Examining The Purpose-Driven Ministry (part 1) - [Titus 1:9]

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Are You Content With Your Lot In Life? (part 2) - [1 Corinthians 7:17-24]

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Father in heaven, Lord, we just praise you this morning For your kindness your goodness toward us.
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We're mindful of those who have been whose lives have been touched by these storms by these tornadoes by floods all manner of things and father we would pray for them and most of all that You would be glorified in the midst of all this disaster that people would be
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Would have their hearts turned toward you Father would you bless us this morning as we come together to worship you to look to your word in Christ's name.
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We pray. Amen Well, I don't know how many of you how many of you this week watched the video that pastor
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Mike sent out the John Piper and Rick Warren interview anybody watch that I have to confess, you know, it was after about nine minutes
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I go I can't take it anymore and I would invite you to open up your
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Bibles to Titus chapter 1 We're gonna start with this and then we'll get back to what
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I originally intended to talk about. I Really was
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I have to say disheartened Mostly because I don't know about you, but you rarely see and I understand that Let me just say this you rarely see an interview imagine this.
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I don't know pick a newscaster Some kind of interview person imagine, you know old
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Mike Wallace 60 minutes sitting down with George W Bush and saying Now, mr.
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President. I want you to know I support all your policies. I think you're a great president You know everything that you've done so far has been correct now.
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I have a few questions for you we'd be shocked and I really felt that that's basically what
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John Piper did for the first three minutes of the Interview with Rick Warren was he just basically said
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Rick. I think your book is great Here are all the things I found in your book that I really really love and you know
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It was all these little snippets and I just thought Okay, what You know, when is the when is the challenge starts and the answer was it never started
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Titus 1 chapter 9 or sorry verse 9 talking about elders
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Qualification for elders He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be
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Able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it
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Now with that is a little bit of an introduction. I Have a few quotes here from Rick Warren one was on a video.
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I watched last night now Understanding that this is taken out of context, but if you want the context you can look it up you won't be impressed
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Rick Warren spiritual emptiness is a universal disease Spiritual emptiness is a universal disease.
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What does that mean? It does mean people are lost
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Means that we need God Well sin is the universal disease
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I will go with that 100 % Spiritual emptiness is a universal disease. What is spiritual emptiness?
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It implies lack of fulfillment. Absolutely Different it means different things to different people.
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Absolutely But spiritual emptiness implies certainly I think that you can fill a spiritual emptiness in a variety of different ways
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Someone can say well, you know, I'm spiritual and I don't have a spiritual emptiness
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And yet they can have nothing to do with Christ Spiritual emptiness is a universal disease
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I really don't much like that word disease because it also implies that you have no part of it a
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Disease is something that has done to you. It's not something that you do And when the Bible talks about sin, it talks about sin being passed down as a nature from Adam's fall
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So I suppose in that sense you could consider it a disease But sin is something that we not only do by nature we do by Choice by desire
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So this kind of spiritual emptiness is a universal disease I'm like, okay that gets us right back to everybody has a
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Christ -size hole in their hearts. I Mean it's the kind of Just absolute nonsense that I hate.
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Here's some more Rick Warren quotes and this is something that he wrote in the ladies home journal his five main points to his
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Article in the ladies home journal noted scholarly and Christian magazine number one
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Tell me if this sounds like the gospel number one accept yourself number two love yourself
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Number three be true to yourself number four forgive yourself number five believe in yourself
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Yeah, let's Let's try to measure that up Let's go to Luke gospel of Luke Chapter 9
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Let's just see how that kind of parallels the thoughts and teaching of the
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Lord Jesus Luke 9 verse 23 and He said to all if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me
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For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it
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For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? for whoever is ashamed of me and of my words of Him will the
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Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the angels
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But I tell you truly there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God and so my question is
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Where would we see in the Bible or where would Jesus use this kind of language accept yourself love yourself be true to yourself forgive yourself
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Believe in yourself or forgive yourself believe in yourself We wouldn't see that some more
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Rick Warren During the next 90 days people are going to become more open to the gospel than in years
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It is God's responsibility to make people receptive it is our responsibility to sow the seed You know what?
