Beyond The Basics: Obeying, Serving & Growing (part 2)

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Beyond The Basics: Obeying, Serving & Growing (part 3)

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Our Father, we're thankful for so many things this morning.
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For your providential kindness toward us, the way you order everything in our lives.
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Father, we're thankful for those things that we don't always consider to be good, but this morning we're here for a very good thing, to study your
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Word. Lord, we pray for your blessing on this time. We pray that it would be a time that would be of benefit to those who are here, a time that would be challenging for us to be renewed in our thinking about themes that we've heard before in the past, but Lord, of which we need to be constantly refreshed.
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Father, would you bless this time in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, we began last week, in fact we mostly, almost entirely talked about obedience last week, and we're going to wrap that up this morning.
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But I gave the example, or I quoted Zane Hodges last week on page 1, which will eventually become page 47.
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Yeah, but enough of that. Zane Hodges saying, giving out this idea that one could become anti -Christian, that one could turn his or her back entirely on the
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Gospel, and on Jesus Christ, and still be a Christian because of a profession, or of, you know, once you belong to Christ you can never be lost.
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And that idea really flies in the face of what Scripture says about obedience.
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We talked about how important obedience is, that it is a calling, that we are to be servants of Christ, that we are even called slaves of Christ, that discipleship is costly.
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We quoted the Lord Himself. Jesus never said, hey, follow me. It's going to be so easy you won't even notice it.
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He did say His yoke was light, but what was He talking about when He said that the burden was easy and the yoke was light?
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That He wasn't an unreasonable taskmaster, that He was doing what was only reasonable and right.
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He did also say, if you love Me, keep My commandments. Well, what's the flip side of that? If you don't love
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Me, you won't keep My commandments, or if you don't keep My commandments, then you don't love
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Me. We talked about how God views obedience, that it has always been a requirement for the people of God, a commandment for the people of God.
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It will be the standard of judgment. It's also a reason for the assurance of salvation.
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Listen, if you look at your life, if you examine yourself, and I recommend this because the
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Apostle Paul recommended it. He said, examine yourselves and see if you're in the faith. It is good to look at our lives.
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If we look at our lives and we say, I don't see any obedience, any concern for the laws of God, well, then there's reason to question that.
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On the other hand, if you see a continuing progression, not imperfection, but the direction of your life, that you want to continually repent of sin and turn more to Christ, that you see more of an obedience forming in your life, that is a matter that should give you assurance of salvation.
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We talked about how obedience is our ticket to heaven. Remember, Sheryl Casey put together a tract.
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It's a golden ticket. How do we get to heaven? Well, you have to be perfect, and if you're not perfect, you have to have perfection imputed to you, the perfection of Jesus Christ.
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How men have and can wrongly view obedience, they're mostly obedient.
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It's a private matter. We talked about Ananias and Sapphira and their outward appearances, and isn't that what most kind of,
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I'll use a harsh term here, sham Christianity is all about? It's about that outside showing, and I may have mentioned this, but to just drive this point home, and I'll explain the other reason for it in a second,
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I was thinking even this morning about how when we got saved and our kids were still relatively young, and kids, when they get in the car, even if they're 8, 9, 10 years old or whatever, what do they do?
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I want to sit here. I don't want to sit there. You always get to sit there. You ever heard those kind of arguments?
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And so we'd say, now I could, it's Sunday morning, we're going to church, I can get all fired up and say, knock that off, but then what's happening to me?
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I'm not getting my mindset right, so I would just turn around and say, now kids, we don't argue about things like that on the
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Sabbath. We don't argue about things like that on Sunday. Those are not things we say to one another on Sunday.
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Well, is that a right way of thinking? No, but it was so absurd that they got it. This is
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Steve Cooley's way of making a point. You say something absurd and you make them laugh, and they go, oh yeah, not only should we not fight on Sunday, but maybe we shouldn't fight, period.
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But there's that idea. When I grew up, I would say that to most people who were just observing us on Sunday, they'd think, wow, that really is a family that has its act together.
