Sunday Service 05-05-2024

LaRue Baptist Church, OH iconLaRue Baptist Church, OH

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Walk As the New Man Ephesians 4.17-24 Pastor Andrew Beebe

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Good morning, if you announce us this morning, as normal we will have potluck after service today, as well as the graduates fellowship following for Nathaniel Smith.
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Wednesday we have the morning flocks. If you are not aware of what flock you belong to, if you would like to start going to flock, you can find out where you belong to on the bulletin board in the hallway.
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On Thursday we've got the middle school choir, same time as usual, children's choir as well.
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Saturday starting at 5 .30 is the first youth group. We are going over the five points by John Piper.
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If your child does not have one of these books, you can contact Jake. Jake has the last, I think there was only two that don't have them.
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You can get in contact with Jake, he can give you one of these. It says in the bulletin we'll be starting with chapter one.
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Chapter one is just the preface. We'll be starting technically with chapter two.
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Preferably we would like your child to read the preface, but if not, just do it.
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Just do it. May 19th is the children's choir program as an afternoon service.
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June 22nd is a graduation party for Nathaniel Smith. I'm sure we will have more information.
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I think you can find some more information on the back of the white sheet in the bulletin for that as well.
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Then July 21st through the 25th will be VBS. I believe if you are a teacher, the information for that has been sent out in your email.
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Is there any other announcements? Good morning.
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I hope you've noticed that Lydia and Edgar was born on Tuesday.
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Congratulations to Grandma Diana Mitchell and Uncle Lane and Aunt Justine Mitchell.
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You make sure you congratulate them. Also, Sydney Jean Perron was born to Heidi.
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Congratulations are due to Grandpa and Grandma Bob and Kelly Shaw and Aunt Heather. Maybe all that will be in next week's bulletin.
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We have congratulations to go around in our congregation.
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We're really glad for that. It's always good to see babies born, adding to our number.
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That's just great. I'd love to see it. Those of you who were involved yesterday in the Walk for Life, I think we had over 600 walkers yesterday.
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That was a really good turnout. I don't know what the final total was.
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We'll have to wait for that as well. Maybe the timing was off a little bit, but we still have that matching gift to New Path of $2 ,500.
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If you notice in the bulletin, we're at $440. Maybe we can extend that.
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I know it's asking a lot at this moment, but think about that. Think about if God could use you in that and if you could contribute to that.
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The envelopes for that, if you want to do it, are in the pew in front of you. Just mark it for New Path.
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Having said all that, we're here to worship.
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Again, the Lord's, in different ways, prepared us for this hour.
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Let's just take the last few moments to finish our preparations for worship. Let's pray.
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Lord, we just thank you again for bringing us here on another Sunday morning. Lord, we just,
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I pray that as we listen to the message given to us today, Lord, our hearts and minds would be open to your word,
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Lord, and that you would use it to work in our lives, Lord, and through the week, and that we would just put it into place wherever we are,
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Lord. We pray this in your Son's name. Amen. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you.
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They sing praises to your name. If you would, please stand, turn your hymnals to page 435.
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As we sing, we gather together. All who extol thee, thou leader in battle, and pray that thou still art the defender, that thy congregation extends tribulation.
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Thy name be ever praised, O Lord, in the streets.
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Reading of the law is found in Leviticus 20, 23 today. You must not live according to the customs of the nations.
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I'm going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.
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Let us confess our sin to the Lord, our great God, and awesome
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God of the covenant. You have saved us from our sins through the redemption of Jesus Christ, and have told us how we are to walk this life that Jesus has brought us to.
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This walk, you tell us, should not be like an unbeliever's walk, who chase after vain pursuits.
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Rather, it is to be a walk of true righteousness before our neighbor, and holiness before you.
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Our walk should be earmarked for usefulness to you, our God of all life.
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But instead, in our sin, we find our walk to be summarized by useless pursuits, corrupted by deceitful desires.
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We find our walk, oftentimes, to be as the Gentiles who walk in the futility of their minds.
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Child of the Father, brother of Christ, fellow heir with all the saints, both militant and triumphant, listen to these words of the gospel from the
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Apostle Paul to assuage your hearts. We know that our old self was crucified with Jesus in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
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So we are to put off the vanity of the old self and put on the renewed man, and it can be frustrating when we sin in keeping with the old man and not with the new.
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But remember that the old man has been crucified with Christ, and it is now a time of victory for you, as you are being renewed day by day and are in the process of putting on the new garment of practical righteousness.
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Remember, not only is it useful to God to have you walk in perfect righteousness in your glorified state, it is also useful to you to battle the old man within you as you continuously point to and remind him of the cross that ensured his progressive and final destruction.
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Praise God for his Son who restores the image of God within us. Join me as we continue to ask the
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Lord to help us with living in the way we should. Father, we come to you today confessing that we don't understand the bondages of sin that we've been set free from.
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Often, Lord, we think about being freed from the penalty of death, but forget of the bondage of that sin, and we forget that the enemy presents himself as an angel of light, and that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers of this dark world.
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Father, we often forget that we are a people called out to be different, to look different, and to act different, to be a light shining into the darkness.
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And so, Father, we confess that to you. We confess that the things of this world appeal to us.
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You taught us to pray that you would deliver us from temptation.
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We often forget that you are in control of all things. And so, even the temptations that we face are governed by you.
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And so, we do pray, Father, that you would lead us not into temptation, but that you would deliver us from the evils of this age.
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We pray, Father, that we would understand no temptation has ever come before us. It's not common to man, as you tell us in Corinthians, that you provide a way out for us.
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Lord, we pray that we would seek that way out, even as Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted, and yet he was without sin.
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Father, we pray that you would give us that strength, that we would look to you to become more and more mature, that we would understand that we are to be holy, and that we would understand what holiness means.
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Father, we are in desperate need, as this world offers so many things that often seem to be innocent, but that we can turn into sinful desires.
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And so, we know, Lord, that you have saved us from all these things.
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Help us to live as people who are free. And we do come to you, asking that you would give us your spirit, that we could do this for your glory, and for the glory of Christ.
