Spiritual Health (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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All right, so this week and next week we will be doing a topic that I want to call spiritual health.

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Spiritual health. Well, you're guessing what it might mean. I'm going to do one part of it today and its mirror component next week.

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And I have a little bit of a lengthy introduction because this is a subject that I've been wrestling with for the last several months.

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And I think it was helpful for me to prepare. It was not helpful for me to not bring my notes today, but I have some scribbled down notes that will,

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I hope, help me not wander too far off of what I've prepared. So if you notice something that you say, oh,

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Pradeep seems to be going off the path, just raise your hand and that might be helpful for me. So as I said,

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I want to start with a little bit of an extended introduction. And after that, we will get right into our topic.

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This class, this Sunday school, I want us to be very interactive because that's, I think, helpful for the topic we are covering.

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So before we get into spiritual health, I have a question. You hear a baby cry.

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Just shout out the thoughts that are running through your head. You hear a baby cry. Very nice.

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What might you think is the reason the baby is crying? Hungry?

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Tired? Or both? Stinky? All right.

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So there is a symptom that you observe as a baby's cry, and you can almost suddenly tie it back to a cause, a root cause, that's resulting in that symptom that you see.

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So sometimes fixing that baby's crying by just saying, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, doesn't always work, although it does work at times.

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Sometimes you need to go back and fix what the source of that baby's problem is in order for the crying to go away.

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Fast forward a few years, you're now an adult, and then I was not talking about you as a baby.

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I was just talking about other babies. But now think of yourself at this point. You have some things going on in life.

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You just don't feel good. Things are just not working out.

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So let's maybe start with the simplest one. I'm just not able to get out of bed. I'm just feeling very weak. And then

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I put the thermometer on my head, and it says 105. What might be the problem that's going on with me?

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I'm sick. The symptom is I seem to have a high fever. Now there's a lot of different causes for fever in my body, and my job would be to maybe just treat the symptom first, take something so I can actually start thinking, take a

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Tylenol, and then say, okay, what did I do wrong? What do I need to fix? I need rest. Whatever it is, then you go to the root, and then you fix it.

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Physical problems that we have, we know how to address. When it comes to the baby, there are things that the baby needs.

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Milk, food, nourishment, care, rest, sleep. These are all things that make a baby healthy and grow up to be a thriving adult.

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And as adults, we sometimes think we know what we should be eating, sleeping, drinking, and all those stuff that babies should have learned.

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But if you're like me, you would have been eating ramen noodles for five years, and find out 20 years later that that's actually not good for you.

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Too bad you can't go back in time and fix it. So there are things that for a baby you need in order for it to flourish well and grow in a healthy manner.

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For us, we still need that. We need to be careful of what it is that sustains us physically. And when we actually fall ill, we can diagnose what the problem of our illness is based on the symptoms we see.

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So if it's fever, it's one thing. If it's a flu or a cold, it's one thing. If it's cancer, it's another thing. There's a multitude of ailments that can come at us physically.

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But I would contend that each of us here have at least a general sense of how to look at the symptoms of our physical health failing, and then trying to get to the root of what is causing those symptoms, so that we can try to address those physical problems and get well.

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So far, everybody's with me? Okay. So now, spiritual health.

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Let's have a little bit of an open conversation on how this physical health and the way we relate to it might relate to spiritual health for each of us.

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How do we find if you're doing healthy or not, and if you are spiritually unhealthy, how do we go about trying to fix it?

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Pray. That's right. So physically ill, you go to Google or you go to your doctor.

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When you are spiritually ill, I think our chief physician, the Bible calls us, is in heaven, and we need to speak to him.

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We want to talk to him. Excellent. What else might we do when we are spiritually not doing well?

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Excellent. And actually, this is one thing that I'm going to keep coming back to over and over again. So Mark was talking about how we need to go back to the gospel.

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So if you think of spiritual health, it begins first after you have spiritual life.

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John 3. I don't remember the verse. What is the verse where Jesus talks

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Nicodemus? Is it 10? It's in John 3. Thank you. So you have a new birth.

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Just like physical babies have physical birth, we were all once spiritual babies where we were born again, and that new life comes through Jesus Christ's finished work.

