Article 29 Sanctification

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I've said several times, if I were ever asked to preach at a moment's notice, I would preach Romans 5.1, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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So that is a passage, now that we've read it together, I would encourage it to your memorization.
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But we're going to move on in the book.
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Look, if you don't have your confessional book, you won't be able to read along, but if you have a phone or internet, you can look it up.
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We're going to look at Article 29, and I want to remind you that the headings from this book were not part of the original document.
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These headings have been put in by the ones who created this booklet.
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So the original brothers who wrote the 1644, and then the edition that we look at, the 1646 Confession, did not put these headings in.
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So when Brother Andy tonight was speaking on justification, yes, we believe that's what that is about, but that heading was added later.
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And the same goes for what I'm going to be looking at tonight, is sanctification.
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And I do want to sort of begin, before we read the Confession, I just want to clarify something that I think is important, and I think many of you may know this, but just in case you don't, when we talk about salvation, we often talk about salvation as something that has already happened, something that is happening, and something that will happen.
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And the terms we use are, we are saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved.
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And so, understanding it in that term, we tend to qualify those three statements with three theological terms.
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So Brother Andy already talked about justification, and that is that we have been saved.
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We have been justified.
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Therefore, having been justified, that's a past tense completed action.
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It's already done.
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This is what I would preach.
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Again, if I were asked to preach, I would preach that if you are a believer, you have already been justified.
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You understand, in Roman Catholicism, that's not what they believe.
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In Roman Catholic theology, justification is something you look forward to, not something you possess, not something that happened in the past, but something that will happen as long as you mind your P's and Q's and don't fall into any mortal sins.
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Remember, that is what causes you to lose the grace of justification in Roman Catholic theology, is to fall into mortal sin.
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So justification is having been saved, right? This is the past tense.
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And then we have the future tense of glorification.
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Glorification is what is going to happen when we leave this flesh, this bondage of flesh that Paul talks about, this body of death that Paul talks about, and we go into the new heavens and the new earth.
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We will experience glorification.
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And you know what's great about glorification from God's perspective? It's as if it already happened.
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If you read Romans chapter 8, it says those whom he foreknew, he also predestined, he conformed to the image of his son, and those whom he predestined, he called.
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Whom he called, he justified, and whom he justified, he glorified.
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And he uses it in the past tense, as if it's already taken place, because God can use the prophetic perfect.
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What that means is he can speak of something that will happen as if it already has happened because God is not bound by time.
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And so we have that prophetic perfect tense, which is odd because we don't think of ourselves as having been glorified, but we have in God's mind because it's without dispute that it will happen.
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As we talked about Sunday, it's secure in him.
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So in justification, we could say we are saved from the penalty of sin, and in glorification we can say we are saved from the presence of sin.
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One day it will be no more.
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But in between justification and glorification, there exists what we would call the being saved portion of our salvation, and that is what we call sanctification, and that is saved from the power of sin.
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Yes, I was able to bring an alliteration in.
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Aren't you proud of me? I am always happy to bring in alliteration.
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So salvation, we are saved once and for all from the penalty of sin, and we are currently being saved from the power of sin.
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And one day we will be saved from the presence of sin.
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So knowing that and the theological jargon, I'd like to now read the confession as it expresses what we believe about sanctification.
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All believers are a holy and sanctified people, and that sanctification is a spiritual grace of the new covenant.
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If you have a book and it's your book, you might want to underline that phrase, the new covenant, because what we're going to really be addressing tonight is this is a blessing of the new covenant that is distinguishable from the old covenant.
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We have a certain blessing of spiritual indwelling that is a blessing of the new covenant, and it affects our sanctification.
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Going on it says, and an effect of the love of God manifested in the soul whereby the believer presseth after a heavenly and evangelical obedience to all the commands which Christ as head and king in his new covenant hath prescribed to them.
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Notice the phrase new covenant comes up twice in this one article.
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And as I was studying for my portion of tonight's lesson, I really took to heart the fact that it says it twice, and that I think that the brothers were making a point there to identify something about our current situation.