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Amen. Please stand again.
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Turn your hymnals to page 112. We sing completely. Come, plead with me,
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O work of mine, Make me pure, Lord, and sanctify me.
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I am one at Thee, and Thou shalt be.
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Come, plead with me, I thine to send. Thy grace hath come,
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Thy voice shall with a tempter flee. And I shall stand completely,
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Gain trust in me, and sanctify me.
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Come, plead with me, Jesus, my, And look goodly to me.
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Gain trust in me, and sanctify me.
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Thy blood hath poured in love for me, And glorified
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I too shall be. Here sing,
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O men, before thy bar, All tribes and tongues, at thy right hand.
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Come, plead with me, Gain trust in me, And sanctify me.
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Thy blood hath poured in love for me,
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And glorified
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I too shall be. Let us pray.
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Dear Gracious and dear Heavenly Father, let us give back a portion of what you said. Greatly and dearly we are blessed.
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Let us take today's message and give it to us, and use it to reflect on this week. Guide us and direct us and forgive us, all of us, and to be at this point.
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Everything in your Son's name. Amen. The Old Testament reading this morning is in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 20.
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I will be reading from verses 32 to 38. That is on page 707 of your pew
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Bibles, if you would like to read along. I would ask you to please stand for the reading of God's word. What is in your mind shall never happen.
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The thought, let us be like other nations, like the tribes of the countries, and worship one another. As I live, declares the
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Lord God, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out,
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I will be king over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out.
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And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.
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As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the
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Lord God. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.
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I will purge out the rebels from among you and those who transgress against me. I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not enter the land of Israel.
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Then you will know that I am the Lord. The New Testament passage is in 2
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Corinthians 5, verse 17, that's in page 966. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
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The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Please remain standing.
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If you would, please turn your hymnals. It's page 309. As we sing, The Master Has Come.
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Or 399, I'm sorry. The Master has come, and he calls us to follow the track of the foot and see leaves on the way far over the mountains and through the deep summer up to the mansions of heaven.
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The Master has come. We love him and seek him.
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We long to be near him and rest in the light of his beautiful face.
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The Master has come. The summer may be dreary and dangers and sorrows are soon on the track, but God's holy spirit shall proclaim,
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The Master has come.
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We cheerfully sing and songward look upward to God's tribulation.
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The children of Zion must follow their
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King. The Master has called us in life's early morning.
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His spirit's as fresh as the dew on the sun.
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Return from the world with his smiles and his story to rest in our heart with the people of God.
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The Master has called us his sons and his daughters.
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We plead for his blessing and trust in his love.
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And through the green pastures inside the still waters will feed us and pass to his kingdom of love.
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Well, good morning.
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Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4.
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Ephesians chapter 4. We'll read from 17 to verse 24. Now this
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I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the
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Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. The Gentiles, they are darkened in their understanding.
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They are alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. And it's due to their hardness of heart.
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They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
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But that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus.
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To put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
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Let us pray. Oh God in heaven, what an endeavor we have before us in this
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Christian walk that we have that we would have an old self that consistently and always needs to be put off with the pleasures of the new self the one created after the likeness of Jesus Christ that we get to put on each day.
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Lord this is a battle to be sure, a hard one but it's a blessed one. It is a good one.
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It is good for our souls. It is our drink. It is our food. It is our nourishment.
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So I ask God that you would help us to look upon your word here and that we would see the different deceits of the old walk and to see how it works and we would then be people of understanding to know how to put it off each day.
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I'm so thankful that Jesus Christ has done the work of justification that we have been saved by grace through faith alone and it is not a work that we are to do to be standing righteous before you but we do know
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Lord that with that righteous status we then have the power to then put to death the deeds of the flesh that we are each
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Christian today to be doing and Lord we know that it is our good pleasure to do so. So help us
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God for we are needy people. We are desperately in need of you each day. Would you help us now to listen well?
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Would you help me now to speak well? Well in a way Lord that's truthful, that's clear, that will bring people unto salvation and into a greater experience of that same salvation.
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We thank you for the spirit that makes all this possible. We praise you for him now. In Jesus name.
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Amen. So this week I took advantage of the two sunny days that we had because we have, it looks like the next 40 years it's going to be rainy each day and the family took advantage of those days and we stained our decks and our balconies.
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There's a whole lot of them if you've ever been to the old Bennett's place. There's a whole lot of them. So it's a lot of work and it's tiring, sweaty work but a blessed work indeed to do with the family.
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But it's one of those days at work where you get done with it and your clothes kind of stick to you. You know, your body aches and it just feels so good to get, to take a shower and put new clothes on.
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And I was thinking about as we were finishing that and being able to get clean and in nice new clothes and to be clean.
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I was thinking about how terrible it is or how terrible it would be if you ever had this experience where you can take off the clothes that's nasty, dirty, grimy and then to bathe and then to put that same clothes back on.
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I don't know if you ever had to do that for whatever reason but it is a terrible experience. The clothes are stiff with the sweat and it just feels really, really gross to take off the dirty clothes, bathe and be clean and then put those clothes right back on.
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And it feels great to put new fresh clothes on and to enjoy the new fresh clothes after a hard stay at work.
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And here we have Paul telling us the heartbeat, the main thrust of what we have before us is to put off the old clothes, put off the old self, enjoy the freedom of Christ of forgiveness and purity and put on the new clothes of walking in righteousness in Christ.
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Indeed, to go away, to get the freedom of forgiveness of sins from Jesus and then walk in your old clothes is just as nasty, indeed more nasty than if you're in the sweaty clothes, you take a shower and you go right back into it.
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I remember one of the punishments that they would do to us in boot camp was if we did bad, which we always did, we can never do good in boot camp, and they would really, if they really wanted to get us, at the end of the night, when we thought we were going to go to bed, we would get hit hard with all sorts of having to work out, all sorts of push -ups, sit -ups and everything for an hour, for hours.
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And then, when we're all sweaty, we get to go to bed. And it's the nastiest feeling to try to get comfortable in the sweatiness of your own uniform.
