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- Yeah, yeah for those visiting. I just wanted to Explain that so as my wife just said so second grade and younger.
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- There's children's church. That's out in the Mattson building And they're there they're during during the sermon time and then for third grade
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- Through sixth grade you know ages 8 to 12 They can get a booklet and if they take notes during the sermon
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- They bring those notes up to me after the sermon And then I look it over sign it and then they get a treat that's in my office down the stairs
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- So just a heads up about that for those ages Now one question that Christians sometimes ask is
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- Can an unbeliever do any good? When this question is asked people immediately think of the unbelievers in their lives who are generally good people
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- I Remember in college working at a running store in the Twin Cities, and it was a wonderful Atmosphere to work in everybody was positive
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- Everyone's everyone was encouraging. It was really hard to find any negative person there
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- Everyone was kind And You can think of these places in your life to where these people who are they're they're not believers
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- But they're just genuine genuinely good people But we need to understand everything in the world according to Scripture Scripture is always the standard
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- Romans 8 8 says those who are in the flesh cannot please
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- God So who are those in the flesh? Those in the flesh are unbelievers
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- Unbelievers are unable to do any work where God looks on and is pleased
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- So if a man helps an old lady carry something that is heavy God is not impressed
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- Even though helping her in this way is indeed a kind act But why does this not please
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- God? Why is it that this act not only does not please God, but it is also considered by Scripture to be sin it is considered sin because the good work is not done for the glory of God as First Corinthians 1031 says whatever whatever whether we eat or drink or whatever we do do it all for the glory of God in This room we have a room full of Christians And my prayer is that everyone in this room has a sincere relationship with Christ as Christians you understand the driving force behind Many of your good acts in this life
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- Many times it is easy to do the right thing and you are glad to do it And there are other times when you are truly tempted to go your own way
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- Where you do not want to do what is right? But you do the hard thing which is the right thing and You do it because at the root
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- You want to please the Lord? That's what we call the fear of the Lord Believers have that Unbelievers do not
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- And we see that in our world with all the pressure That's why so many people cave is because they do not have the fear of the
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- Lord Now you and I can also do good works for the wrong reasons But what we must understand about unbelievers is that every good act is done for the wrong reasons as Good as the act may be
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- Unbelievers do not have a relationship with Christ not yet They do not have faith in what
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- Romans 14 23 says is whatever does not proceed from faith is sin
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- Since their works are not done for the glory of God the Lord is not pleased It is only when one believes in Jesus and receives the
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- Holy Spirit that a person can live a life truly pleasing to the Lord But how does the
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- Spirit work in a believer's life? The Spirit works through this the
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- Word of God as The word is read and heard and taken to heart the Spirit is active
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- This morning the Apostle Peter Writes about the
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- Spirit's work in a person's life through the word It is through this activity that spiritual growth comes that true spiritual life happens
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- So this time I encourage you to turn with me to first Peter chapter 1 We're gonna be looking at verses 22
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- Through chapter 2 verse 3 and if you do not have a Bible We do have those red
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- Bibles for you to follow along this sermon is titled the life giving a book and The kind of preaching that we do in this church is it's called expository preaching
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- Which means we go verse by verse through the Bible and we want you to open up your Bibles because what I say it really doesn't
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- Matter what matters is do I say what the word says is that's why we encourage you open up the
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- Bible See it for yourself, and then let's see the the work of God happen through this
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- So I'm gonna begin by reading the text first Peter chapter 1 Starting in verse 22 and Then we will go through chapter 2 verse 3
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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
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- Since you have been born again Not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding
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- Word of God For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flowers of grass the grass withers and the flowers falls
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- But the Word of the Lord remains forever and this is the good news that was preached to you
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- So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander
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- Like newborn infants long for pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation
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- If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good Okay.
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- So here's our big idea What this sermon what this text is calling you to do? Understand that the
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- Word of God is far more Powerful than you can imagine The Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine.
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- We're gonna see five manifestations how in this text But before we jump in let me give you a little recap of where we were one
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- Sunday ago We looked at verses 13 through 21 of 1st Peter 1 and in that passage
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- We were called to focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ we saw three practices how the first is that you are to set your mind on the things of God as We have our minds set on the things of God.
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- We are preparing ourselves for the age to come Second you are to live set -apart lives in the fear of God God is holy and when he saves us, he calls us to be holy as he is holy
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- Third we what we learn that we are always to be reminded concerning what life is like without Jesus life is depressing and Confusing and Meaningless apart from Jesus.