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One of the things that I think is often missed between our situation and the situations of those prior to Pentecost is that we now live with a different administration of the Holy Spirit.
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This is not one of the texts on the list.
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We are going to look at those texts, but think about what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit.
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He says, I come and I'm with you, but I'm going to go away.
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And then the helper, which that's the ESV, I hate that.
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I like the King James, the comforter, right? He will come and he will be with you forever.
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He will be in you.
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He will reside, make his home in you.
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And remember, that's different administratively than the old covenant.
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Where was the presence of God in the old covenant? Go ahead.
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The temple, right? Yeah, the Holy of Holies, right? That is where we would say that the presence of God resided in that place.
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Now you could say, well, God is everywhere.
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Yes, God is everywhere, but is God not within you? Is God not within you differently than he is in an unbeliever? So when you start saying God is everywhere, speaking of his omnipresence, you then you have to make a distinction in how God is everywhere, because we are not pantheists.
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We do not believe God is in the trees and in the ocean like the like the Native Americans who would worship the trees and the wind and all those things, because they believe that God was intricately connected with those things.
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We believe that God is everywhere in the sense that the Bible says in Psalm 139, I can go to heaven.
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You're there.
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I go down to Sheol.
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You're there.
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I can't escape your presence.
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That's what we mean when we say God is everywhere.
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But we do know that there are times when we are in the presence of God uniquely.
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Moses, when he said before the burning bush, what did the Lord say from the bush? Take thy shoes from off thy feet for the ground upon which you stand is holy.
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Why is it holy? It's because I'm here, right? The presence of the Lord is uniquely here, right? Why were the men who were the high priest, why were they only allowed to go in once a year to the sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies, why? Because the presence of God was uniquely there, right? And why is it when Christ died on the cross, that when the temple, when Christ died, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, demonstrating that it was God doing the tearing.
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Why did that matter? Because it showed a new administration of the spirit and the new covenant that now the Holy Spirit no longer would only abide within the temple, but he would make his abode in the hearts of his people.
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Do you see the distinction we're making, right? So now, looking at this part of the confession, the brothers are tying our sanctification in with our possession of the spirit.
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And I think Paul does this.
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If you read Romans, as Brother Andy already mentioned, Romans 1 to 3 is how bad we are, Romans 4 and 5 is how we are justified from that badness, and then chapter 6 through 8 is now the outworking of the spirit in our lives, now that we have been justified.
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Paul says, should we continue to live in sin? Certainly not, right? That's chapter 6.
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Then in chapter 7, there's a highly difficult passage about the law and the spirit and the flesh and all those things.
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But then you get to chapter 8, and what is chapter 8 about? Living the spirit-filled life.
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Chapter 8, it begins with no condemnation, it ends with no separation, that's the beauty of chapter 8, but the whole chapter is about living a life filled with the spirit.
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That really is what sanctification is.
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People always talk about sanctification as being conformed to the image of Christ.
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That's the textbook definition.
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Sanctification is the process by which we are conformed to the image of Christ.
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But who is conforming us? Who is the artisan? Who is the one who is shaping us? It's the Holy Spirit within us.
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And the spirit who's come to live within us is shaping us into the image of Christ.
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He's knocking off the rough edges.
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He is flattening out those very difficult parts of us, and I don't know how you feel.
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Well, I have, this is now 2021, which means that I have been in the Lord by His grace for 22 years, because I became a Christian in 1999.
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So somewhere 22 years ago, I don't remember the date exactly, I was saved.
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And I know this, God is still working on me mightily, because I certainly have many rough edges yet to be honed.
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But I am not the same man I was 22 years ago, either.
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And that, I remember, in fact, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a story, a good story.
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John MacArthur and R.C.
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Sproul had a very wonderful relationship, and it was almost like a fatherly relationship.
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R.C.
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would tease John, because he was a younger man.
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John's older now, but at the time, he was younger than R.C., so R.C.
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would sometimes rib him a little bit.