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And when they hit you, they hit you hard. I remember, not to get too lost in story time here, but I remember the first time we ever got hit,
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I had a job in boot camp where I was out of the department, out of the unit for a while. And the first time the unit ever got hit hard,
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I didn't have to go through it, to the dismay of all of my comrades looking at me coming in, being like,
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I can't believe you just missed that. But my glasses right away fogged up with all the humidity in the air of getting hit hard.
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I remember that's how they liked to hit us, is at night, we thought we were going to be comfortable in our beds, right, clean, instead we're sweaty, nasty, trying to get comfortable.
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There's nothing worse, right, than being nasty, sweaty. There's nothing worse than being nasty and sweaty, taking a shower and then going right back in that same dirty clothes.
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And here Paul is telling us there is nothing worse than to have the freedom of Christ, of forgiveness of sins, of purity, and then not walk in that beautiful, clean righteousness.
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To not put off the dirty garments and put on the clean garments of Christ each day of our lives.
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We've got to remember that when we are saved by Christ, it is a justified status where we are stand righteous before the
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Lord. But as we live this life, the old man, the old sinful flesh loves to hang on for dear life.
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And each day it is the pleasure of the Christian to shed off the old self and put on the new self.
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And this is what Paul is directing us to today. This is our walk today.
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This is what we are to do today. And we have the great contrast of the Gentile walk to help us to see, oh,
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I know what the old walk looks like. I know what it looks like here, and I'm going to shed it. And I'm going to go for the new walk instead.
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This is what we have before us today. The Lord willing, we will cover it. And he states with verse 17, to open this section up, he states something and it looks, it sounds very similar to what he said in verse 1 of chapter 4 at the beginning of this land of imperatives, of this is what we must do.
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He says, now this I testify, I say, and testified in the
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Lord, verse 17. It sounds just like what he said in chapter 4, verse 1, I, therefore, a prisoner for the
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Lord. He's saying the same thing. He's about to say the same thing of walk this way, right?
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He said in verse 1, I, a prisoner of the Lord, I tell you, walk in this way. And we talked about how it's unity in the body of Christ, a blessed unity.
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And now he's saying, I testify in the Lord to not walk this way like the Gentiles.
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But notice again, the commandments that he's given to us in the land of imperatives, that the enjoyment that we have in Christ and obeying him because of his grace and mercies and power, notice he hooks it upon the power and the authority of the
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Lord. And we're gonna repeat ourselves that we said in verse 1 because he's repeating himself. Again, he's simply just repeating himself in a different way that he says,
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I say to you, I command you, I'm giving you a command here to do something.
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You must do this as a Christian, but he hooks it on as a testifying or bearing witness to the
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Lord or being an apostle of the Lord. And so we always must remember the commandments that we are given to obey for our good is always connected to the authority of Jesus Christ, our
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Lord. And it's always by his power that we can keep them. You must not forget that old
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Christian. That could be repeated each week as we gather together here because it is so easy for us to follow laws that are not connected to the authority of the
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Lord of legalism. And it's so easy for us to try to follow the laws of the Lord in a way that's relying upon our own strength and ability, especially when we have continued to fail throughout the week.
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So this is something good for us to sink our teeth into as we look at the new section of these commands from Paul is that he is testifying as an apostle from the
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Lord. We are to do this by his authority, that is the Lord's, and it's by his power that we shall succeed.
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And what does he say? He says that you must no longer walk. Now before in verse one, it was a positive.
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This is the way you are to walk, right? According to the calling that you have received in verse one, and we are to walk in unity with one another.
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And that was the first major section of the land of the imperatives, the blessed imperatives, that we get to enjoy is unity with one another.
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But now we come across another section in which now he's saying do not walk. It is now a negative.
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It is a negative example, but don't do it like this. And what does he say?
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You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. So the Gentiles are used as a counterexample, as a contrast for us to don't do it like them.
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Who are the Gentiles? Well, if you remember, we saw the Gentile talk in chapter two of Ephesians.
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Remember in verse 11, if you want to see a couple pages over, chapter two of Ephesians, verse 11, therefore remember that at one time, you
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Gentiles in the flesh, right? Gentiles in the flesh were those who were not
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Israelites. They were, well, let's just look at what Paul says. He says in verse 12, remember that you were at that time before Christ, you were separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
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So who are the Gentiles? Well, we used to be one of them. The Gentiles were simply those who were cut off from good covenant community with the
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Lord. We were cut off from the life of the Lord. We were cut off from Israel, no hope for us Gentiles, right?
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But then what happened? Remember what happened? Jesus Christ happened. He came and he cut off our status as Gentile because he brought us into the community of the saints.
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Remember what he says in verse 17, or verse 18, for through Jesus, we both, that is
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Gentiles and Jews, have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
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And so that is what a Gentile was. In the Old Testament time, it was those who were separated from Israel, separated from the covenant of God, had no hope, no life in God at all, no hope for them.
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But when Jesus Christ came, he brought a people from the Gentile community and the Jewish community and made one new creation in him.
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And so now Paul is using that word, do not walk like the Gentiles, as those who are separated from the covenant community, those who are separated from Christ.
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In a way, we are not Jews. We are all Gentiles, I think, in here. But in another way, as we're considering it, in the way that Paul is considering it, we are no longer
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Gentiles because we are connected to the covenant community in Christ. And so he is saying, do not walk.
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And we talked about what walking meant. It means your pattern of life. Let not your pattern of life be like the unbeliever, is what he's saying.
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Do not let it be like those who are cut off from God because they do not know Jesus Christ, the
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Lord. You, as a follower of Christ, must not walk. Your pattern of life must not be like the unbeliever.
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As simple as that. If I would have been told that more often, perhaps in my youth, I wouldn't have believed some silly lie that I can pray a prayer and live like the devil and be fine.
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That's nowhere found in Scripture. Instead, the command is, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, that means you will not walk like the unbeliever.
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Your pattern of life will be different, is what Paul is saying here. But then, he then goes on to describe what that pattern of life looks like.