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So it is the gospel that actually gave us, birthed us, and then we need to continue to live in light of the gospel.

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I'm going to just give a quick four things that I try to remind myself of and when

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I'm trying to tell others. What is the gospel? We have a creator God, a holy God, an almighty God, a

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God to whom everyone must give account because he created everyone and everyone is accountable to him.

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We have a man who was created in a perfect state but has fallen and no man can live that perfect life that is acceptable to God on his or her own.

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And therefore they need someone else to take care of the sins that they've committed and give them the ability to please

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God, live a life that is pleasing to God. And it begins by trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

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So we need to look to Jesus, the perfect man who lived that perfect life and enabled us.

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He took, we have the substitutionary atonement, he died in my place and he gives me his righteousness and therefore it's not on the basis of my works but on the basis of Jesus' work that I come before the throne room in heaven.

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And so by start crying out, desiring the pure milk of the word as Peter would talk about, crying out because I'm born into this new family of God by the spirit of God through the gospel in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

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And then remembering Galatians we would say, now that I'm born I just don't go eating ramen noodles and McDonald's.

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I need to keep eating the word. I need to be spending time with my father. You know, I need, you know, like baby needs moms to hold him and dads and likewise we need to be in the presence of our

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God as we get to know him, enjoy him and grow. First John 2 talks about little children, young men and fathers.

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I'm going to come back to that. And it's that maturity that we keep growing in spiritually just as we grow physically but it is always on the basis of the gospel.

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My standing before God is because of my new birth in Jesus Christ. You'll never be not your, okay

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I never should use double negatives, you cannot be anything but the child of your physical parents because you are born to them.

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And when you're spiritually born to your heavenly father, nothing changes that.

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We've seen that Pastor Steve's thought about John 10, the passages that just are plenty in terms of he who birthed you, he will bring to completion what he has started in you.

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We're talking about Jesus' work on our behalf. And so when we, after we are born, while we live this life, we need to continue to live on the basis of Jesus Christ and his finished work.

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Our standing is always in Christ and the work that we do. And so we talk about salvation in three elements, right?

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Justification, that's when we are declared not guilty, that's our standing. Sanctification, which is how the spirit of God works in us and transforms us into the in conformity into the image of Christ.

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And glorification where one day in heaven we will never have sin anymore and we will behold

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God face to face. But this today's text, when we are talking about spiritual health is not talking about either of those, but it's talking about sanctification and that's basically the narrow lens in which

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I'm going to focus. So while I'm going to speak, speak a lot to sanctification, I don't want you to forget it is on the basis of Christ justifying work on the, on the ground of the gospel that all of this needs to happen.

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Okay. That was a long response to Mark's comment on the gospel. So with that, now you might be asking, all right, in physical health, we talked about symptoms and I keep calling root causes.

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What do we call it? I'm doing math works terminology, symptoms and ailments, maybe, um, you know, how does it, what is the external symptom you see, but the internal cause or the true problem, the disease, if you will, physically, spiritually.

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Let's throw out some spiritual illnesses that we may be struggling with and some of the symptoms that we might see.

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I'm going to pick one today as an example to work itself out. How do we go through this process? But I want us to just get thinking about what might be some common spiritual ailments.

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We might have discontentment. Absolutely true.

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Having your prayers hindered. That's excellent. See, you know, um, so discontentment might be one of the heart issues that, you know, in, in physical terms, we call them as sickness in spiritual term.

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We call them as sin. So the sin that's underlying might be discontent, uh, and it might exhibit itself in just a sour face.

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It might foster other sins and it might show in the way in which we look at life, the deal with our relationship with the

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Lord, with other people and in many ways. So you might have multiple symptoms relating to one root cause, or you might have one symptom that might have multiple sins underlying them.

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And a challenge would be to find that. And you mentioned how our prayers are hindered, and that might be a symptom, if you will.

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Why are my prayers just not going over the roof? And then you might see that maybe at home,

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I'm having a little bit of a trouble in the way I relate to my spouse. And then the scripture connects them both for us and says, you know, here is one, one such way.

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One symptom, one root cause could have multiple symptoms and multiple root causes. You had your hand up.