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I remember they were sitting in one of those conference conversations, and John MacArthur was lamenting his sin.
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And he sort of said something to the effect, and I don't remember exactly, but he sort of said something to the effect that he was no better now than he was when he got saved.
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He's still a sinner.
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That was MacArthur's statement.
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And Sproul stopped him.
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He says, no, John, you were not the man you were when you got saved.
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You're really not.
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And then he had to confess, yeah, you're right.
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Now, can I still find my sin in the depths of my depravity? Yes.
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But God has worked on me, and I just remember John laughing, and he said, yeah, well, that's true.
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I'm not the man I was when I was saved.
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And by God's grace, I won't be the same.
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If I live another 20 years, another 40 years, I won't be the same man I am today.
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That's that process where the power of sin is lessened and the power of the Spirit, as I become more obedient to the Spirit in my life, I become more like Christ in my outworkings.
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This is sanctification.
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And never, ever, ever do I look to that as my salvation.
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I think that was MacArthur's ultimate point, is I'm just as much deserving of hell today as I was 20 years ago.
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That's no doubt.
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But God is working in my life through the power of the Holy Spirit.
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So the passages that they chose for this particular part of the confession, first they put a whole chapter in, 1 Corinthians 12.
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They include 1 Corinthians 12.
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If you're unfamiliar with 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 12, we're not going to try to read it, but I'll give you the basic overview of the chapter.
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The chapter 1 Corinthians 12 is about the spiritual gifts given to the church for the use within the church.
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So you say, well, how does that fit in the process and the concept of sanctification? Well, the idea is the Spirit's empowerment.
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That's the whole idea, I think, that the brothers are getting at.
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Why would they cite 1 Corinthians 12? Because we are filled with the Spirit.
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How do we know we're filled with the Spirit? Because our desires have changed.
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One of our desires is to be among God's people, working among God's people, doing the things that God has called us to do.
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What is the fruit of the Spirit? What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace.
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There's actually a song we have with our kids, and if I don't sing it, I won't remember.
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It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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That's it.
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That's the fruit of the Spirit.
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And that's Galatians, right? Galatians tells us that that's the fruit of the Spirit.
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Those are the things that outwork, and we see that manifested in the gifts that God has given to us.
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You know, growing up, you know what I wanted to be? I think some of you know this.
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What did I want to be when I was a kid? A magician.
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A what? Superman.
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Well, I wanted to be Superman.
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I still want to be Superman, but Andy's so proud of me.
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No, I wanted to be a magician.
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I was trained, and I worked as a professional magician.
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And you were good.
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Thank you.
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From age 14 to 18, I worked as a professional magician.
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My idea was when I graduated high school, I was going to get a job with Disney, and I was going to become a magician working at Disney World.
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So I never had a problem getting up and talking in front of people.
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I did shows for audiences, big audiences, even as a teenager.
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Never had a problem with that.
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But when God saved me, what changed in me was my desires.
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I wanted people to know the God that I knew, and I wanted to teach people the Bible.
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That was the big change.
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And I might ask you, since you have been saved, what things have changed in your heart and desires? What things have changed in your life? What motivations have changed? We can't go around the room and ask everybody tonight, but I think that's a big question.
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I mentioned Dr.
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Powers a lot, but Dr.
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Powers would say, his wanna changed.
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I used to wanna this, and now I want something different.
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What in your life has changed? And I would say, look around your life.
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What things now would not be if you didn't believe in Christ? You probably wouldn't have the same desires.
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You certainly wouldn't have the same desires if you're in him.
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Your desires change.
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And it's not an immediate perfect thing.
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Like I said, you still struggle with the flesh.
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Galatians 5, 16 tells us that there's a battle going on between the spirit and the flesh, and that happens.
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But at the same time, and we're gonna talk about that next week.
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Actually, my part of the, because I've already looked ahead as preparing for next week, my part of next week deals with the flesh, and the idea of battling the flesh.
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But tonight, we're just looking at the concept of the change.