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And he says, at the end of that same verse in 17, they walk in the futility of their minds.
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That's a good general statement of what he's saying. And we'll talk about what that means. But they walk in the futility of their minds.
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That's how the unbeliever, those who are cut off from Christ, that's how they walk. That's the pattern of life.
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It's futility in the mind. And he describes it more, just to give you a kind of layout of where we're going, in verse 18, he describes that more when he says, they are darkened in their understanding.
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They're alienated from the life of God. You just heard that, right, in chapter 2. Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.
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And then, the whole driving force of their walking in futility, the reason why they do it, what drives them is because they are, it's due to their hardness of heart.
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So that is futility mind living. Driven by a hard heart against God, living in this way, which then in verse 19, there's nothing left for them but, what he says, to be callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
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I just looked at it real quickly, right? And now, let's look with that in mind, the back of our mind, let us then go back to 17 and look at what exactly does it mean that the
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Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. Again, this matters because Paul is setting this up as a contrast.
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This is what they're doing. You see it. You see them doing it. And that teaches you not to do it like that.
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And we can, real quick, it's very easy for us as Christians to get so upset about the state of the world and the fact that the
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Gentile walk is the dominant walk around us. And we can be so annoyed, so angry, so fed up, and wonder why, oh why,
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God, do you continue to put up with it? Well, one reason out of many is that so we would see that is not how you're to do it.
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The contrast, the Bible likes to set up contrast for us. Contrast is a very good way to learn is that this is the way you do it.
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And look at the contrast, this is the way you don't do it. And it teaches us how to walk after the commands of Jesus Christ.
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This is one of the reasons why he keeps the Gentiles in their walk available for us to behold and for us to say, okay, that's how
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I am not to do it. And this is what Paul is setting up for us now. This is how we are not to do it.
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They walk in the futility of their minds. Futility. Futility means uselessness.
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If you want a nice definition of futility in there in verse 17, think of futility as the uselessness.
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It's not useful. Uselessness of their minds. Minds is like your thinking, your thoughts, your ability to consider, which is elevated from the other creatures around you.
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But it's also the seat of your emotions, your understanding in general. It's really, you could substitute that word with your spirit.
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It's like the command center of who you are. And it's what elevates you above those creatures around you, your dog, your cat, those things around you.
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Your mind is like the command center of who you are as a human being. It is like saying your soul.
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So what he's saying is that the Gentiles walk in uselessness in their minds. In uselessness in their minds.
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Now how can we, what does it mean to be useless in the mind? Well, I think we can get a very good understanding of that if we look in verse 18 again at that phrase, alienated from the life of God.
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Alienation from the life of God, being separated from the life of God, is uselessness. If you look at the very beginning of creation, you look at God creating, you gotta imagine this is the
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God of all life. The God of all life is creating. And that creation's purpose is to reflect that God of all life.
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And so it only makes sense that as you're looking at the creation account, you're seeing things come to life and they are producing life.
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That's what you see in the creation account. They're producing after their own kinds. The scriptures make clear that you know that.
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And so you gotta imagine, you come on scene with the creation account, all of a sudden there's life everywhere. Everywhere you look, the sea, the grass, everywhere, there is life and there is a reproducing of that life.
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And as you look at all the creatures around you, even in this fallen state, what are they doing? They're surviving.
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They're living and they are reproducing. They are struggling to reproduce because this is what glorifies
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God, the God of all life, that he would create creatures that would live and then continue to live.
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This is what glorifies God. But the thing is though, and what makes our, we have minds, what makes it useless is not so much that we don't live, so to speak, or we don't reproduce, is that we were given as human beings, we were given a deeper purpose and that is to be in the image of God to represent
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God to this creation of life. That was the whole point of our existence, that we would reflect
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God in a bigger and greater way with our minds, with our understanding, with our spirit and say, everything
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I do on this earth, I'm going to reflect the God who has made me. I'm going to image him well.
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And when humanity is connected with that purpose of their main existence, they are useful because that is what
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God has created them to do. But the moment they break themselves off from that reason for existence, they now are useless in their mind.
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Do you get what I'm saying there? God has created all things for a use, for a purpose, they all do it, he gets glorified, amen.
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But the moment we cut ourselves off and say, you know what, I'm not going to image God in this department here.
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I'm not going to do that main purpose of my life here. We are now in the boundary, in the realm of vanity, of uselessness because we are denying the whole purpose of our existence.
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And so I think this is really where we can get to the nuts and bolts of what it means to have a futile mind. That is a mind that is not directed at the purpose that God has for us to image him in creation, but instead it is for other purposes, therefore it is useless to the
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God who has made us. And this is the walk of the Gentile, isn't it? This is the walk of the unbeliever.
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They do not have a mindset on, I want to image my creator. You don't hear that too much from the unbeliever, do you?
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You ask them, what's the purpose of your life? Oh, I just want to image my creator so bad in my studies, in my marriage.
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I just want to image him so bad. You don't hear that too much, do you? That's because their mind is useless as pertaining to the reason for their existence in God.
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They have futile minds. They are, in verse 18, they're darkened in their understanding. Their understanding is darkened.
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Now, I want you to notice something. It doesn't say that they've lost their minds, although sometimes it can feel like it.
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It doesn't say they have lost their minds. It doesn't say that their minds are gone, does it? It simply says it's futile and it's dark.
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That means that they are still creatures, they are still human beings with the higher intellect, higher mind, the spirit, but it is geared to the wrong direction.
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Do you get what I'm saying? Is they still have those facilities, we still have those facilities, but it is just simply pointed, it is geared, it is going the wrong way, it is going a useless way, a darkened way, not a light way, if that makes sense.
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They are darkened in their understanding because they are alienated from this life of God because of the ignorance in them.
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It is an ignorance driven, not because they just simply don't know. They don't know that they're human beings.
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They don't know they have a deeper intellect. They don't know they have a mind and a will and everything that makes them separate from the creatures around them, but they are driven, look at what he says, due to their hardness of heart.
