WWUTT 306 The Passions of Our Former Ignorance?

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My brothers and sisters, the time of ignorance is over. We have heard the truth proclaimed to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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So we must turn away from youthful passions of the flesh to the righteousness of God when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text promotes sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

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Here's your host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of 1 Peter today and this week, today, tomorrow, and Wednesday we'll be looking at verses 13 through 25.

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So open up your Bible there, 1 Peter 1, beginning in verse 13, and we'll read to the end of the chapter.

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Peter says, therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober -minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

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But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

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And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

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He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.

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Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

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For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.

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The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

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And this word is the good news that was preached to you. Amen to that.

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So as we begin in this section, verse 13, therefore preparing your minds for action, we begin with therefore.

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So we must be reminded of the things that Peter talked about in the first dozen verses of the letter.

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Who is he writing to? He is writing to the elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to his address at the start of the letter.

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Now his recipients would have been primarily Gentile, but there would have been Jews within these churches as well.

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How do we know that they were Gentiles who were receiving this letter? Because there are those who will try to say that the elect in the dispersion is specifically talking about the

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Jews. The Jews are the elect, and those who were in the dispersion were those who had been dispersed by the governors of the

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Roman Empire into all of those different surrounding areas. Specifically that is being talked about there.

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But we know that this was a Gentile audience that Peter was writing to because of what we're reading in the section today.

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First of all, when we see these areas, these churches that are being addressed in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, these were primarily

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Gentile areas, and they would have been a variety of different languages, cultures, and backgrounds, though still speaking the common language of Koine Greek.

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So these are Greeks that Peter is talking to and using elect and the dispersion as figurative terms, not literal terms.

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So we all who are Christians in Christ Jesus, we're exiles in this world. And Peter comes back to that in the section that we're reading today.

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And we have been dispersed throughout all the world. And so that is the way that Peter is using the language to talk about a spiritual

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Israel, not an ethnic Israel. And the context is expounded upon more in the section we're looking at when he says, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, because this is something that was commonly said to Gentiles, those who lived in their former ignorance.

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You go back to the sermon that Paul preached at the Areopagus in Acts chapter 17,

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Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus. And remember, the Areopagus, which to the

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Romans was called Mars Hill, was a place where there were statues of various gods and altars to those gods that had been erected there.

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And it was a place of public discourse. There were people that would go there to speak in the presence of the gods, so to speak, because of those idols that were lifted there.

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So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus said, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious, for as I pass along and observe the objects of your worship,

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I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown

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God. In other words, with all the gods that were there represented at the Areopagus, in case there was one they forgot and would be angry at them because they didn't raise up an idol to that God.

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They built this kind of anonymous altar to an unknown God. So hey, we're just making sure that we're getting all the deities appeased here.

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So Paul goes on, what therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you as known.

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In other words, verse 24, the God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

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And he made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek

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God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

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For in him we live and move and have our being as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring being then

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God's offspring. We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

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Now here we go. Here's where Paul is addressing Gentiles according to their ignorance.

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Okay. Verse 30, the times of ignorance got overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

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Of course, we're talking about Christ there. So Paul is saying that the times of ignorance are over. God has revealed himself through the son.

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God incarnate who came to this world fully God and fully man dying on the cross for our sins was risen again from the grave and has ascended into heaven.

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And so Paul is talking about these things as they were shown in scripture and came to fulfillment and there are eyewitnesses who can testify to these things having taken place.

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And so the apostle Paul is now saying to these Greeks, to these Gentiles, that the days of ignorance are over for in these last days,

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God has spoken to us by his son, as is said at the beginning of the book of Hebrews. So those who were

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Jewish were not spoken about as those who lived in ignorance because they had the revealed word of God, the books of Moses, the books of the prophets, the books of history, the books of Kings and Chronicles, all of these things that we have that were compiled as the

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Old Testament, which, by the way, was finished and completed by about 300 B .C. So so all of these things had been put together 300 years before Jesus had even shown up on the scene.

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There's simply no contestation about the Old Testament as canon.

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It is God's word that was given to his people. So they're not the ones that are spoken about as having lived in ignorance, though there are times when the when the people of God talking specifically about the ethnic

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Jews lived in disobedience because they rejected and denied what it was that God had sent to them or made up their own truth and imposed upon the word of God what they believe that it said, speaking specifically about the

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Pharisees and the teachers of the law who imposed such rules and regulations on the people that God had never even laid down.

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And so this is not these are not the people of ignorance that we are talking about. Whenever we refer to a time of ignorance that is now over, just as Paul was addressing the

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Greeks there at the Areopagus in Romans chapter three, Paul says, then what advantage has the

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Jew or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the

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Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. So God has revealed this first to Jews and then to Gentiles.

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Think about the thesis statement that's made at the beginning of Romans, Romans 116. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. So these things were given to the

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Jew first. The first time the gospel was proclaimed, a turn or burn gospel from the apostle

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Peter at Pentecost, it was delivered to whom? The Jews from from every tribe and every language because they had been dispersed about the

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Roman Empire and came back to Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost. So there were Jews that were there that spoke different languages.

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And then when the apostles came preaching the gospel, they spoke in the various languages, having been covered by the

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Holy Spirit to be able to do so, speaking in tongues the languages that those people could understand.

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They heard the gospel proclaimed in various languages. So then they went back to their homes, wherever the territories were that they lived in and preached the gospel there.

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And then there were Gentiles that were made into believers by that gospel that was shared. This was delivered first to the

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Jews. Even, I mean, Jesus himself, being a Jew, proclaimed all throughout

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Judea and Samaria and then commissioned his disciples to preach the gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the very ends of the earth.