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The second passage that we have here is 1 Peter 2, 9.
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You don't have to turn there unless you just want to.
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I wanna read through them all.
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1 Peter 2, 9 says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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I think the focus here that the brothers were keying in on was the idea of a holy nation.
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We are a holy people.
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What does it mean to be holy? Means to be set apart.
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That is right.
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Means to be set apart.
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But we know there's more to it, right? That's the basic understanding is to be set apart, okay? But understand this.
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When we see the word sanctify, that is the same word as holy.
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In the Greek, the word is hagios.
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That is the Greek for holy, and the word sanctify is also to be made holy, is to sanctify something.
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It's the same word.
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It's hagiosmos.
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It's just another expression.
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We are called the hagiosmos.
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That's where you get the word saint.
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We are the holy ones.
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We're the, huh? Yeah, we're the holy.
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We're the saints.
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We're the holy ones.
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So holy, sanctify, all of these are based on this one single Greek word that just putting different what we call stems and endings on it creates different utilization of that word.
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But hagios is the root.
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And so saint means holy one.
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Sanctified means to make holy, right? And so that's what we are.
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We are a sanctified people.
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We're a holy people.
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We are set apart, and this is an interesting thing.
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You could go back to this three part.
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You could say we've been sanctified.
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We are being sanctified, and we will be sanctified, and you say, well, wait a minute.
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Are you confusing? No.
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Sanctification under a theological rubric falls in this category.
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But in one sense, you were set apart the moment that you were born because Christ had already chosen you from the foundation of the world, right? You've been sanctified from all eternity.
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Set apart is his.
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We talked about this Sunday, right? You didn't become a sheep.
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You've always been a sheep.
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You were a lost sheep.
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Now you're a found sheep, but you've always been set apart, right? And now you, having been justified, you begin the process of cleansing because when we talk about setting it apart, it's not just setting it apart, but the purpose by which you set something apart.
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It's like setting apart a cup so that you can clean it and wash it and use it for something, right? And the Bible talks about in Romans 9 how we are vessels of mercy that God has prepared, right? He's prepared us as his vessels of mercy, and he's sanctifying us.
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He's making us holy.
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The next one is Ephesians 1 verse 4.
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This one I'm going to, I want you to listen closely because I'm going to tie it to an Old Testament passage.
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It's talking about Christ.
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It says, he chose us in him, actually talking about the father, chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.
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That's in, that's in, the adjective or the preposition is important there.
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Does everybody's Bible, if you're looking, does everybody say before him, holy and blameless before him? Is that what your brother says? Brother Andy? Yeah.
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Before, okay.
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The reason why I say that is because often the preposition is in him, right? Often that we say we're in Christ.
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In fact, if you look at Ephesians 1 verses 4 to 14, it's in him, in him, in him, five different times.
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It says in him, in him, in him.
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But this one says before him and you say, well, what's the difference prepositionally? Go back to our passage.
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Well, you can't go back because we haven't been there yet.
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But this Sunday we're going to be looking at Genesis 17.
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Genesis 17 is when God confirms his covenant with Abraham.
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He's already made the covenant.
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He's already split the animals.
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He's already gone through the animals we talked about in chapter 15.
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But in chapter 17, he confirms it through the sign of circumcision and he says, now that you have this sign, walk before me, blameless, walk before me, blameless.
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So he calls Abraham to live a sanctified life.
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He calls him to live.
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Now you bear my mark.
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Walk before me, blameless.
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Now blameless isn't sinless because nobody would qualify.
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But what's a qualification to be an elder brother, Andy? That we'd be above reproach, right? And the same concept, that we'd be blameless.
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That we'd be men of integrity.
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That we'd be men that seek, and that's the call not just for elders.
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That's the call for every Christian man, to be blameless, right? That we live the life of the Christian.
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That we live an integrated, truly holy life.
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When was the last time somebody said as Christians we should live holy lives? We don't hear that anymore.
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We don't want to hear that anymore.
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In fact, a lot of churches say we shouldn't even preach that anymore.