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Now a hard heart versus a soft heart. A soft heart is one that is soft to God.
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It is moldable. God commands and the heart receives it and says, I shall do. The heart of a softened person says, what am
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I to do with this area of my life? What has God commanded? God shows his commandments and they respond joyfully.
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That is what a soft heart is. They want to know the will of God and they want to do the will of God.
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That is connected with the not being useless in their minds. A useful mind is soft to the
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Lord. It says, what do you want me to do, O Lord of my life? My mind shall be consumed with that and I shall do.
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But the walk of the unbeliever, the walk of the Gentile is useless because they're driven by a hard heart.
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I don't care what God would have for me. I don't care what God would have for me.
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In fact, God should care what I would have for him, is what they say. They turn it around. That is absolutely corruptible, is that God's creature would say, you should care about what
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I want, God. I shouldn't have to care about what you would want for me with my life. But this is the hard heart of the
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Gentile. This is the walk of the unbeliever. They're driven by not a sensitivity to what
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God has said in his word and what he's commanded. They're driven by their own way of thinking and doing.
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And so they are absolutely useless to the God who has made them. This is the walk of the
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Gentile that Paul says you are not, as a Christian, to do. What's left?
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What is left for a person? What is left for you, if you are hard -hearted against your
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God who has made you, who has told you how to live, how to image him well in this creation? What is there left for you to do when you have hardened your heart to the creator above who has given you all direction for life?
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What is the only thing left for you to do? Have you noticed the way that the unbeliever lives?
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They don't just accidentally start obeying God. The only thing left for them to do with a hard heart and a futile mind is to gratify the desires of their flesh.
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That is the common denominator of the Gentile. Whatever feels good to me,
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I will do. And this is exactly where Paul ends his argument here with the walk of the
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Gentile in verse 19. They have become callous. In verse 19 of chapter 4, they have become callous, or since they've become callous, or their hearts are hardened to God.
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Callous is without feeling, right? He said that's the last thing. Through their hardness of heart, they become callous. And so what's left for them to do?
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But to give themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
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Sensuality simply means to give yourself to the gratification of the flesh. And that typically looks like sexual activity because that's the typical potent outlet of satisfying your sensuality or satisfying those desires.
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But that can be really anything. It's that if it feels good, I'm going to do it.
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If it feels good to my flesh, if it feels good to me, I'm going to do that. Does that not sound like our culture today?
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Their God is their appetite. If it feels good, I'm going to do it. This is nothing new.
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It's not like all of a sudden we live in this new land where people just want to gratify their desires and that's their God. That has always been what people revert to when they are not led by God, when they're not soft to Him, and when they don't have their understanding fixated on being useful to Him.
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They have always fallen into this state of, well, whatever feels good, I will do it, and it is to their ultimate death and decay.
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You look at a broken family, you look at a family that's just straight -up broken, it's because you have people in there that are just simply doing what feels good to them.
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That's always what you have. You look at anything that's broken in society, it's because you have people that have said, whatever feels good to me,
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I'm going to do it, because their hearts are hardened to God and they are not useful in their mind to Him.
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This is the state of someone who hardens themselves to God. They always fall into, well,
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I will then drive after, I will pursue after what feels good to me then. One of the points that I want to make sure
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I make is we are always led by desire. We are always led by desire.
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We are meant to be led, we're meant to desire, that should energize us, and we go forth off that desire.
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But the question is, what is your desire? Is it due to the hardness of heart, to be useless in your mind, and just follow your passions of flesh?
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Or is it rather, I want to be useful to my God, because my heart is softened to Him.
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We see the walk of the Gentile, their desire becomes corrupted, whatever feels good, I shall do, that's my pursuit, that's my usefulness, and so therefore it's useless to the
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Creator God above them. They become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, and they become greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
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That's what their minds are set on, I want more, it's never enough, is it? For those who have lived, all of us have one time lived in this state, whether we got out of it as a young child, praise
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God, or not, have you ever noticed that those sins never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever completed you?
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They promised it, they said it would, but it didn't, it never did. And so what does it do?
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I need more, that's what it is. That didn't satisfy me, I need more, I need more of that, I need more of that sin, more of that poison, it is a complete and utter deception from Satan.
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I remember being in that for years, I just need more, I'm not satisfied, that just means I need more of that poison, that's what it means.
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This is the walk of a Gentile, is that they are greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
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I want to be sure that we understand that God in his kindness, he doesn't allow wicked people to continue without some degree of stopping some of their wickedness.
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If God were to allow this, this is just what the philosophy, this is what it is, this is the walk with a
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Gentile, they just want more of their desires, their heart into God, and if God never stopped it at all, we would all just kill ourselves, that'd be it.
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But God does have, in his kindness, even the person who's not a believer, he stops some of their madness to a degree.
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And so you might be a non -believer before me right now, and you're thinking, well, I'm not that crazy,
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I'm not that nuts. Well, that's only because outside of Christ, God is stopping you from being that nuts. You can tell, you know, if you're honest with yourself, oh,
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I'm a believer and believer, you know that, well, if I was going to summarize the reason for my existence, it's not to honor
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God or glorify him or to image him well, it is simply that I would just have a life that feels good, at the summary level.
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And that might look like being a better husband, but it's not because I want to honor God being a better husband, it's just because I think it'll be better for me, that's it.
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So you see that this is the nth degree here, but that doesn't mean that everyone falls into just a total greedy and that's all they're doing.
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It's because God's kindness, even to the unbeliever. But nevertheless, this is the walk of the
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Gentile. This is their desire. This is what drives them, is that they want to fulfill the passions of the flesh because of their hardness of heart against God and their useless understanding.
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But, we have that blessed word but again, don't we? We have that word again, that departure, that contrast word that we've seen a few times already, it is again in verse 20, but that is not the way you learned
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Christ. What a beautiful thing that there is hope for us.
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There is hope for the unbeliever. There is hope for us even now, as you're considering, I'm a believer, but to be honest with you, as I'm considering the way
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I live this week, it has been more out of the desires of the flesh than to actually pursue God. What hope there is that you simply need to look to Jesus.