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I would believe that second part. It is God's responsibility to make people receptive
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It is our responsibility to sow the seed of the gospel implied But how would he know that during the next 90 days people are going to be more open to the gospel than in years?
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How would you know that? How about this quote?
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This is from? The Purpose driven life.
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I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity Jesus I believe in you and I receive you
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After that he says if you sincerely meant that prayer congratulations welcome the family of God That's it
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That's the gospel I believe in Jesus and I received Jesus Who is Jesus?
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Why do I need to receive him? Who is God? And this is probably the worst here so I'll go through this quickly
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This is something else. I found this was on modernism When Warren says if you want
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God to do something really big then you have to think exponentially You know what an exponent
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Exponent is you know if you have two to the second power or two squared
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Then that's four if you have two cubed, that's eight because it's two times two times two
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So he wants us to think exponentially meaning beyond just multiplying Exponentially it gets super big super fast.
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I Mean I remember As a kid how many of you ever figured this one out if I give you a penny a day for a month?
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How much do I give you at the end of the month? And double it every day so it goes from one cent to two cent
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Bruce a lot of money I Mean, I don't know if anybody has calculator
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You don't you don't need to figure it out But it's something along the lines of a million dollars by the time you know and you go 30 days.
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Oh, yeah Yeah, so just ask your bank to say hey look if I deposit this penny. Would you just double it every day for a month?
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Break the place That's the power of exponential thinking Exponential interest
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I guess as it were listen what he says here. He says God spoke to me that my faith wasn't big enough
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You know that he needed to think bigger and He says that God gave him these ten principles related to exponential growth.
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They are number one Exponential growth is possible Exponential growth is possible
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Okay Now listen to this verse, and I don't even know what version of the Bible it is because one of the trademarks of Rick Warren's Teaching is that he will take any of 15 different translations whatever suits him
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And that's what he will project up on the screen, but he says here exponential growth is possible, and this is Genesis 4727 from some
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Translation so Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen and they have possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly
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It's an example of exponential growth So we should think to ourselves exponential growth is possible because it happened to Israel in the land of Egypt.
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I Don't know how Valid that is I don't think it's very valid that certainly isn't Good exegesis his second point exponential growth is the
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New Testament model Then he looks at Acts 6 verse 7 then the
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Word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith
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Number three exponential growth brings honor to God is a at 26 15 thou hast increased the nation
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Oh Lord thou hast increased the nation thou art glorified thou hast removed it far unto all the ends of the earth
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And you just go you read on and on and here here's what I took out of this It's kind of the this is literally what you expect to see in it during a
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TV and praise a thon You take verses out of context and you go see look at that principle. That's true for you today
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And I mentioned this on Wednesday morning with the men. I'm going to get what well. Let me ask you. What's the what's the?
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danger in Interpreting a Narrative passage of Scripture The danger when you are when you're coming to a narrative as opposed to you know an historical account versus an epistle
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What's the danger Bruce Right the danger would be saying that that's normative in other words well
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Peter raised somebody from the dead therefore I'm gonna go to the morgue and just start come on guys.
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Let's go And that's the problem and that's exactly what he's doing here that is not sound exegesis the thing the difference between letters or epistles and narrative passages is the epistles often have commands in them and Narratives typically don't have as many
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And so we need just take those principles and you yank them out of the context you say well these apply to us
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It's not necessarily true number four exponential growth captures the attention of the unbelieving world
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Exodus 1 12 But the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew and they were grieved because of the children of the of Israel in other words the people were upset the
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Egyptians were upset by the growth of Israel, but now think about that exponential growth captures the attention of the unbelieving world look
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Here's the message underlying message you want to impress the world You want to shock the world?
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You take your church from a size of 100 to a size of 3 ,000 in a short period of time
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They're gonna. Go. I am so impressed by that church I Want to go to that church because they're growing fast
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Bigger isn't better the Lord used 12. I mean how many you know if that was the model If that is the measure of success if growth is all about impressing the world so that the world will want to believe
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Then what would we have to say about Jesus? apparently
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He wasn't aware of these principles of exponential growth Because in John 6 he had multitudes of people following him and what did he do?