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Because they say we're preaching legalism.
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It's not legalism to say God calls us to holiness, is it? I mean, it's not.
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It's not what saves us, but it is what we are called to.
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In the same way, Abraham is not saved by walking blameless, because he was already justified in chapter 15.
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Therefore, having been justified, he has peace with God, right? Abraham believed God was justified.
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Chapter 15, it's 13 years later, we get to chapter 17, and God looks at him.
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He says, I'm giving you my sign, walk before me and be blameless.
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Same as us.
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We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Now, what do we do? We are called to walk before him in holiness.
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We're called to that.
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You say, it's hard.
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It's, it's, that's, it's impossible.
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It's not just hard.
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It's absolutely impossible were it not for the power of the spirit and God empowering us to live before him.
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So I just, I think, I think Ephesians 1, 4 has, can be connected to Genesis 17, cuz both of them, you know, we are called to be blameless, not just in him, but before him, in that we walk before him.
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Live our lives in his presence, all right? 1 John 4.16, 1 John has actually been my daily reading.
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I've, I've been reading through one book a month for every day for 30 days.
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That's my daily reading right now, and it just happens to be that I'm in 1 John every day for 30 days.
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And 1 John will put you on your knees.
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I tell you, it's a hard way to start the morning.
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1 John is, is strong words at certain times.
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And, but here's, here's a passage that it says and that the brothers chose for us.
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4.16, it says, so we have come to know and to believe the, the love that God has for us.
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God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
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Brothers, sisters, if you wanna know what it means to be Christ-like, that's it.
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The love of God abides in you, and whoever abides in love abides in him.
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And you say, well, what does love look like? That's a difficult question sometimes, because the world has a, has a definition of love which is very ungodly.
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And oftentimes, you'll hear something today like, well, love is love, right? And what does love is love mean? You see that on bumper stickers in cars and you know, when we were up in Cincinnati, we saw people with it on their shirts and on their houses and stuff.
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You know, love is love.
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What is, what does it mean? What it means is every expression that man can find to fulfill his desperate lusts is an expression of love, and that's not true.
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But that is what the world thinks.
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The Bible tells us that we are called to love because Christ has loved us.
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Well, how does Christ love us? He loves us by offering himself, sacrificing himself, demonstrating the truth.
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What did Jesus say? I came to bear witness to the truth.
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One of the most important things we can do as believers is stand on the truth.
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And this is just on my mind for right now.
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If I were to ask you, what law are we to be conformed to? I know this seems like I'm changing subjects.
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I promise I'm not.
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I know it seems like I just took a right turn, and I did, but you're gonna see the U-turn in a second.
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We'll come right back where I am.
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If I say to you, should we be conformed to the law of Moses or the law of Christ, what would you say? Law of Christ, right? I hope you would, because that's what the New Testament tells us.
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It tells us that we're actually under the law of Christ, right? And this becomes a huge contention among some people, especially among reformed folks.
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Because among reformed folks, there's this argument that the law of Moses and the law of Christ have no distinctions, right? Says there's no distinctions in the law of Moses and the law of Christ.
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And on a foundational level, I can agree to an extent, except to say that there are things in the law of Moses that are abrogated under the law of Christ, such as laws of dietary restrictions.
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We're gonna see Sunday, circumcision, things like that.
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These are no longer bound to us.
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But the point is, we're under an entirely new covenant.
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And while there is overlap between the law of Moses and the law of Christ, we are under the law of Christ.
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He is the captain of the ship.
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And this was something I read this morning.
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Do this with me.
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Open to 1 John and go to chapter 2, cuz I love the way he writes this.
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As John is writing under the inspiration of the spirit, and we have 1 John, and he says in chapter 2, verse 7.
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He says, Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.
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The old commandment is the word that you have heard.
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At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
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It's just interesting that he first, he says, this isn't anything new.
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But then he comes back and says, but it kind of is.
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That's right.
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And here's the interesting thing.
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When Jesus was asked, and when somebody asked me, what do you mean by the law of Christ? And somebody asked me that.
