it were, and growing or not even crying for milk of the word.

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And then you have other believers who've been to battlefields and have all the scars and have grown in their faith.

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They have those muscles and six packs and they can come and come alongside and help those baby

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Christians as they walk along. And there are some sins that people don't recognize and you can help one another in terms of growing in sanctification.

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That's excellent that you brought that. I want to just pull that a little bit more and maybe connect it with anger.

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So if you look in terms of how you speak the truth.

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In verse 29, you know, there's a beginning in verse 29. There's words that are said, right?

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The talk should not be corrupting, but building up. That's the word for edifying in the older language.

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And as it fits the occasion in order that it might give grace to those who hear. So you want to speak the truth.

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You want to speak it in love. Your desire is to build up this person. And, you know, I might have a dump load, truckload of truth and I can back up, beep, beep, beep, buried and gone.

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That believer is never waking up again. You know, you want to have wisdom in the way in which you want to speak it with grace.

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That it may give grace to the people that need it. And the same thing with 31 and 32, you know, anger.

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I can look at sinful behavior of other believers and I could actually just become resentful or, you know, or I could just open the door and bring the wrath of God on this person.

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Or I can be kind, tenderhearted, just as God has forgiven me. I forgive this person.

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So there is a there is a living out of the gospel in all of these things.

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And so let's maybe pick anger up. So I know we are almost out of time. Any examples of struggles we have with anger, what we can explicitly put off in those list of anger related things and then how we can explicitly put on.

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How does this help in our own sanctification? And then if you turn the dial up to counseling, what might be needed here?

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Excellent. Let me just make a slight comment there. So there is sinful anger and righteous anger, right? So you have

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Jesus exhibiting righteous anger. He never sinned. And all of those moments of anger where it says, you know,

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John to zeal of the Lord had consumed me. There was a there was a righteous anger that he exhibited.

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And I think when we look at verse 26, I think that's kind of what we are talking about there.

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You know, you might have a zeal for the Lord that provokes your spirit.

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Like Paul in Acts 17 looks at all the idols and it says that he was pretty upset when he saw all of these falsehoods being lifted up.

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You know, whatever it is that you see in the news relative to that. But if you read the rest of Acts 17, when he actually comes to the audience and speaks, you're like, that's not what

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I would have spoken if I was like provoked in my spirit. But he speaks the truth with so much love and and wisdom.

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And that was gospel centered. You know, it's like I'm not just angry that you're worshiping all these false idols, but I'm going to talk about that one little thing that you don't know anything about that unknown

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God. And I'm going to use that now to speak the truth and love. And so the question is, if you have righteous anger, don't let it simmer.

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And I think that's one of the dangers that we have, like especially if you talk about news and politics or whatever else.

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Brothers, sisters, I think one of the biggest dangers we've had in these last two years is we may have been right on a lot of things, but we have failed miserably in the way in which we've responded in a way that honors

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God. You know, we can speak the truth all day, not about political things or other things does nothing.

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Absolutely. It's the gospel spoken in love that the spirit of God uses in order to bring salvation to those whose minds are darkened.

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And so we want to always ask ourselves a question. When I'm angry, there may be a right reason to be angry. Don't let the sun go down on your anger.

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Make sure you deal with it. Don't dwell on it, whatever that error is. And focus instead on the other list that is given here.

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Be kind, be tenderhearted, be forgiving. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, in that section, you have wrath before anger.

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Wrath is like this, boom, you know, I get so angry. I'm mad. I'm just going to explode. And anger there can refer to, you know, the sinful anger that just festers and then it gets into all the other other stuff.

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You're right. Okay, so we should close. I did have one thought, but I can't remember it now.

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Yes, this is the most important thought. I'm glad I remembered. So, okay, faith and works, right?

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You got justified by faith alone, right? Your sanctification is not by works.

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It is by faith. You have to always remember that, you know, this, all of this stuff we just talked about is not me just saying, okay,

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Pradeep's got the new self. All right, let's do it. No, it's Philippians 2, what was said before is

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God who wills gives you the desire to do these things and the power to do it. And even more than that, then the ability is your motivation and your desire for this.

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Christ has saved me. I love my savior. And I look to Christ and all of these things.

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So, you know, we, we remember, we want to remember Jesus as my savior. He saved me from, he justified me.

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He is sanctifying me. And one day I will be glorified. And, uh, you know, I used this last week, 1

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John 2, we want to walk as Jesus walks. So as you look for, okay, how does it look like to be angry and not sin?

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How does it look like to put off all anger and be kind and tenderhearted? You know, look to Christ, let the, you know, your understanding of the gospels just transform the way in which you respond to the body as well as your culture.

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All right, let's pray. Loving father, we thank you for saving us.

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We thank you for working with us patiently. Help us, oh father, as we respond to truth, as it is spoken to us and help us to speak the truth to one another in love and help us a lot to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is you who are at work in us.