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Doubt and unbelief. So that would be, um, uh, a sin. And what might that manifest itself in possibly?

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Yeah. Discouragement or failure and living out the Christian life and ministering to others.

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That's, that's, that's true. And I think that might actually apply to a lot of areas.

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You know, if I'm not grounded in the word and, you know, as in James talks about, you know, don't want to be blown about by everyone that comes about.

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We need to be grounded in understanding who God is and how we can trust him in the word. And the deeper our understanding of God is.

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And that's why that first John two, I think it's 15 through 17, little children, young men and, and fathers.

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There's one thing that distinguishes young men from the little children. And John tells them, um, you are strong.

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Why? Because the word of God dwells in you richly. You know, it is, it is the God word of God that actually empowers people to be able to live that life that is vibrant in faith.

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And, uh, the, the further we move away from the word, the weaker are like a physical body gets weaker when you don't eat food, our spiritual health drops as we walk further away from the word of God.

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Excellent point. Okay. So here we are starting to get a sense. Now it's a lot easier, especially in the time and place where we live to understand physical health.

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I break my bone. I kind of know what has happened. I know who I need to call, where I need to go. Whereas many a time, the spiritual symptoms that I actually experience,

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I don't even spend the time to investigate what is going on.

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I'm not talking explicitly about anyone. I'm just talking about myself. There are many times when days would go by when

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I know something is not right. Um, I'm experiencing some symptoms that are just not, you know, the, the joyful life, the

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Bible calls about for the Christian. And instead of saying, okay, if I broke my arm,

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I go maybe to ER or depending on how bad the thing is, you know, who I need to go. I might just say, okay, this arm is kind of hanging.

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Uh, that's what's a big deal. I'll just keep going, you know, drive my 18 wheeled wheeler until, you know, my next rest area, whatever, you know what

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I mean? I seem to go through, uh, spiritual illnesses or sicknesses or sins, you know, which are underlying these without really consciously, uh, applying myself the way

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I typically would when it comes to physical ailments. So part of the reason is, uh, we need to know how to go about diagnosing our spiritual ailments.

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We need to know how to go about seeking the Lord's help through prayer and in the word in order to, um, be sanctified.

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You know, this is this whole point of all of this thing is my life ought to be a lamp that is placed on, not under the basket.

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It needs to be placed on top. It's, it ought to be like salt and light in this world. I'm here for one purpose and one purpose only it is to glorify

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God. And if I think, you know, home, I'm just doing my regular life. I might live another 20 years and I, uh, get married, have children and I die.

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And that's all my life is about. Do whatever you want with your spiritual life. But if your purpose here is to glorify

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God, we ought to be intentional about discerning how we are to grow in sanctification.

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When trials come our way, when, when, um, our discouragement comes our way, when, when things actually give us evidence that life is not going the way it ought to, and I need to change.

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So with that in mind, I'm going to use one example to get us started. And then if we finish that quickly, maybe we'll pick a few more examples.

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And I'm going to walk you through a process of how do we, how do we look at some of the and get to those roots and then how can we use the word of God?

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How can we apply the word of God in our lives in order to grow healthy in the specific area where we are struggling?

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So I have two resources that I want to just showcase. I've been reading a few books, but these two are both in our library.

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Actually, how many of you know this books that I have here? Very nice. I see a few hands going up.

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Um, so, uh, this book is quick reference scripture for counseling men by Keith Miller.

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And this is, uh, for women by Patricia Miller. And they have many common topics between them and their format is pretty straightforward.

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There are two aspects, uh, in terms of looking, diagnosing your spiritual health and then, uh, addressing them.

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Um, I'm going to focus on one aspect today. And then next week we'll look at the other aspect. So the topic that I have picked up is, um, actually,

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I'm not going to tell you the topics. Let's see if we can guess what might be. I'm going to give you some examples. Um, put yourself in your shoes.

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I hope these things don't happen to you, but if they do, you can tell me what might be the problems, spiritual ailments, spiritual sin that this person might be struggling with.

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I'm going to give you a few examples so you can think through this first one. Becky has not been to church for over a year.

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The leaders in her last church sided against her when she brought them concerns over inappropriate advances by a worship leader.