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He said hey, you know I really got something good going on here. I need to build on this and really impress the world
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By the end of the chapter how many people are following him? 12 they're all everybody else is gone
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Because he set the bar so high he chased them all away That was an exponential thinking
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Number five exponential growth is caused by God. Well that is true right hopefully
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I Mean if we experience exponential growth here. We'll know it's not because we have a man -centered approach
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Deuteronomy 110 the Lord your God has multiplied you and Here you are today as the stars of heaven in multitude again talking to Israel Well, that's true
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He did do that But if exponential growth one man asked here if exponential growth is caused by God Then why are you
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Rick Warren teaching people how to achieve it by using your program? God causes the growth let me tell you how
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God's gonna cause it I Don't really think that what there seems to be a contradiction there number six exponential growth is the result of God's blessing on your life
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Isaiah 51 verse 2 look unto Abraham your father and it and unto Sarah that bore you for I called him alone and blessed him and increased him
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I Don't get it. I don't see how that applies this one has no scripture reference at all
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And no wonder number seven exponential growth makes God's smile Number eight the only barrier to exponential growth is our own unbelief mark 652
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For they had not understood about the lows because their heart was hardened And Secretive exponential growth is believing
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God for big things then he tests their eyes saying according to your faith let it be to you Etc.
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Etc. Etc. I mean this is this is all kind of reformulated Reverend Bob Schuller thinking
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I mean this is just terrible This is all terrible again. This is nothing that you wouldn't expect to hear on TBN I Didn't even read the last point exponential growth begins with exponential thinking
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Isaiah 4 2 I mean this is all just made up And then this man goes on to say as if these ten points aren't enough
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Warren then spends a couple of minutes explaining how to utilize Exponential thinking here are some quotes.
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How do you think exponentially? You simply put a zero behind the number Rick Warren said
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God said to him you're not thinking bat big enough bat bad enough. That was a Freudian slip You're not thinking big enough at a zero instead of three thousand think of thirty thousand
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He recommends we do this in our events God would have us or God would have to show up to force us to think in ways.
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We've never thought before Exponential thinking keeps you from making the mistake of setting up a system that won't get bigger
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Pastors and leaders you are limiting the growth of your church because you haven't set a goal that forces you to think out of the box
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Do things in new ways we may be limiting God's will for our churches
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Faith stretches us works in the realm of the impossible whatsoever is not a faith is sin
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Now I would have you for just a moment turn to Matthew chapter 16 and in verse 13
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Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples Why do people or I'm sorry?
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Who do people say that the Son of Man is and they said? Some say John the
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Baptist others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets He said to them, but who do you say that I am?
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Simon Peter replied you are the Christ the Son of the Living God and Jesus answered him blessed.
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Are you Simon bar Jonah? For flesh and blood has not revealed to this to you, but it was your exponential thinking
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Oh wait But my father who is in heaven Listen to verse 18 and I tell you you are
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Peter and on this rock. I will build my church and The gates of hell shall not prevail against it
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Jesus made the promise that he would build the church He didn't give a church growth program and I certainly see nothing in Rick Warren's program here his exponential thinking that is
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Anything that Jesus would endorse or did endorse throughout anything in the Bible other thoughts.
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I mean I could go on If we could do weeks on Rick Warren, I mean I tell people
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You know, I've been to Saddleback on a number of occasions and the one thing that I've never left thinking is
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God was certainly glorified in that service this morning or this evening because we go in the evening go on Saturday night
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So you don't spoil your Sunday? There is just really nothing
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I just cannot even fully describe how really sad it is you go and After after the music gets done everybody sits down and Rick Warren teaches for 10 to 12 minutes again.
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Don't bother bringing your Bible because everything's just projected on the screen He'll make his point and then you're off to some other verse
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Not really typically we're working through a context. The only time I can remember him going through a context was in Matthew 13 the parable of the soils
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In fact turn to Matthew 13 Parable of the soils and I'm gonna read that As I turn the page here
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Parable of the sower it's called here Verse 1 that same day
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Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea and Great crowds gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down get a little distance and Set it up so that everybody can hear him
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And the whole crowd stood on the beach and he told them many things in parables saying a
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Sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them other seeds fell on rocky ground
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Where they did not excuse me where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil
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But when the Sun rose they were scorched and since they had no root they withered away
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Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them
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Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain some a hundredfold some 60 some 30
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He who has ears let him hear And then Rick went on to explain that these
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And let's see the the birds the rocky ground
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The thorns these were all Obstacles in our lives, you know that the constant buzz of daily life
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The cares that we have all the concerns and problems that surround us
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Even sin and these are all the things that do what? well, it tells us right here and Verse 9 he who has ears let him hear they clog up our ears.