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Notice Paul doesn't say, look at your sin and just dwell in it and just be depressed and just be hateful of everything.
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Or Paul doesn't say, ah, just forget about it, just look away and just live. Notice what does Paul say? He says, look to Jesus.
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Learn Jesus. Jesus is always the answer. Jesus is always the answer.
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He's always wanting to teach us how to get rid of the old self and put on the new self.
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The answer is sit at the feet of the master. He will always teach you well.
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Look at what, hear my words, what he says in Matthew 11. He says, remember our master, our savior, our lord,
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Jesus Christ, he says, he says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
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I've went through this before recently, that can be you're just trying to keep the law so bad or that, I think that can simply mean you're just heavy laden over,
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I'm trying to live my best life now, you know, it just doesn't ever seem to work out. All I am is just depressed, sad and heavy laden.
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I feel like I have a huge weight and Jesus, the teacher, he says, come to me, come to me.
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He says take my yoke, my teachings, my commandments upon you and learn from me, the master, the teacher.
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Jesus has came to teach you how to live a life that is no longer hardened and no longer useless, but rather useful to our
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God. He says, learn from me. And this is why people who turn to Christ, who become Christians, they become obsessed with reading the scriptures, don't they?
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I want to know the teachings of my master. My teacher has beckoned me to come and to learn from me and his ways are always better and good and I shall learn from Jesus, my
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Lord. This is a Christian at work. There is no such thing as a Christian that says, yeah, the commandments of Jesus are right here before me, but I have no taste for it.
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That doesn't make any sense because our Jesus is kind and wonderful and merciful. He's gentle and sweet.
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He's our shepherd. And he says, young child, learn from me. Learn from me. No longer be heaven laden with this silliness.
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No, the uselessness. The uselessness of mine, but rather set your mind on the teaching of me, your
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Lord. This is what Jesus beckons us to do. This is what Paul is showing us here.
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He says, that is not the way you learned Christ. Verse 21, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus.
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I don't think he's saying, I don't know if you learned about him. I think he's just simply highlighting the fact that the answer here is to learn
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Jesus. It's to be taught Jesus and to learn him and obey him.
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That's why, again, the cry of your heart right now as a congregation sitting before me needs to be give me
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Jesus. Teach me about Christ. I don't want my flesh anymore. I want the
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Lord. And I hope that this is exactly as you're desiring that. This is the same desire
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I have as a pastor, as a preacher, that I don't want to tell you funny stories and get you all riled up with my comedy.
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I want to simply teach you Jesus. The truth is found in him.
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And what is Jesus? We also have in Titus, what does
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Paul say in Titus chapter 2, verse 11, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
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This is what Jesus does for us. He trains us, he teaches us to renounce worldly and godless passions, useless passions, useless mind activity, and rather he trains us in righteousness instead.
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If you want to know how to get out of the weight of deceitful desires, of terrible desires, it is to learn
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Jesus more. That is not the way you learn Christ, this Gentile walk, assuming that you've heard about him and have been taught in him as the truth is found in Jesus.
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And then he says in verse 22, what does Jesus exactly teach us to do in verse 22? To put off your old self.
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To put off the Gentile walk. To put off the nasty, gross, clothing of useless mind activity and deceitful desires being fulfilled.
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Put that off of you. It's like a garment, right? That's the language. It's a garment that you, he says, shed that garment.
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It's gross, it's nasty, it does no good for you even as it promises it. Shed it off.
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This is what Jesus teaches you, beckons you to do. Take that stuff off, take this off of you.
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He says to put off your old man or your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.
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This is the old person, the old man. It is driven by deceitful desires, a hard heart, and it is driven by a useless mind.
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And he says to put it off. Now, there's something that needs to be said at this point, is that Jesus doesn't simply just teach us the truth of this.
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He doesn't just simply teach us these are truthful words, put off those things that you're doing.
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You're looking at pornography, put that off and put on other things instead. Or you're yelling at your wife, put that off and put on love to your wife instead.
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He doesn't just, although he does teach us those things, but in his teaching of putting off the old man and putting on the new man, he also gives you the power to do it, as we talked about earlier.
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He's not only the authority, the Lord, who has the word, who teaches us, but he also in that power proclaimed and that commandments, he also gives you the ability to do so.
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And we see this in Romans 6 that I think we need to look at. Look at Romans 6, verse 6 with the putting off the old self and putting on the new.
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This is what he teaches us to do, but he also gives us ability in his great work.
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Romans chapter 6, verse 6 we know that our old self, same language there, you see that?
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Our old man, the Gentile walk, the old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
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You know what? I don't want to forget this. You know what enslaved to sin means? You have the desire to do it, and you've just got to do it.
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My desires are for the sin, I have to do it. That's enslavement right there. And so this is what
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Paul is saying is that you no longer have to do that because the old self was crucified with Christ, and your desires miraculously can change in him.
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This is what it means to put off the old self and put on the new, is that the old no longer has to reign in you anymore.
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The old desires harden in your heart, led by useless mind activity, now can actually say, the new self can say, no,
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I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to live in the uselessness of the mind. I'm not going to have a hard heart to God because that old self was crucified with Christ.
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Again, why do we talk about the cross often? Because in the cross we see the hope of our dead old self.
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When we see our precious Savior on the cross dying for our sins, we see our old man with him dying as well.
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When you are tempted with the deceitfulness of sin, and it's so there, it's so in your heart, you can feel it, it is potent, what do you need to remember?
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You need to remember that there was a Savior who died to end the reign of this old man.
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These sinful desires were put up on the cross with him. I have the power not by my own ability to just, okay,
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I need to stop doing that, start doing that, but rather I know that the power is found in Christ Jesus, my
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Savior. As you close your eyes, you see the dead Savior, and you see your dead self put on the cross with him.
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And so you know that there is ability, there is a power to say no to the deceitful desires, to the hardness of heart, to the useless mind.
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There is a power in Christ, our teacher. He not only teaches us how to put on the new self, to put off the old, but he also gives us the power in his cross.