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- It's misery. It's misery here and it's misery in the age to come But with Christ how wonderful this life is and how wonderful it is in the age to come
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- Now this leads us to our text this morning that we've already read, but now I'm gonna zero in on I'm gonna begin by looking at verses 23 and the second half of verse 25
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- So we're not gonna be going in order here because these there's five themes that come out and they come out in different places
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- So verse 23 Peter writes here since you have been born again Not a perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding
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- Word of God And then the second half of verse 25 and this is the good news That was preached to you
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- What we read in verse 23 is that you are born again through the
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- Word of God And what the second half of verse 25 says is that this is the word that was preached to you the good news that was preached to you when you came to faith in Christ as The word is preached to you.
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- This is where the life of God enters your life You cannot have the life of God without the
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- Bible Without the truth all of us come to faith in different ways
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- Some of you came to faith through a pastor preaching like I'm doing right now Others through reading the
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- Bible yourselves and others through having others share the word with you
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- No matter what you how you came to faith in Jesus as Lord Savior and treasure
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- What was at the center of all of it was the Word of God? this book gave you spiritual life when before you were spiritually dead and sometimes we can forget this as Christians Who were you?
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- Before you came to faith in Jesus Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3 tells you where you were
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- You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked Following the course of this world following the prince of the power of the air
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- The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh
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- Carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath
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- Like the rest of mankind. This is who you were before you came to faith in Christ.
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- You were dead You had a heartbeat you breathed
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- But you were dead spiritually And we sing this during Christmas season in the song heart the herald angels sing
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- There's a line in that song that says Mild he lays his glory by born that man no more may die
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- Born to raise raise the sons of earth born to give them second birth
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- When Jesus came into the world 2 ,000 years ago, he came on a rescue mission to save sinners
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- He accomplished his mission when he went to the cross and took our sins upon Himself and bore the holy wrath of his father and then the father showed that he approved of the sacrifice
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- By raising him from the dead on the third day and anyone who believes in Jesus receives eternal life
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- When you believe in the good news, the Holy Spirit enters your life You become different for the first time you have
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- Spiritual life you have what most of the world does not have in Verse 3 of chapter 1 as we saw several weeks back
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- Peter describes the new birth where he writes according to his great mercy He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead the new birth gives you a living hope as We saw one week ago.
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- Jesus saved you from a wasted existence to live a life full of meaning
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- Purpose and great joy in this meaning purpose and joy never fades
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- This is what Peter is communicating in verse 23 in our text you are born again through the living and abiding
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- Word of God This book is alive It gives life
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- Hebrews 4 12 the Word of God is living and active Sharper than any two -edged sword it pierces soul and spirit and can discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart
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- I mean we think about that it digs into the deep recesses of your soul
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- To show you what you really are And as it does that you see the darkness of your heart you see that you stand condemned before God You see that you need the
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- Savior That's how you come to faith in Christ. It's living it shows you this it gives you the solution to your problem and the problem is that you are a sinner who needs the
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- Savior and As you believe in that Savior He gives you life
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- You're no longer condemned to hell forever You are given an inheritance in heaven
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- And you are able to see the world for what it really is you are able to understand Why you exist why
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- God created humanity in the first place it's to have this sweet deep Intimate relationship with your creator
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- You understand that When you understand the Bible and the
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- Holy Spirit through the word Shows you that So the
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- Bible is living as Peter says it's it's the living word and it's also the abiding word
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- Abiding means to remain It remains and we understand this in the area that we live in because what he says here in verse 23 is he compares perishable seed with imperishable
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- We understand seeds We have farmers in this room Farmers plant seeds into the ground that will produce a crop and that's about all
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- I know is about farming by the way It's about the extent of it Gardeners plant seeds in their garden in order to produce vegetation in the garden.
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- That's all I know about gardening These seeds produce food Which we need to live and we always need more seeds that produce food that will nourish you and I for life
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- We need but we need to keep coming back It's perishable It's not a magic seed that gives you life forever
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- You need to keep coming back and eating more food These seeds produce food which we need to live and we always need more seeds that produce food
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- But this is not how the Word of God works Unlike physical seeds that only give life for a time the
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- Word of God gives life for eternity This is why Peter writes the
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- Word of God is living and he also writes that it is abiding abiding means to remain
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- The life of the Word of God produces in us what it produces in us remains forever the life it produces in us remains forever
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- So understand that the Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine and the first Manifestation how is by causing you to experience the new birth?