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She tried, but cannot seem to get past dash the problem that she has.

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She thought that she thought her church cared for her. That's case one case to David's father was killed by a drunk driver.

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When David was a teenager, life was difficult for David. David's family. After that, the man was given only a light sentence.

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David is dash at the unfairness of life. Laura's husband does not seem interested in meeting any of her needs emotionally.

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He's distant and cold when she tries to talk to him about it. Over time, he has given up hoping that he will ever change and sees no reason to continue doing her part in this marriage.

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The last example. Claire's boss is demanding and extremely critical. He humiliated Claire in front of her co -workers by judging her work unfairly.

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Claire can't seem to let it go and keeps thinking about how to get even.

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All right. Yes, bitterness. All right.

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Both of you are right. Excellent. You can see that these are obviously extreme cases.

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These are very serious issues that these people have gone through. There have been circumstances in these people's lives that has impacted the way they look at life and the people that they are engaging with, and they have chosen to respond in a certain way.

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And that leads to a, would we call bitterness a sin? Absolutely. It's led her to make a choice, him or her, to make a choice and land in this place called, this particular sin called bitterness.

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And that can exhibit itself in a whole number of different ways, as you saw in these examples. And bitterness can, that specific sin can come from a whole bunch of different contexts and can have different types of ways in which the scriptures can then apply in helping this to work through this particular sin as they are struggling with it in order to glorify

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God and be sanctified as they reflect Christ in their own lives. So far, you're with me.

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Okay. All right. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you. So this book is one of those books that it's helpful for you to just read because the format of this book is very simple as those others who have read can testify.

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So there's a, it has like, oh, I don't know how many, it has many topics.

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I would say 180 or so topics that it talks about. Each of those topics is only about two or three pages long.

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And it has some helpful ways of getting started. So, you know, if you don't struggle with bitterness, it may be actually a good idea to just read bitterness, see what it says.

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What are the scriptures that talk about it? It just informs you and watches you to prevent getting into bitterness.

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If you would actually be tempted and tried down the road. It's like your multivitamins that you take before you actually have to deal with your flu.

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So the word of God is rich. It is helpful for all our needs. And so this is the kind of book that will be helpful for you to just go through and say, you know, here is some things that I need to watch out for and things that I need to fill my mind with in terms of scripture in order to understand what the scripture says about it.

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Yes, Corey. Yeah, and really all this is, I forgot to mention these two pages that I said, 90 % of it is just scripture.

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But it orders them in such a way that's helpful for you to connect the dots when you're dealing with a specific sin. So I'm going to show you how to do that.

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But just to pick up on what Corey said, how can a young man keep his way pure by taking heed according to his word?

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Thy word I have hidden in my heart, in order that I may not sin. The challenge that we face is, you know, anything like, especially something pretty deep, like bitterness doesn't happen overnight.

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You normally have to go through a series of choices and sins before you come and you're stuck in a rut and you can't get out of it.

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Now, if you know already the danger of this, it's like, okay, guys, physical ailment, cancer, you smoke, there's a very high probability you're going to get it.

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You need to first know that if all you get is advertisements saying how cool it is. You might think, oh, what's the big deal?

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But if you do know that it is dangerous, you're going to watch it like cancer and avoid it.

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And likewise, bitterness, there are certain thought patterns. In fact, if you read bitterness, there is another chapter here called thought life that you have to read in order to understand this.

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There are some things in which ways in which we are used to thinking. And all of us, most of us, all of us were first unbelievers.

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We all are used to thinking like the world we live in the world. And it's very easy for a thought pattern to be thinking like the ways the world thinks.

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And if you keep reading and understand from the word how to look at life, you can catch bitterness way before you even get there.

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And I think Corey mentioned this, even if you are fully prepared, there will come storms that will blow you completely out of the water.

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I've had one time when I had to deal with bitterness. And it extended over a period of four months.

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And there was this one guy that I thought was genuinely helping me. And my wife can testify to it.

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I couldn't sleep. And, you know, and I'm consciously trying. I was an elder already at that time. I had finished my studies and I knew the word.

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But and I thought bitterness, come on, not me. And I just couldn't get out of it.