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They stop us from hearing what God wants us to hear Now what's wrong with that interpretation of this parable
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Yeah, the problem is that Jesus gives an entirely different interpretation starting in verse 18 because that the
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Disciples didn't really get it. So he says here then the parable of the sower When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand that the evil one comes and snatches
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What has been sown in his heart? This is what was sown along the path as for what was sown on rocky ground
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This is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while and When tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word
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Immediately he falls away as for what was sown among thorns This is the one who hears the word but the cares of the world and the seedfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful as For what was sown on good soil?
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This is the one who hears the word and understands it He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold and another 60 and another 30
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Jesus is explaining in this parable why some people don't believe why some people believe and then fall away and why some people
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Believe and bear different levels of fruit What he's not doing is addressing an entire group of believers and saying look you guys need to clear the obstacles out of your life so that God can hear you and This is consistently what goes on in the church.
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The Word of God is misrepresented and people even Christians who may be there grow at a
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Shockingly slow rates compared to what they might otherwise do Right Yeah Pam was talks about another message she heard him teach on the subways that you can know
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God's will and He his consistent pattern is to take a verse out of context to give it a new meaning and to use it how he wants to and ultimately
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While he may have good intentions what he does in practice is little different than what false teachers do so Any other questions or comments has anybody read the purpose -driven life by the way
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I See those hands I Guess it
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Pam says that on page 86 Not not that she you know took notes or anything
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That there's a reference to pantheism and you know, it is amazing. Isn't it? How many are former
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Roman Catholics? How many are former former Mormons When you when you come whatever background you come out of and they come from a pantheistic background
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Whatever background you come out of you are really Sensitive to those kind of things so when something, you know rubs up against Catholicism or Mormonism or some of their false teaching that you you know
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You're just like wait a minute. That is wrong. You know, let me tell you and You know when you read analyses of the purpose -driven life and you see that, you know
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The Mormons have embraced it and different people have embraced it you you just say yourself okay, there must be something wrong with this and so it was interesting because Piper asked
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Rick Warren about that in that interview that pastor Mike Sent out and Rick Warren said he said, you know what?
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I never meant I never meant for this book to be read by unbelievers And I was like, okay well
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We'll say that's true He said he wrote it just basically for the church's use and their 40 to accompany their 40 days of purpose at their at their
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Church the program there. Well, let's say that that's true when it was selling and by the way in the same thing where I got the 10
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Delios from Exponential growth or whatever. It was an interview. It was another one Another interview
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I watched with him where he was just talking about the purpose -driven life And you know, he's just sitting there in this chair with his horrid
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Hawaiian shirt on Sorry, they are bad and he says he says He says well, you know,
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I never expected to sell a million books a month Man I'm going I'm sure you didn't you know, and this is now the number one best -selling book of all time other than the
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Bible so if I didn't intend a book for unbelievers and all of a sudden millions of unbelievers were buying my book
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I'd be like Maybe I need to write a book for unbelievers Explaining the gospel.
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I'm still waiting for that Book by Rick Warren, you know Now that you've read the purpose driven life
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Maybe you'd like to get saved so that you can know what that book was supposed to mean But we haven't seen that yet any other thoughts or comments from the erudite who read the purpose driven life
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Bruce I have no idea.
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I Really couldn't say that's an excellent point It is a little bit confusing isn't it
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Casey? When I watched the video that Any sense to anyone else it does to me when
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I watched the video that pastor Mike sent out it struck me that Rick Warren is no different from all the professing
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Christians that I've met that are They think they're believers. They don't they haven't been granted understanding of Scripture just like this explanation of the sewer passage
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It's only the last good seed that understands the word the Lord says the others Give evidence or they're excited for a while or they receive it with joy and different stuff, but they never
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Understand it and he doesn't and when he's sitting there with Piper I thought this is just like all these people
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I talked to who are professing believers or Family members or people in malls or wherever or whoever?