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- The second manifestation how you were to understand that the Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine is
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- By growing godly character in you We'll see this in verse 2 of chapter 2 where Peter writes like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk
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- That by it you may grow up into salvation And we just had a baby in this church with little
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- Wyatt Jeremy and Rachel's Beautiful son and we are excited to dedicate him next
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- Sunday Babies live on milk Here Peter compares the milk that babies need to live to the
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- Word of God Believers need to be able to have spiritual life We know the milk described here is referring to the
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- Word of God because the context at the end of chapter 1 is Describing the Word of God and the it in chapter 2 verse 2 is referring back to that The Word of God not only gives the new birth as is described in 123
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- But it keeps giving life to you in your journey through the life of faith This is what
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- Peter is saying in chapter 2 verse 2 when he writes that by the Word of God you may grow up into salvation
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- I Mentioned this a couple weeks ago that we often think of salvation as only describing our conversion
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- But there are stages to our salvation and let me be very careful what I mean by this.
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- I Am NOT saying that we are saved by our works. We are not that would be heresy that sends someone to hell
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- We are saved 100 % based on what Christ did for us at the cross and through his resurrection
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- But there is something the Lord does to us as he saves us We saw this one week ago in verse 15 in chapter 1 where Peter wrote as he who called you as holy
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- You also be holy in all your conduct in Theology this is called sanctification
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- The word sanctity means sacred Another word for holiness. We see this used in the the pro -life movement the sanctity of life.
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- It's sacred life is sacred But sacred is also another word for holiness sanctification is the process of growing in holiness and the final stage of salvation is
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- Glorification Glorification is the time when believers enter God's presence and are forever pure never to sin again
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- When you come to faith in Christ You have many rough edges. I mean we all know this to be true
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- Now for the child who comes to faith at an early age He or she does not notice the drastic change so much as one who comes to faith later in life
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- But even the child Who has walked with the Lord from childhood will see how deep the sin runs in his or her own heart
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- Since we are sinners by nature and you know, Jeremiah 17 17 says that We are
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- Desperately sick our hearts are who can understand it These rough edges that we have need to be smoothed out
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- One week ago, I said that was once a what was once attractive is no longer Attractive as one is weaned off the things of this sinful world
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- In my own life. I have experienced the Lord sanctifying me In my 20s.
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- He weaned me off of the sins of my youth King David describes his sins as the sins of his youth in Psalm 25 -7
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- When I was younger there were many sins that I would describe as the sins of my youth in more recent years
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- He has addressed areas that I didn't even know I had until my mid to late 20s
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- For those of you who have been walking with the Lord for some time, you know what this is like. I Remember reading a
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- Christian author who wrote that as the Lord makes us more like him We become embarrassed of who we were five years ago
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- You know social media has a way of humbling us, right Sometimes you have those memories that pop up and I'm I read something from my college years.
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- I'm like what a knucklehead I Mean, I don't know if you've ever you've had that experience too, but that's been my experience and I'm thinking, you know
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- The internet doesn't forget right? What we need to understand about sin is that some sins are obvious and some are less obvious The sin of pride tends to be less obvious I've heard the sin of pride described like a fish in water a
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- Fish does not know it is wet because it's always in water And in the same way prideful people live in a state of pride and do not realize how prideful they are
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- Other sins are like this too. We not only need to move away from our obvious sins But also our less obvious ones the
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- Lord desires to transform you to be more like him And this effort is a team effort between you and the
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- Holy Spirit as Romans 8 13 says but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live
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- So he does it and you do it And what the
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- Spirit uses to give you life is the word This is why we need to know the word because this is this is the what he uses to change you he he uses the
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- Bible and We need to know the Bible for him to be able to work this into our hearts to transform us the
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- Spirit reminds you of what the word says as you fill your mind with it and Through that he is encouraging you to live out the joy of holiness and leave the pain of sin
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- We know that sin leads to pain Holiness Leads to joy
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- And that's the truth That's the truth that Satan does not want you to believe but that is the truth as we saw one week ago sin is
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- Instant gratification that leads to pain and its end is eternal death While holiness is the path of joy and its end is eternal life so understand that the
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- Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine and the second manifestation how is by growing godly character in you
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- The third manifestation how you were to understand that the Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine is by leading you
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- To love fellow believers and we're going to see this in verse 22 in chapter 2 verse 1 where Peter writes once again
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- Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for is a sincere brotherly love
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- Love one another earnestly from a pure heart and then chapter 2 verse 1 put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander
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- Now in the previous point I Explained to you the process of sanctification that comes through the
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- Word of God as is described in 2 2 Sanctification is shown in two ways
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- We get these two ways from what Jesus says in Matthew 22 Verses 37 through 39 when he was asked.