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And you realize end of the day, you know, sanctification is a work of the spirit of God in you transforming you and actually showing you really how incapable you are to meet all these things.

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But our God is capable of helping us in those very times when we are incapable. So if you know the word, what happens is when you discover you're in bitterness, you already know these scriptures and you can help discern, identify, pray, study, and then walk in the path of righteousness out of this pit that you're in.

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But more often than not, if you are spiritually ignorant, you may need someone else to come alongside and show you what is going on to help you.

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So next week, we'll talk about how to help others who might be struggling in something once you yourself know how to walk through this.

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So let's get to bitterness and then I'll help you walk through this step.

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So this chapter, the way it's written is right on the top. It says when you're studying bitterness, here are a few other topics you may want to read.

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Anger, disappointment, failure, forgiving others, grief, jealousy, thought life. These are other chapters here that will be helpful.

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Depending on what the source of your bitterness is, you may have to read one or more to get more understanding from the scriptures.

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Here's the definition. Bitterness is deep and painful resentment that festers and does not go away.

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It includes an unwillingness to forgive. It could be because of envy. It could be because someone has wronged or mistreated us.

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It could be even against God because bad things have happened in our lives. But if it is not removed, it becomes an emotional cancer that eats body and soul.

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It actually can eat your body as well. We often fail to realize the impact.

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We are one person with the dual nature with both body and soul.

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And when you can physically fall sick if your spiritual health is unwell and actually vice versa.

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If you don't sleep well, you can be doing a lot of sins that you can otherwise avoid. Some people do some very stupid things.

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Did you actually sleep? No. Please get some sleep and we can talk and we can figure out what the word of God says.

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So the first one, I'd like a few people to open your Bibles and read this for me. If someone can read Hebrews 12, 14 through 15.

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Just raise your hand so I know. Okay, Mark Arnold. And then the other person, if someone can read James 3, 14.

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Becky. All right. So when you have it, please read it. But before you read it, hold on. I'm just going to say this is the title that they have.

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It's just a one -liner that this book has. It says, bitterness is unacceptable to God and must be replaced with kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.

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Go ahead, Mark. See that no root of bitterness springs up causing trouble and by that many be defiled.

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Why don't you read to us, Becky, and then I'll make a comment. Thank you. So the first thing with spiritual health is this.

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Remember, we talked about symptoms and root causes. You know, there's a lot of things in life that we do.

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And each of us can be doing different things differently. And it's okay. You know, I cleaned the toilet bowl this morning.

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Maybe you're a person who never cleans the toilet bowl. And that's okay. Somebody else does it for you. It's not a sin to not clean the toilet bowl.

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But if your heart attitude is, I will not serve, now that's a different issue. Um, there are things in life, just because I do something doesn't mean everybody has to do it.

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Or just because the elder or, you know, Pradeep doesn't mean that others have to do it.

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But there are some things the Bible clearly demarcates and calls sin. So when you're dealing with spiritual problems, the first thing you need to get to is, what is, what does the

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Bible say about this specific issue? Is it actually a sin or not? Because many a time we might look at things and say, oh, this would be nice to do.

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And Pastor Mike is very good with all of these things. He says, you know, if the scripture says something, I tell you, do not do this, because God tells you not to do this.

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And then if there's some wisdom to it, the Bible doesn't say it. But, you know, if I were you, that's what Pastor Mike would quote in and say, this is kind of helpful stuff, you know, to learn from.

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So you don't have to do what I'm telling you, but this is just some wisdom. And I'm trying to help you, um, use wisdom in order to get through the problems that you're facing.

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So the first thing you want to do is, is this sin or not? And so, uh, Hebrews, Hebrews 12 and James three, both make it very clear that these are things that are sinful.

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These are commands that we ought to avoid. Don't let a root of bitterness creep up within you and be defiled by it.

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So this is something that we ought to watch for. All of us think of the 10 commandments. Do not steal.

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Yeah, of course I know that. Do not be bitter. I don't think about that as much. It's helpful for us to recognize.

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Once you recognize, you know, I've been justified. I'm in Christ. And this is detestable to God.

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You know, it's covered by the sin, by the grace of Jesus Christ. But this is detestable to God. God hates this.