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He's no different from them just You know, it's it's hard It's hard for me to say because you look at some of the things he does even the
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Matthew 13 the parable thing and you go Okay, how could somebody who's a believer do that?
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The truth is I don't know. I Don't know. I mean, I can't judge his heart.
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Here's what I can say. I Can say that the things that he does with the Bible are not
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They're not keeping with James 3 James 3 verse 1 James writes, you know, let not many of you be teachers.
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Why? Because you're gonna have a stricter judgment You know
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Timothy 2nd Timothy 4 2 says preach the word well, it doesn't you know the the
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Idea in the preface leading up to that is before God and you know, the heavenly host and everything
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Listen, I'm gonna give you a solemn challenge to do this He also instructs
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Timothy to rightly divide the word so that he won't be ashamed and all these different Imperatives on how we should handle the
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Bible and I'm like he handles it in a way That I would expect maybe an unbeliever to handle it.
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Does that mean he's an unbeliever? I can't say that what I can say is he can give all the right answers
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You listen to him and he's not he's not dumb. He's a smart guy and When he's talking to John Piper He can give all the right answers and he knows the
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Jonathan Edwards quotes and he's read this and he knows that and he believes in the five solace
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He actually said that I believe in the five solace I've been to his church and I can't figure out where that fits in you know, is that in the
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Celebrate recovery thing or is that in the you know, I mean on and on and on it goes but it's a it's a
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Very confusing thing and I was saddened to see Piper do it because it was so long and such an endorsement
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I mean if you haven't watched I would encourage you to watch as much as you can take Mike said oh you got to watch about you know mile marker
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I went back into my cup days mile marker 45, you know where he again talks about MacArthur for about the second time or whatever and You know,
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I just listened and I just thought I Don't know how when Rick Warren's next book comes out
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John Piper doesn't endorse it Because he was so effusive in his praise for you know,
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Rick Warren and so, you know kind of Hugged him, you know as a brother teacher.
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I don't know how he can ever distance himself now Yeah, and and Pam brings up a great point, you know, what a false teachers do they take the
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Word of God and they Twist distort fold spin on mutilate and they lead people astray
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Now that's what I mean Rick Warren is doing those things
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Does that make him a false teacher You know doesn't make him an unbeliever. I don't know All I know is he does and says some things on the one hand that are completely inconsistent with biblical
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Christianity on the other hand He says and does some things that are very consistent with biblical
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Christianity. So I don't know I mean, it's definitely a mixed bag, but I would be very cautious before I Took all the burden off of Rick Warren to establish why it is that he does the things he does
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But any other thoughts before we move on But I also thought it was
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I Just thought it was it was sad to watch, you know, John Piper I mean it'd be like me watching
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R. C. Sproul or John MacArthur or Al Mohler up there just kind of Saying all these great things and what he did and it made me want to read the purpose drive driven life again
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Because what Piper did and if you watch the interview just the first Seven or eight minutes of it.
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What you'll see is that he took Piper took little quotes Five six words five six words five six words on a multiple of pages and made it sound like Rick Warren's purpose driven life was the most
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God -honoring book ever written You know, it was like move over a John Bunyan, you know, we don't need
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I Almost said Paul Bunyan. We don't need that We don't need that anymore.
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Now. We've got the purpose of my life. So I thought it was an extremely extremely sad interview from the perspective of John Piper All right so now in the four and a half minutes
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I have left I'm gonna start talking about the attributes of God and I'll be doing a week or two on this and then we're going to start our summer series
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But talking about the attributes of God I have a Have a question, you know, let's go back to how many of you can remember junior high school chemistry or high school chemistry whenever you took it,
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I Mean, I thought some of the things they did were really cool. I remember when you know junior high I mean like probably the most exciting day in junior high
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Was we had kind of a crazy professor and you could tell he was crazy because all of his eyebrows have been singed off Any he had, you know a burner in the class a little
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Bunsen burner and all that stuff and And he shut it off and he lit a match.