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With those two coming together, there is a new self that we can put on each day of our lives.
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And this is what he goes on to say in verse 23, and to be renewed, so with the old self being put off, being taught by the teacher, and also the power and ability found in the cross, then he goes on to say in verse 23, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
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Now remember where we saw a mind before in verse 17, no longer walk like a Gentile in the futility of their minds, uselessness of their minds, now he says with the old man being shed off, part of the process of the new one coming on is that your mind now is renewed to be useful through the forgiveness and power of Christ.
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So now as a Christian, the put off put on is that you look at every area, every facet of your life and you say, what is useful to my
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God here? What does it look like to image God here? As a wife, as a husband, as a single person, as whatever the area of your life is, every single minute detail becomes how do
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I image my creator well here? How do I be useful to my God here?
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So notice the great contrast between the old man and the uselessness of the mind, and now through Christ your mind can be renewed and be useful.
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It is like you're strategic, you're concerned, you're obsessed with what honors my God here.
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And it is my delight through a soft heart and responding to his commandments to do so because of what my
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Lord has done on the cross. Look at that great contrast between the old man and the new man.
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The old man is hardened in his sin, doesn't care about what God has said, how to live, and so therefore his mind is useless, but through Christ Jesus our
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Lord, your mind can be renewed through the forgiveness of sin. So you say, what is useful to my
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God? My heart is softened to it. It is sensitive to all the different ways that I see, and I shall do it.
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This is a renewed spirit of the mind that we are given by our Lord. Isn't that a blessed thought?
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Isn't that a blessed thought that you don't need to live enslaved to your sins? And I know there's many including myself that you are struggling with sin.
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I know that. And notice that this is something that we do each day. He doesn't say it's one and done. He says this is a daily thing.
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Put off, put on. Keep on doing it. And you know that, okay, I've been struggling with sin, but I know the power is found in Christ to renew my mind to be useful to my
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Lord in this area that I'm struggling with instead of falling into fertility of thought.
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And of course then, verse 24, and put on the new self. Created after the likeness of God.
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Remember? Usefulness? What does it look like to look like God here? Well, Christ enables you to do it.
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Created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.
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No longer in sin, no longer the passions of the flesh, but instead in righteousness and holiness. What does it look like to be righteous before my neighbor?
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What does it look like to be holy for the Lord in this area? I shall do it. This is what the new man does.
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Now to finish, to finish here, I want to conclude with just a couple thoughts.
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I forgot it. I knew I would, so I wrote it down in my notes. Religion, the common way religion works, and what
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I mean by religion is any inter -religion, any false religion, is usually it's just a list of don'ts.
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That's what religion has really fallen into. It's just a list of don't do, don't do, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that.
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And then we have like man philosophy that says, that's dominated with do. Do this, do that.
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Do. Whatever feels good, do. Do, do, do. Right? And so you have like two errors that are dominant around us that you can see.
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It's either an error of don't, don't, don't, and usually like conservative Christianity falls into just a bunch of don'ts.
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Don't wear pants, don't dance, don't listen to this kind of music. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. And so your life becomes one big don't.
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But then there's the other aspect where it's just you fall into the secularism of do. Whatever feels good, just do, do, do, do, do.
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Christianity provides the right path where it is a list of don'ts, but it is a list of do's.
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We don't live a joyless life where it's just a simple, just always shut off that old man. You can't have any fun, you can't do.
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But instead it's shut off the old man for the sake of doing the deeds of the new man which is life and peace and righteousness and goodness.
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Proper religion is one of don'ts and do's. You don't do so you can do the things that are actually good for you.
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This is proper religion. Don'ts and do's. And I want you to notice how much desires matter.
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Another aspect of false religion is just simply throw off desires. Just forget desires altogether.
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Forget you have desires. Don't worry about them. But God has always been, always created us to be motivated by desires.
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To be the fuel that makes us just go at it is with desires. But again, a common thing that religion runs into, a man's thinking can run into is that just simply throw off all kind of desires.
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You look at Buddhism, right? Nirvana which is like heaven. What is that? It's the realm of no desires.
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That's their nirvana, that's their heaven. Simply no desires. Or the Stoics, right?
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The key to life is simply just don't have any desires at all. Christianity doesn't know that. But what
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Christianity does is that what are your desires? Put off the old self of the desires that are after the flesh, that are hardened to God, that are useless to God, and put on the new desires that says,
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God, I just want to honor you here. That's all I want to do. That's what I want my life to be.
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My desires are to just simply glorify you in this particular area of my life that I'm looking at right here.
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That is my desire. And that doesn't mean, oh Christian, that therefore the old man desires go away.
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They will be there throughout your whole life. That doesn't go away. But what does grow bigger and bigger as you put off the old self and put on is that I have a greater desire that goes beyond the wicked desires to just honor my
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God. To reveal Him, to glorify Him. It becomes sweeter to you as you have tasted and seen that the
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Lord is good and living for Him is beautiful. That then becomes so massive that the desires of the flesh then is over crowded by this beautiful desire to honor
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Him instead. But where does this come from? How can we do this? It is only possible because of our dear
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Savior. And a look at Him brings all these things into proper perspective.
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A look at the Savior, a look at His cross, a look at His forgiveness of sins, a look at the life
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He gives you in the new man. It is all worth it. It is all worth to follow this
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Lord Jesus Christ who makes these things possible. To shed off the old clothes, to put on the new and to find life in Him each day of our lives.
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And we do it through grace and mercies found in His blood. Thank God for His Son.
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Oh God in heaven, thank you so much of proper and good and true teaching.
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Lord, you call on us to no longer walk according to the walk of the
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Gentile or the unbeliever. The one in which we simply just do what feels right to us with a hardened heart.
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And so we live in the land of futility. But God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, the old man, this old man can be crucified with Christ and can be done away with.