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And I ought to flee from this because the Bible tells me that this is sin. So that's the first and foremost thing to be thinking of.

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And then as you can see the context, there is, on all of these sins, there's going to be what you're going to put off, put off bitterness.

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And there's going to be something else you're going to be putting on. And that will include compassion, kindness, and being able to forgive those who have, to whom we have responded sinfully with the sin of bitterness.

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Now, I told you all of these things should always point us back to Christ. So if someone can read this passage for me, 1

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Peter 2, 21 to 23. Corey. And actually,

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I'll get a few more verses. Who can read for me Job 1, 20 to 22? Um, Gary and then, um,

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James 3, 11 to 10 to 11. Thank you. Um, okay.

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We'll stop with that. So let's begin with 1 Peter 2, 21 to 23. And here you want to be thinking of Jesus as your perfect, the perfect man.

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How does he act? So let's read. Listen to 1 Peter 2, 21 to 23. There's a lot that can be said here.

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I'm not going to dwell on this. But this is crucial for us to understand any aspect of sanctification.

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When it comes to dealing with spiritual health, we need to go back to Christ first, because it is in Christ that we can even recognize these things.

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It is in Christ that we can have these sins forgiven. It is in Christ that God is, um, um, has paid for, um, the penalty of that particular sin that I have done, am doing, or will commit.

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All of those are done by in Christ. But there is an aspect that I want to just point to very quickly. Christ suffered for us.

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And it says that leaving us an example that we should, you should follow in his footsteps.

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You know, sometimes that's in sanctification. Um, I become lax. I remember justification and I say, okay, you know, it's done.

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What's the big deal. I'll just continue to sin. And then we need to read Romans and Hebrews to recognize that kind of a hard attitude is not the hard attitude of a believer.

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It's not the hard attitude of a child of God. It is not the hard attitude that I should be having.

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If I truly am justified, if I am justified, I love my father. I want to know what pleases him.

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And I want to know my savior who showed me what it means to trust

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God in the midst of all of these afflictions that he has gone through. So whatever affliction, the affliction that I mentioned to you, the four month period.

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Christ, he went through a whole lot more than that. And how did he get past it? By trusting in his father.

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He entrusted himself to him who judges righteously. He did not threaten.

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He did not revile when he was reviled. He did not speak anything that was ill.

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So if you want to be thinking of your chief exemplar, when you go through that particular trial, it ought to always rest in Christ.

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That's why Paul says in Colossians 3, set your minds and think of things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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It's so easy for us in this life to just be caught up in the little, little stuff that we think our life destroying.

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When we look back at Christ, what he did when he was here on earth and the path that he has set for us and the joy that he had after the cross and where he is in heaven today and what our hope truly is in.

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Whatever trial, you know, those four people that I mentioned, all of those things fail. None of them get any better.

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So what for a child of God? We'll wrap with that in a moment, but let's go to the next verse.

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Job 1 20 to 22. Thank you. This actually goes back to what you were saying,

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Christine. So here you have Job who has lost everything humanly possible all in a very short span, and he had the right view of God.

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So, you know, we may not understand God's plan, but this is the note I'm reading it, but we must trust his sovereignty and his will.

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So here's where theology helps you. If you already have a strong handle on the

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God of the universes and who's in charge of your life, even if your life were like Job, you can think rightly about dealing with this problem and respond rightly like Job did in chapter 1 verse 20.

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And which is why, I mean, I remember before I came to BBC, I didn't understand sovereignty of God at all.

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It took me a long time to grapple with it, but it is so richly helpful for me and for many of you today, because once you understand that the

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God of the universe is actively involved and nothing happens outside of his will, you can now look through that problem.

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You can understand, comprehend, and think through this problem in a completely different way than what you would have otherwise done if you were the only one solely in charge of what was happening.

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I mean, that's normally how I tend to think of things when I look at a problem and I need to always step back and say, my

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God is the God of the universe. He's the one who ordained this event and all these things to come about. And then you just have that.

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It's not easy, but you can now start to think biblically about how to respond to the trial. The next one,

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James 3, 10 to 11. And James 3 is one of those passages where you have

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James writing to believers and unbelievers. And there are some physical examples that he gives us in the scripture in terms of how good and bad can coexist.