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He says now He goes watch this and he took some power and he threw it up in the air and then he struck that match and it all and I just thought
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It was crazy man. I thought the whole room was gonna go up and you know, I thought what is that?
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You know some kind of Yeah, something great. No, it was something called like a podium
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I don't remember anything that's in like a podium All I remember is you throw it up in the air and it blows man
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You know when he put the match in there But that had to do with physics and other things but if you think back to class, you know
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How would you know if the if the teacher brought in a beaker full or whatever a beaker full of water?
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But he didn't say this is water He just put it out there and goes, you know, what do you think that is? And somebody right away is gonna say it's water
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He goes really, you know now all of a sudden doubt is introduced, right? Maybe it's alcohol.
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Maybe it's you know, who knows who knows what evil things the professor is concocted and put in there
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So, how would you discover that it's water? You'd have to know the principles of what water is
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You know So maybe you'd fire up the old bunsen burner and instead of throwing powder up in the air you put it on there you see
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Okay, it's boiling now. How hot is it? It's frozen now, how cold is it?
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It's doing this it's doing that, you know, and eventually what would you do? You'd make enough observations about it.
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Then you go. Okay, it is in fact water Especially when he told you it's eleven point one eight percent
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Hydrogen and eighty eight point one two, you know, once he did that then you'd you pretty know pretty much know it was water
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But in that same way When we think about God We we can only know that he is in fact
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The God of the Bible when we begin to look at his attributes when we begin to look at what makes him
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God and what the Bible tells us about him For example Culver says the
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Bible says in a thousand ways that God is gracious Angry true faithful merciful righteous and so on And he says at first, you know, you're reading through the
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Bible and you just think wow God is gracious. God is this God is that good? Is that and that's all very nice But it's only when you organize them in a systematic way and that's the beauty of systematic theology that it becomes
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Meaningful That we understand the full impact of what the Bible says about God and his attributes
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Theology must put these important facts about God into some sort of system We must consider how earlier saints and scholars organize this data and we must relate the same to current thinking
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Okay, so now we're thinking about God Now here's what would be wrong, you know to think about God as you know being made of component parts
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That somehow if we take all of his attributes up and we add them all up that we get God.
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Why would that be wrong? He's infinite he's more than you know, the sum of his parts because he has no parts
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And besides that if we tried to add up all of his attributes, what would what problem would we run into? What's that Can't count that high we'd run out.
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In fact, some of his attributes our mind would be Boggled we would be strained beyond our capacity to understand to even comprehend it and to define it
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Culver writes is it possible to define God at all? And if so, how should we proceed? He says good theology has always been cautious about attempting to define
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God and I say that's good But he says recently exponents of liberal theology have been insisting it is
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Sinful to even try to define God because they say That God can only
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That we can only encounter God in a personal way that it's very much a matter of experience and when we define or state propositions about these essentially unreportable
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Confrontations we impose or we compose a God to suit ourselves.
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In other words they say that God is much more than anything that can be defined or known or written about and That if we do that, we have a sterile kind of impersonal
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God and that God is really more about Experience and relationships and he's much broader than we think
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But Christian theology has been aware of this difficulty from the beginning And he goes through some of the historical efforts to do it by Gregory the theologian there's a name to be known, you know 2 ,000 years from now they know
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Steve the theologian. That would be nice Like to have that as opposed to Steve the thick -headed or something else with but Gregory Gregory opposed those in his time who thought they knew everything about God, which is good because we don't know everything about God But as he began his own more modest effort to define
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God he wrote this listen We must begin thus it is difficult to conceive
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God, but to define him in words is an impossibility to comprehend to comprehend the whole of so great a subject as this is quite impossible and Impractical not merely to the utterly careless and ignorance, but even to those who are highly exalted and who love
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God For it is one thing to be persuaded of the existence of a thing and quite another to know what it is
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So we know God exists and we have to kind of step back and think okay.
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How do we define? God, how could we know who God is? How can we talk about him in a way that makes sense?
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Charles Hodge Princeton theologian said this he's he sensibly pointed out that a
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Though a definition may not tell what a thing is in itself. It can do no harm
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To try to do it For divine is to simply distinguish so that the thing defined may be discriminated from all other things.