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And that reveals itself each day progressively in our lives. So I know, Lord, if the people before me who are in Christ if they're being honest, if I'm being honest
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I can consider the different ways that the old man and the desires of the flesh are still present. And you've taught us,
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Lord, how to deal with that. It's to remember the forgiveness that's found in Christ and the power therein and to have a greater desire through that to glorify
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Christ instead. And we see that sin does not glorify you. We want to be useful to you.
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As all creation around is useful unto life, we want to be useful unto life as well. That is righteousness and holiness.
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This is what drives us. But God in heaven, for those who are not driven by this, whether they're an unbeliever or a believer that simply has forgotten, would you either show them for the first time or remind them of how good it is to live unto conformity, unto the teachings of Jesus?
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How His yoke is good, is easy because of His grace and mercies that strengthen us and He leads us truly into greener pastures?
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Would you remind them that the deceitfulness of sin and all the things that it says we will get from it, it's all lies?
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Would you even show them or reveal to them that all the things that it's promised has never delivered? It's only made me miserable?
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And would you then set Jesus Christ His magnificent love and mercies and grace and righteousness, would you put that then in their view instead so that all they do becomes dominated with honoring
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Him and living for Him as they shut off that old man and put on the new that's empowered by Christ?
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Would you do that even now today and give us life according to this teaching? Thank you for the
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Holy Spirit. It's by His work that all this is possible. May you be glorified, God, for you have done good things for us.
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In Jesus' name, amen. If you would please stand.
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Turn your hymnals to page 393. So we sing Take My Life and Let It Be. Take my life and let it be consecrated
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Lord to Thee Take my moments and my days
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Let them flow in ceaseless praise
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Let them flow in ceaseless praise
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Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love
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Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee swift and beautiful for Thee Take my voice and let me sing always only for Thy King Take my lips and let them be filled with filled with messages from Thee Take my silver and my gold not of life but I withhold
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Take my intellect and use every power as you shall choose every power as you shall choose
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Take my will and make it
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Thine It shall be no longer mine
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Take my heart, it is Thine all
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It shall be Thy royal throne
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It shall be Thy royal throne
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Take my love, my Lord I pour at Thy feet its treasure store
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Take myself and I will be ever only all for Thee ever only all for Thee May we see you.
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Please come forward. Lord God, we thank you for this message today,
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Lord. Our lives, Lord.
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Lord, we pray for this offering now that would be used to call others to the life that we have in Christ, to see the beauty of that and come to that.
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We just pray that you would bless this offering and pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Please stand.
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Rest together. What is the chief end of man?
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Man's chief end is to glorify God and to glorify Him forever. May we see you.
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Here we get to celebrate the table. It's a very interesting thing because as Christians we celebrate death.
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We celebrate the death of our Lord and we know that with the death of our Lord we're celebrating the death of our sinful and wicked passions and desires to no longer be enslaved to those things but instead to be able to live freely before Christ our
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Lord. But all how we're in need of that reminder each day because those desires hang on strongly.
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That old man does not go away without a fight. The old man every day is up for a fight and we in the new man must be willing to fight that old man.
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To show them what happened on Calvary. To show them what happened on the cross. The death of Christ happened and with Him the death of the old man as well.
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To remind Him of that which reminds us of that which gives us new battle, new power for the fight.
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And so I know that there's people before me that are considering their sin right now and don't let it be that you consider your sin that you've done and say well
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I'm not worthy to take the table. Again I want to encourage you this is a table of grace to say you need the table to strengthen you by faith to get into the fight by the power of Christ.
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So no longer to do the passions of the flesh but rather desire of holiness and righteousness instead.
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So this table is for you old sinner who struggle. This table is for you who have recognized
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Christ as Lord and has been baptized in His name. This table is for you. For your repentance.
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For your turning to Jesus. For your living in Him. This table is not for those who have not professed faith in Jesus in their baptism.
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This table is not for those who would say I know that this is sin but I'm going to do it anyways. This table is not for you who are being hardened in your heart to sin.
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The deceitfulness of it. Hebrews talks about the deceitfulness of sin and how it hardens the heart. I meant to go there but I didn't have time and I forgot.
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But go there as Hebrews 3 and 4 look at the hardness of sin and how it causes us to walk in sin.
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But this table is for those who say I want Christ. I don't want my sin anymore. I want Him. And He's promised me good things so I'm going to grab hold of these means and trust that in these means
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He's going to reveal righteousness to me. To grab hold of it and live accordingly forever.
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What a Savior we have in Christ. Let us celebrate Him now in this table. From His birth
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Christ came to me as He alone was for me.
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The only way my guilt revealed my destiny was changed that day
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I reached God's grace does not on me depend it's
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God who is my safest love is offered without end
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He walks with me in the universe with joy will ring with grace as one as all creation joins to sing praise
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God the universe of joy will ring with as all creation joins to sing
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Oh God we thank you for what Christ has done for us the awesome powerful thing that He has done
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His infinite power that will be remembered forever we thank you for His life
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His body that He gave for us we thank you for His sacrifice As I was eating,
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Jesus took bread and blessed it, and broke it and gave it to the disciples and said take these, this is my body that is for you
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It is a night it's called when all this world is known, when people once from every town will want it known before the sun will stand it falls through the land believing hearts find from His grace salvation comes
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Hear Heaven's voices sing their hundreds anthems ring through emerald courts and sapphire skies their praises rise
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All glory wisdom power strength thanks and honor are to God the
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King who reigns on high And there will a light before the throne will honor
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Him in perfect song He'll wipe
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His tears day and night As thirst and hunger die, the
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Lamb becomes our Shepherd King We'll reign with Him Hear Heaven's voices sing their hundreds anthems ring through emerald courts and sapphire skies their praises rise
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All glory wisdom power strength thanks and honor are to God the
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King who reigns on high Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
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For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, and pierces into the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.
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Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
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For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.
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So let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
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Let us partake. Let's stand and sing the doxology.
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Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
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Praise Him all creatures dearly know.
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Praise Him above the heavenly host.
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Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
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The Lord said to Abraham, I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing, and you, all the families of the earth, shall be blessed.
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You who are children of Abraham, hear God's benediction. You are blessed beyond measure by the
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God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one who is and was and ever shall be.