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- What is the greatest commandment? The Jewish leaders asked him then this is what this was his answer the greatest commandment is to love the
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- Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind and The second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself
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- The first one he's quoting Deuteronomy 6 for the second one he's quoting Leviticus 1918 so summarizing these two commandments is to love
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- God and to love others. I Remember hearing a theologian asked the question
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- What love do we have left over if you are to love God with everything you have?
- 23:29
- But here's how it works As you love God you love what he loves and in the nature of God He loves his creation and out of everything in creation.
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- He has a special love for humans Because as Genesis 1 verses 26 and 27 say only humans are created in his image
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- Which means that out of everything in creation as beautiful as it is only humans are like God Now everything's kind of like God in some way great because it comes from him but Humans are most like God from everything else
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- The Lord loves humanity every day by sustaining the world for example in Matthew 5 45
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- Jesus said that God shows his love for humanity by giving the Sun and the rain right so that we can have food for the crops
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- Okay, so as we love God we love what he loves and it is his very nature to do good to others
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- So we do the same in our lives as we love God with all our heart soul and mind as God sanctifies us by loving him more this
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- Sanctification will also be shown by doing good to others In verse 22
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- Peter describes purifying our souls that comes through obedience to the truth
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- That is the truth of God's Word and what happens as your soul is purified is that what is produced in you is sincere brotherly love
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- Then Peter reminds this us us this at the end of verse 22 would love one another earnestly from a pure heart
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- What Peter has in mind here is not love for the average human But we're supposed to do that too.
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- We're supposed to love everybody But he has in mind here love for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ Remember this letter is written to churches spread across Asia Minor He is telling these believers to love each other in their respective churches and to love each other as these different churches
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- Came across one another The deep love that believers have for each other truly is a sweet reality the
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- Greek word that Peter uses here to describe love is the love of affection For fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
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- It is the affection you would have for a Biological family member where you have that deep tie you come from the same family
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- But once you belong to the family of God you have this deep and sweet bond with fellow believers people
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- Who are strangers to you? Otherwise? You might not even have things in common You might be completely different ages completely different backgrounds, but you have the most important thing in common
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- Jesus Christ and there's this deep bond this deep affection That you have for each other you have the same father
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- God is your father and this sweet love the sweet affection.
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- I see this playing out in our church right now The people in this church like each other you do
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- I see it Yeah, and I like you It's so wonderful to see this if a church does not feel like a family then there is something wrong
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- But I see this and I pray that until Christ returns. It will always be this way at this church
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- But love does not stop with affection True love always involves action
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- And this is what Peter is stressing here as he writes that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love
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- I Can tell my wife I love her all the day long But if I don't show that love to her in different ways than the statement that I love her is hollow and This is true also in our relationship with fellow believers
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- We need to show that love To them if there's a need Meet that need come alongside
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- Your fellow believers show them that you love them The love of affection needs to turn into action in chapter 2 verse 1 this action is described
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- With five different sins that he lists and he tells us not to do these sins The list here is malice deceit
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- Hypocrisy envy and all slander. These are sins that you can commit against believers
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- Let me briefly goes through these malice is the intention to do evil Deceit is saying you are doing one thing when you're really doing another
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- Hypocrisy is when you show yourself as one thing, but you're really another The fourth sin he mentions here is envy envy is when you long for something you don't have
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- The cure for this is contentment. You are content in the Lord and what he has given you
- 28:36
- Fifth and final sin mentioned is the sin of slander Slander is when you say false things about other people
- 28:46
- And by the way the beware of the beware of slander the word slander
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- If someone exposes something that's false and and the person who doesn't like that it was exposed
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- They if they accuse you of slander that person who accuses you is actually the one committing slander
- 29:05
- Just because you're telling the truth and they don't like it. That's not slander That's exposing the darkness
- 29:12
- But when they come back at you and they say oh you've been slandering No, that's not the truth so that one is a really common in American evangelicalism because there's a lot of corruption out there and People who are exposing the corruption are being called slanders
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- That's you're actually doing what you're supposed to be doing. That's what a biblical shepherd is supposed to do. Okay? Now what
- 29:35
- Peter is telling his readers and every one of us is to put away these destructive sins from our lives Christians walking by the
- 29:42
- Spirit are clean before God and treat others Believers walking by the Spirit do not have evil intent toward others.