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Well, that's true And he says that may be done by stating his characteristics even if we can't comprehensively define the characteristics of God we can
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Give a lot of them by stating its genus and its specific difference by Analyzing the idea as it lies in our minds and by explanation of the term or name by which it is denoted
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We must define God by some sort of descriptive statements about him if we are to discuss theology at all
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The Bible not only reports the mighty acts of God But also makes factual statements about God on nearly every page.
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We must affirm some statement that begins God is dot dot dot
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To have any orderly discourse about him Perhaps the most respected definition in Protestant Christian history is the
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Westminster Confessions definition it begins There is but one Only living and true
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God who is infinite in being And then it goes on to mention about 25 characteristics or attributes with scriptural proofs for each one
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And he says thus committing several sins against current liberal theological thinking
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And that's what we're going to be discussing is the different attributes of God first We're going to talk about how it can be systematized but then we're going to go through and we're going to talk about the attributes of God and these are
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Extremely practical even as we were talking Before about the names of God By knowing what the names of God are and how they reflect who he is
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We are encouraged in the same way when we think about God and his attributes when we think
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God is love We think God is righteous. I mean those things left in a vacuum if we just put you know
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That's God is love on a sign and we hang it up on the wall by itself. That doesn't mean anything
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But when we think about okay, what is the implication of God is love for me?
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How does that change my life? What does the Bible say about God is love? Well, first of all, it says what?
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That that is an immutable fact that once he sets his love on someone he never changes His affections for me will not change
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It also says to me That I need to love why because God loved me and I'm created in his image
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And he has recreated me even brought me from spiritual death to life. Why so that I might love others
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There are all manner of implications to the attributes of God When we say God is righteous again, if it's just a sign, it doesn't mean that much
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But if I understand that God is righteous that he hates sin that his eyes are too pure to even look on sin
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Then I understand that there is a problem for me and there's a problem for every single individual All of these attributes are very practical.
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They have They have an impact on our daily lives and our thinking, you know when you wake up in the morning
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You just think God is love And you just think about all that he's given you out of love and you think
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I have a very loving God Well, that's a great way to start the day as opposed to thinking Okay, I've got this bill to pay that bill to pay
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I've got that Aaron to run that Aaron to run that Aaron to run What we think about God and how we think about God and how often we think about God Impacts influences changes the way we live, you know to tie it back all back to this
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Rick Warren thing I'll tell you one of the most impactful moments for me
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Having gone to Saddleback, I don't know seven or eight times Is to sit there during those services and to think okay.
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This is supposed to be a worship service and Then they they do the message because it's ten minutes and then it's a song ten minutes of teaching and then it's a song and Then it's ten minutes of teaching and then another song ten minutes
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You know, it's like a TV show because you know, we all have ADD and we can't listen to long sermons
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But when they get up and they start passing around the offering plate, you know what happens
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About one -third of the congregation stands up and leaves during the offering and I'm just like Well, I guess
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I don't understand the idea that giving is part of worship too because there are other You know the final song still going the plates are being passed by the ladies
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It's true and and you know that everybody just bails, you know, they can't wait to get to the parking lot
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I guess they're looking to avoid the traffic. It's like it's a baseball game or something. It's not it's not about worship and it's really sad to behold if You think about what you are here to do?
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If you think about who God is and how we ought to live in light of who he is
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You won't think about church like that. You won't think about well if I leave now I can beat the traffic out of the parking lot
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You won't think well now that the offerings here I can I can jet set out of here This is an opportunity that we have once a week to gather together with the people of God and to worship the
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God who has saved Us that's how we need to think about it. Let's pray our
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Father in heaven it is Beyond comprehension that you would send your son the
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Lord Jesus the second person of the Trinity God from all eternity
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To come here and to take on a human body To live a perfect life in our place to die a sacrificial death for our sin
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To raise him to show the entire world that he is your son
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And father that people would Handle these things so lightly That they would treat them with such
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Such carelessness Father would you make us a people who are ever mindful
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Always grateful for all that you are and all that you have done for your people in Christ's name.