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Acts 1 8. So Jesus himself ministered first to Jews, then to Gentiles, commissioned his disciples to do the same.

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The oracles of God were entrusted first to the Jews. The fulfillment of those was witnessed first by the

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Jews and then was proclaimed to the Gentiles. So the Jews are not the ones who are in ignorance.

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It is the Gentiles that were in ignorance, that were given the gospel of Jesus Christ and repented of their sins and believed.

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So when Peter is talking here about a former ignorance, he is talking specifically to Gentiles.

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The time of your ignorance is over. And so now we must live in a way that that displays the holy conduct of God.

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As God is holy, so we also should be holy. So let's come back to this again. First Peter 1 13, therefore preparing your minds for action.

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Another way that's worded, in fact, you might even have a translation that says this, girding up the loins of your mind.

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So when a soldier would gird up his loins, it was tying his garments in such a way that he could go into battle and not be hindered by freely flowing garments that would hinder his movement and slow his speed.

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So girding up his loins, dressing himself for battle. And so we who are in Christ, we are the elect exiles who have been chosen by Christ for this faith, for this salvation, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, which we read about at the beginning of the letter, since by God's grace and mercy, these things have been revealed to us through his son,

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Jesus Christ. And we have salvation, not by our will, but by his. Therefore, we prepare our minds for action.

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It's not a time now to sit back and go, hey, I've punched my get out of hell free card. There's work that we've got to do.

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And Peter comes back to this again in first Peter 3 15, where he says, set apart Christ Jesus as holy, always being prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within you.

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But do this with gentleness and respect, preparing our minds for action, for what?

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To declare the gospel, to give an answer for the hope that we have in Christ Jesus.

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So preparing our minds for action and being sober minded. Don't get crazy.

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Don't get weirded out. Don't be in a panic or in fear about the present times or the future, for we know that again, there is an inheritance that is being given to us in Christ that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time we are being guarded in Christ Jesus and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

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So as we have these assurances, we can be sober minded, temperate and sincere, not wigged out, not angry, not lashing out at others, but with gentle patience, setting our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Now there is a revelation of Jesus Christ that we've been given at the proclamation of the gospel. But what

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Peter is specifically talking about here is the revelation of Jesus Christ when he returns and therefore the book of Revelation is appropriately named for it is the revealing of Christ, his return with the new heaven and the new earth, putting all of his enemies under his feet, making all things new, consummating all things through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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Verse 14, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance and perhaps one of the verses that popped into your mind when we read that, at least

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I know this was the case for me, is Romans 12 to do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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Very same thing that Peter is saying here, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

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The apostle Paul said to Timothy, 2nd Timothy 2, verse 22, so flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the

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Lord from a pure heart, growing with the saints in righteousness, in faith and love and in peace.

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Flee youthful passions. So the passions of our former ignorance, the passions that we had when we were young and we didn't know better, do not pursue those things anymore.

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But with the body of Christ, we need to grow up. We need to become mature children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation as Paul also described it that way with the

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Philippians. So again, 1st Peter 1, verse 14, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy.

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So you also be holy in all your conduct. If we worship

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Christ, the Lord who has called us out of sin, out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

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So we therefore must live in the light as he is in the light. We must do the things just as Jesus did.

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Jesus talked about being perfect as your heavenly father is perfect in the Sermon on the

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Mount, Matthew chapter five, starting in verse 43, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

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For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

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For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

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And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

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You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. That's a tall order.

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But nonetheless, that is what we have been called to because he is our God. We are his children.

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We have been saved by him from sin into his righteousness. And so, therefore, we must be perfect as he is perfect.

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If we are his children, then we must be perfect as he is. And understand also the comparison that Jesus is making there.

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For God himself loved his enemies. If we are supposed to love our enemies as Jesus is charging us to, it is because God did this first and we follow his example by loving our enemies as he loved his enemies.

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Well, who are God's enemies? Us. We are. We were before we were born again into this new and living hope in Christ Jesus.

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All of us were enemies of God before by Christ we were transformed into his children.

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And so we have we have gone from being children of wrath as we are described in Ephesians chapter 2, which is who we were before we came to Christ into being children of God as Peter describes here.

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And so as obedient children, we must not live in the passions of the flesh anymore. We must not live as we did in youthful ignorance.

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But instead, we must be holy just as our God is holy.

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Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

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And we'll come back and talk about that again tomorrow. God said to his people in Leviticus chapter 11, verses 44 through 45, for I am the

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Lord your God, consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am holy for I am the

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Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy as I am holy.

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God has brought us up out of the sin and death that we were in before we came to Christ.

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And so as God has done this for us, so as we are his children, we must be holy as he is.

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Sinner, turn from your sins, live no longer in the passions of the flesh, but pursue with the believers righteousness, faith, love, and peace with a pure heart.

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Our great God, I pray that we are convicted in our sins and indeed we would feel a sense of unrest anytime we start to feel comfortable in our flesh.

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We shouldn't, we're exiles, we're strangers in this world. We're not meant to stay here.

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Our home is forever in glory with you, an imperishable, perfect, undefiled inheritance that is awaiting us if we endure to the end.

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And we know that we are being kept in the faith by Christ Jesus, our Lord, who gave us this faith and is growing us in this faith.

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Lord, let us not ignore those convictions when we feel them, but turn from our sin by the

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Holy Spirit that is within us, convicting our hearts from this earth toward you that we would not continue in ignorance in our former passions, but desire to be holy, obedient children of God as our heavenly father is holy.

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When people look at us, let them be able to see that we are God's children, not children of the devil, not children of this fallen world, but children of God and of your kingdom.

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And we pray and ask these things in the name of Jesus, amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .utt