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And it's the heart that is the source of both of these sweet and bitter waters.

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They can come from the same source. And so if my heart is filled with bitter thoughts and words that are unedifying that come out of my mouth because my heart is not right,

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I need to make sure that my heart is right with the Lord. Now, maybe I'm not a believer to begin with. And then there is this very interesting passage, verses that they give.

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If someone can read Psalm 37, 1 to 2, who would like to read that mark again?

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And then Romans 12, 17 through 19. Let's stop here for a moment.

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Can you think about why these verses are given by this particular author under the chapter of bitterness?

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Excellent point. I have a response to that. Maybe a quick note from Andrew. Excellent. And I think all of these are good points.

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I just want to tie them up closely because I want to make sure we leave with the right understanding here. So, Erickson, I'm going to read one more verse to just go with what you just said again from the

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Proverbs. And it's actually from the material here. And actually, the title they have for that is, each believer has his own areas of bitterness to work on.

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Each believer has his own areas of bitterness to work on. And the proverb they have is Proverbs 14, 10.

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Each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can fully share its joy.

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It's talking about the two contrasts, you know, bitterness of the soul and the joys in the soul. There are some things that each of us individually, personally have to go through, you know, whether it is the joys that we get and flourish in or the bitterness of the soul that you need to experience.

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Now, to your question, I think a cognate chapter with bitterness is anger.

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And there you actually have a command in terms of how you deal with these things. We all know that, you know, be angry and do not sin.

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Do not let the sun go down on your anger. There is a sense in which there is a righteous anger to injustice, to evil, to suffering that is caused that we need to not just say, oh, you know what?

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No big deal. I'm just going to go on. We need to be able to confront those things and including the example that you gave, you know, of a wayward son that causes grief to the parents.

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But I don't, while bitterness may, I think you summarized it pretty well in terms of these trials that can lead us to bitterness.

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These are things that we need to work on. And I think that was what you were implying. You might get through that, but you need to work out of it. Anger, you can have a righteous anger where you can respond in the right way and deal with it quickly.

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Whereas bitterness, you'd never have anywhere where it is condoned. All of us being fallen will struggle with it, but it is not one of those things we should ever entertain.

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And I think Andrew summarized it well. It's the opposite of forgiveness. And we struggle with forgiving. And the

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Lord understands that. That's why he forgives us of everything, even when we don't forgive. But we ought to be a people who look up to Christ and live our lives in light of the gospel.

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Great question. All right. So, but the reason those verses are given are this.

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At the root of these conflicts and challenges is, you know, I know God is sovereign.

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But, you know, thinking like Abraham, as God is sending the angels to Sodom and Gomorrah. But will not the

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God of all the universe do right? You know, just 50 people, 40 people, 30 people, 10 people.

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Yeah, the God of the universe will do right. And Sodom and Gomorrah will burn because there are no 10 people. And God knows that.

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And it is vital for us to recognize that the justice of God is not compromised by whatever else that we might fill in with.

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You know, when you are facing a trial, you need to know that God is sovereign in a good way.

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And a holy way, which encompasses all justice. And that's why they put these verses here.

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Because if you are someone who's struggling with bitterness at this point, these verses would help you say. And actually,

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Pastor Mike is very good. He reminds me, and I'm sure some of you of this. When you struggle with some of the problems in life, it's like, you know, we can't set all things right.

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But God is the one who is in charge. And we can trust him that he will get all things right in its own time.

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And we in our little lives want to get everything, all the knots untied and all the lines straight.

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But God eventually will do that. And we can trust him. All right, just one more verse. And we'll be done with the verses that they have.

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And we're almost done with what is there in this chapter. And I'm going to read that for you. If our own failure to resist temptation is the cause of our bitterness, we must gain assurance that God's restoration comes with his forgiveness.

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And they have verses on... And I'm just reading a couple of verses. They have other references you can look at.

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They have Psalm 51, 10 to 12. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

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Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

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Now, we've just looked at a few verses. So basically every chapter begins with these verses. So now even though some of you may not have had to deal with bitterness or thought about bitterness, you now have a reasonable handle of what bitterness is.