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I said, what do you mean by the law of Christ? Jesus was asked, what's the most important law? What did he say? Two things.
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Love the Lord.
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Okay, so the first one he quotes is from Deuteronomy 6.
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It's from the Shema.
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It's from the most important prayer of Israel's history.
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It's a very important passage.
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But where does the second one come from? Love your neighbor as yourself.
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No, no, it's actually written.
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Leviticus 19.
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In the middle of a bunch of other things is this really small command.
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Love your neighbor as yourself.
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There's a little small section in Leviticus, I believe it is 19.
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I'll double check that later, but I believe it's 19.
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Where he just, where it comes up, and it's in the midst of like, if your cattle is being taken, or blah, blah, blah, love your neighbors yourself.
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It's like this little line attached to something else, and Jesus says it's the most important thing.
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Outside of loving God, loving your neighbors yourself is the most important thing, and you say, how? How is this the most important thing? It's not even, it's like a little section of one of the most difficult books in the Old Testament, Leviticus.
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You know, most people don't even read all the way through Leviticus.
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You get through the first three chapters and you get, you go crazy cuz you can't understand it all.
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So much stuff, but there's this one passage.
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It says, love your neighbor as yourself.
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Jesus is most important.
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This is what I think John meant when he says, I'm not writing you a new commandment cuz it's in there.
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But in a sense, it is new because the emphasis is on loving your neighbor.
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Remember, the emphasis of the new covenant is on loving God and your neighbor.
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Now you can go back and you can say, well, that's what the ten commandments are, right? The first table of the commandments is all about loving God.
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The second table of the commandments is all about loving your neighbor.
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And you can make that argument, because Jesus makes that argument.
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He says, on this rests all the law, right? Love your neighbors yourself, love God, and that's all the law.
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But notice the emphasis change in the new covenant.
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I'm getting back to the whole lesson that I'm giving tonight.
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The emphasis of the new covenant is love.
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Sanctification in the new covenant is growing in love of God and love of neighbor.
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That's it, growing in love of God and love of neighbor.
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When somebody comes to me and they say, Brother Keith, I'm having trouble with this sin.
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You can always, always take that sin and boil it down to either a lack of love for God or a lack of love for neighbor, because that's what sin is.
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Sin is either a failure to love God or a failure to love my neighbor.
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So what is sanctification? Growing in love.
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Not worldly love, but Christ-like love.
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And you say, well, that's too simple.
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I need the Old Testament.
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I need all those, I need 600 laws to tell me how to love.
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And that really is kind of what some of us need.
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We need it outlined and what does it tell us to do? But in the end, what we are called to do is love our neighbor and love our God.
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So getting back to finalizing this confession, or this portion of the confession, Matthew 28, 20, is that we are called to observe all that I have commanded you.
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That is the last verse.
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So we are called to observe what Christ has commanded.
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And what Christ has commanded is that we love God and love our neighbor.
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When we look later at the doctrine of the flesh and the battles with the flesh, we're gonna talk more about what makes it hard to love, what makes it hard to do what Christ has called us to do.
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But I hope tonight has been helpful to clarify what it is we're being called to do.
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What sanctification is, growing in love.
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Last but not least, if you do have the little red book, you'll notice at the bottom of this particular portion of the confession, there are literally six references to the appendix.
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And I didn't get to any of them because I didn't want to, honestly, I just wanted to deal with what this said.
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But if you want to go further in how Benjamin Cox understood what this portion of the confession meant, I would recommend that to your reading this week.
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Maybe include it with your devotional readings.
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You got six, seven days before we'll be back again.
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You got one for each day if you want to do that and add it to your devotional reading.
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Anybody have any questions on what we discussed from this portion of the confession? Leviticus 19, I knew it was in there, 19, I got it.
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Okay, thank you.
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Leviticus 19, 18 is love your neighbors yourself.
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I've always just loved the fact that Jesus says that's the most important and it's so obscure, but it's there.
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Anyone? All right.