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- They do not deceive others for their own gain They do not live a dishonest life of hypocrisy that hurts their relationships
- 29:57
- They do not envy what others have but are instead happy for the gifts of God that others have
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- Lastly Christians walking by the Spirit do not slander that is they do not say false things about others
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- But rather speak the truth and live by the truth We are not to sin in these ways toward anyone but Peter's focus once again is toward believers believers need to treat each other.
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- Well with a deep love in The Spirit's power he enables believers to have this obedience to the truth of God's Word The Spirit empowers believers to live a holy life in one chief way this is shown is through loving fellow believers through brotherly affection and Action that flows from that affection so understand that the
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- Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine and the third Manifestation how is by leading you to love fellow believers?
- 30:56
- The fourth manifestation how you are to understand that the Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine is by Realizing that it is sturdier than anything on earth.
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- Okay. Let me read this again from verses 24 and the first half of verse 25 All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass the grass withers and the flower falls
- 31:19
- But the Word of the Lord remains forever What Peter is doing here is he's quoting
- 31:26
- Isaiah chapter 40 verses 6 through 8 What Peter is doing is comparing humanity to grass and flowers
- 31:35
- That which grows in the field when it receives the proper Sun and rain But grass and flowers come and go
- 31:43
- We know especially Where we live? As I'm going on a bike ride last night
- 31:49
- I'm thinking in four months. This is all gonna be gone. You know it hits you. I mean, this is this is temporary
- 31:56
- The beauty of summer it is temporary. We don't have green grass 12 months of the year
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- We have it for half the year. We don't have flowers for 12 months. We have them for even less than that Every year the grass withers and the flowers fall and this is what our lives are like He's he's using the seasons of weather and he's comparing it to our lives it's always sobering to look at history and To see how short lives are and and then you realize that we only live within just a little pocket of time
- 32:33
- Recently Brianne and I got a tour of the Folsom house this Big white mansion.
- 32:40
- It's not a mansion anymore, but it was a mansion It's on the hill in Taylors Falls The home is of a man named
- 32:49
- William H C Folsom who lived there in the middle part of the 1800s until his death in 1900
- 32:58
- Folsom was a famous early Minnesotan He and his family immigrated from New England.
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- And so this is why the house is on this hill called Angel Hill This is why they look like New England New England homes.
- 33:12
- These are they're all white houses Well Folsom lived in Taylors Falls he owned a general store invested in the thriving logging logging industry at that time and Was a
- 33:24
- Minnesota state senator when the state got its start in 1858
- 33:31
- He was involved in writing the Minnesota Constitution and he also wrote an early history record of the area
- 33:39
- Titled 50 years in the Northwest by the way, you might be thinking did he live in Seattle? No, this area here was called the
- 33:47
- Northwest back then And what he wrote about is these two tribes that lived on both sides of the river that side of the river was the
- 33:55
- Dakota This side of the river was the Ojibwe tribe The home that we toured was beautiful in the home is furniture from their time the family
- 34:08
- Bible in the living room Pictures and other items that have stood the test of time
- 34:14
- You also see pictures of the family on the wall. You see William and his wife and the multiple generations that followed when you tour an old home like this you learn of the people who lived there and the
- 34:27
- Generations that followed and you are reminded that we all live in a small window of time your life is like grass and flowers that bloom and then fall and then
- 34:39
- More bloom and then fall and then more bloom and fall and right now we are the ones who are bloomed
- 34:45
- But our time will come to an end also when we live with this understanding we live our days well in the fear of the
- 34:54
- Lord a Psalm 90 verse 10 and verse 12 say the years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength 80
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- Yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away
- 35:07
- So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom
- 35:14
- But this is not Peters focus, even though I brought it out Peter is comparing all
- 35:19
- Flesh humans and animals with the Word of God while everything in creation is temporary
- 35:27
- The Word of God is not at the first half of verse 25, he says the Word of the
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- Lord remains forever and Jesus said something similar in Matthew 24 35 heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away the words of this book
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- Are eternal? This is important to remember in a world that desires to grab your attention
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- The things of this world are a flash in the pan They will fade and Those who go after it will regret it so much in this world.