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And if some of you are going through some trials, these verses might actually be like a balm to your soul. You may want to memorize some of these things as you're working through this, looking for the

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Lord's help. But then they have even more. Then they have these passages. I'm going to just quickly read them. We're out of time here.

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There's a section called Biblical Narratives with four points. One, Job with a lack of bitterness. And it has a few verses, including the one we read.

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Second, Naomi. And so that's a positive example in the Bible for us to think of. Second, Naomi bitter over her losses in Ruth 1 .10

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and 1 .20. And as you know, as she's coming back, call me bitter, Mara, instead. And you just have to go to the end of Ruth to figure out, come on,

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Ruth, couldn't you just have waited for three more chapters? But we recognize this, lost her husband, her sons, nothing coming back.

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And she's bitter with what God has done for her, seemingly. Esau with Jacob. He was bitter,

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Genesis 32, 33. You can read this to get a sense of how others have struggled with this in a good way and a bad way.

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And on the positive side, David's trust in the Lord in Psalm 37. Psalm 37, if you haven't read it, you should read it and understand the context.

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And we have Corey there. You can ask any questions on. That's one of those passages that just blows your mind away in terms of how you can trust

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God when everything breaks loose. And then the last section here, there's two sections.

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They have some resources, some books that they have that they recommend if you really need to work through this. But some practical steps.

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Write down your areas of forgiveness. What are those? What do you think are injustices that have happened to you?

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What do you need to do? You think to move towards forgiveness and freedom. And then they have a read this section on forgiving others in this book.

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Make a list of those you need to forgive. Write them down. Pray to the Lord asking for help. Study Matthew 18, 15 through 20.

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What steps do you need to take in order to move to reconciliation? And finally, pray for God to soften your heart.

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So you're willing to give up bitterness. Commit to pray for those who have hurt you. So we've just done a quick tour of what we might, how we might possibly go to the word of God to diagnose the specific sin.

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And what are some of the things that surround it that we need to bring before the

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Lord. And let the word of God wash us and cleanse us. And look to the Holy Spirit for help as we now start to apply that in our lives.

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So this is one element. The crucial element is for us to understand what the word of God says. How do we discern?

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You know, like I said, always think like this. Physical ailment. I kind of know exactly what I need to do. A WebMD. When I have a spiritual problem,

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I'm not selling Keith. I don't even know his last name. Keith Miller. Or he's just doing a service by bringing those word scriptures to us.

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In fact, if you're good in the scriptures, you don't need Keith Miller. It's basically like a concordance. You know, what do I need in all these words that you have hidden?

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The spirit of God will just bring to your mind like Corey was saying. But this is just a tool to help us get those scriptures and start there.

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And then next week, we'll look and see more about how that looks like in applying them and working them, not just for yourself, but let's say you have gone through bitterness and you've the

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Lord has helped you. You understand the word and someone else is going through the same trial. How do you help someone walk through that same passage?

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And it's this is not just a responsibility of the elders. It is elders are no better, no different than you.

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We are we do this only because we know the word and we can apply it. But every one of us is called to be a student of the word.

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And the more you know the word, the more you can help yourself in your walk of sanctification.

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That didn't come out right. You can help yourself in the walk of sanctification. Let me just read the verse. Say the verse that is crucial when you think of sanctification.

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Work out your salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good purpose.

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So all sanctification is grounded in the gospel, in the work of God, who has carefully planned your life and is moving you down that path where you need to go.

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And it is a joy for us to just hold his hands and go for the ride. All right, but that will stop. Let's pray a loving father.

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We thank you for this morning for your word and for your presence. Lord, even in this specific case of bitterness,

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I pray father that if there's anyone here who's struggling with it or who's going to struggle with it, that you would equip them by your word and empower them by your spirit.

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And I pray father for other areas in our church body where people are in need of spiritual health to get well, to put off sin and to put on righteousness and to follow

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Christ. I pray that you would enable us in all those different areas where we need to glorify you while we have breath on this planet.

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And father, we commit this service into your hands. I pray that you would give us much joy as we exalt you and as we worship you as our almighty king.