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- Namely the evil things in it are passing away And we when we live for the
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- Bible we live for that which endures forever So understand that the Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine and the fourth
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- Manifestation how that Peter pulls out here is by realizing that it is sturdier than anything on earth
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- Now here's the fifth and final Manifestation how you're to understand that this book is far more powerful than you can imagine and that is
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- By enabling you to taste the sweetness of God Chapter 2 verse 3 where Peter writes if indeed you have tasted that the
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- Lord is Good and what he's saying there is you can only be sanctified You can only grow in holiness if you first have the new birth
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- You need to be saved to be able to grow you need to have the Holy Spirit to be able to grow and what you experience in your study of the
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- Bible as a Christian is the sweetness of God as Psalm 19
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- Verses 9 through 10 say the rules of the Lord are true and righteous all together more to be desired
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- Are they than gold even much fine gold sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb?
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- We love honey in fact The two he's kindly donated a bunch of honey earlier on in the summer to the church honey has a sweet taste the moment it hits your tongue and This is nothing new this goes back to ancient times
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- And this is how the Bible describes itself. There is sweetness to it because it comes from the one who is
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- Sweet the one who is good the one who is Delightful, and you find this once you get to know him.
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- This is who he is Is he the judge of the world yes?
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- He will judge unbelievers because he is just but he's also good.
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- He's also delightful Sometimes you meet someone you're just thinking. This is such a delightful person.
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- I just enjoy being around this person That's what God's like only far greater than that he is
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- Good he is sweet Psalm 34 8 says taste and see that the
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- Lord is good I I remember experiencing this vividly 13 years ago when
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- I was on a trip for work As I mentioned last week. I used to be a sales representative for a running running shoe company
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- The brand was actually Brooks and so when I met Mark Marcus. Where are you mark? Oh? He's way back there.
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- He's usually over here You know mark Brooks. I think and I used to sell Brooke shoes
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- We had these sales meetings twice a year and when I mentioned last because it's a very godless environment
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- Just it makes you feel filthy being around it And by the way, that's a good sign that you're a believer
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- You know first John 3 9 says no one born of God makes a practice of sinning
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- Which means no one born of God is comfortable in sin It's just you just don't feel good when you're around it
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- So during this trip. I felt this way. I felt dirty and then I got on the Flight on the way home and all
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- I wanted to do was read the Bible So I turned to 2nd Timothy. I remember reading through 2nd Timothy, and it felt like water was being poured over me
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- In that moment I experienced the sweetness of the Lord through his word For all the believers in this room you have experienced this also
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- When you read the Bible you taste that he is good It is true that sometimes we read the
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- Bible and don't experience this The familiar things in life including the
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- Bible these glorious things we can take for granted And it can lose its sweetness, but that doesn't mean the sweetness isn't there
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- We need to pray to experience that sweetness again because it is there It's the
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- Word of God. It comes from God who is good So how truly amazing it is to realize that this book is sweet and it's sweeter than any other book
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- Because it's the only book that God has written Understand this is all in summary now
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- Understand that the Word of God is far more powerful than you can imagine and in this text.
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- We've seen my five manifestations how By causing you to experience the new birth it saves you
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- Growing godly character in you it sanctifies you Leading you to love fellow believers
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- Realizing that it is sturdier than anything on earth and enabling you to taste the sweetness of God This is the power of the
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- Word of God What a gift from the Lord his word is and we should praise him for this and fill our lives with it so that we
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- Experience the power of the Spirit as he works through his word now next
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- Sunday We are going to learn about the cornerstone we hear this in Christian language we hear about the cornerstone
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- What is the cornerstone? Who is it describing? and it's also going to describe stones who are the stones describing and Peter is going to explain this to us and I look forward to looking at that with you
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- But at this time let's bow our heads in Prayer Oh Father in heaven
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- Your word Saves us and transforms us
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- It tells us of the glories of the age to come in a sinful world in an ugly world this book is here and It tells us about that which is truly life
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- And my prayer is that everyone in this room would have that life in Jesus That is revealed in this living word
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- If there's anyone blind here today I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind that they would receive Christ as Lord Savior and treasure and That all of us
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- Lord would experience The power of the Word of God this week and on in Jesus name