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Look at them, they get up, they go to church, look how they come home and they don't watch TV and they spend time together.
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It's not a matter of doing the outward things, it's a matter of inward obedience.
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What does the Bible call that? Obedience from the heart is what God wants, not that we can put on a tie and go to church.
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That's not the point at all. Here we are on the bottom of page two, soon to be page 48, right after I fire myself as secretary.
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We're at D, subparagraph four, subsection two, paragraph three.
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No, just right there in the middle of the page where it says cafeteria -style obedience, setting our own standard.
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Setting our own standard. Let's look at Proverbs 14 .12. And who has
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Proverbs 14 .12? Who can turn there faster than me? We should just have contests and I'll just start throwing candy bars at Tom.
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What is Solomon saying there? There is a way that seems right to man, but its way is the end of death.
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It results in death. What's the point he's trying to make, Becky? She says
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I have a, you know, when people say I have a piece about this, that, and the other thing, you know, and it's completely wrong. Let's say, for example, husband has a relationship with a woman,
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I don't know, in a foreign country. And he goes and sees her. He might have a complete piece about it, but it's the wrong thing to do.
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A woman might divorce her husband because he is verbally abusive.
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That might seem like a reasonable thing to do, but is that God's standard? You know,
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I might have, I might think, well, you know, my employer is not very fair. No, I'm not saying anything about my employer.
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My employer is not very fair, so it's okay if I kind of even the scales a little bit by taking home a ream of paper from my copier.
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What's the big deal? I can rationalize a lot of things. And more importantly, taking this outside of the realm of, you know, any kind of Christian experience, what do people say?
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They say God is blank, blank, blank, blank. He is this,
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He is that. He is too loving to send anybody to hell.
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He is, you know, He created people to be homosexuals, and so He's okay with that.
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It's just the way they are, and He's fine with it. In other words, what they will do is they will pick and choose what scriptures they're going to believe.
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You know, how can you possibly believe the Bible when it says that if you have a rebellious child, you take him outside the city gates and stone him?
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Are you doing that? Well, then you don't believe the Bible. People want to pick and choose.
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They want a scoop of this, a dab of that. That's why I call it cafeteria -style
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Christianity or cafeteria -style anything. Obedience. People set their own standards.
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They decide, well, that's good enough. It's good enough. God's just going to have to accept that.
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I'm going to appear before God on judgment day, and I'm going to say, you know what, God? I did my best. Take it or leave it.
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The arrogance of that, the absolute arrogance of that, like God just has to say, you know what, well, you know,
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I didn't really think about it that way. You're right. Okay. Go on ahead. That's right.
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I mean, it is a complete refutation of scripture. Like Scott was saying, it's this idea that we're somehow good or that we're good enough, you know, never mind, that we're good enough and that God needs to accept us, that our obedience is good enough, that somehow we can set the standard.
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Like judges. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And the exact opposite is true.
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God sets the standard. God wrote, as it were, the owner's manual. He told us how this world operates, how this universe operates, how we operate.
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He gets to decide what is right and what is wrong, and what he says is always right.
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Obedience cannot be a matter of picking and choosing. It must be the whole of scripture.
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It must be God's standard or there is no standard at all. Roman numeral number three, we've talked about obedience.
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Secondly, spiritual growth. Look at that quote from J .C. Ryle. Talking about spiritual growth, your sense of sin is becoming deeper, your faith stronger, your hope brighter, your love more extensive, your spiritual mindedness more marked.
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That's what spiritual growth is. I think that's a good definition. You just have a sense of things.
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You hate your sin more. Things that you previously didn't even understand to be sin, you now look at and go,
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I know that doesn't please God. Your faith is stronger.
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As opposed to when you're a younger Christian, maybe life is more like this.
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Huge highs, low lows, huge highs, low lows.
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Maybe those lows kind of go like this for a while. And then huge highs. I need to go to promise keepers because I get a spiritual high.
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And then I crash afterwards. It's kind of like that sugar rush. But as you become more and more mature, your life is more like this.
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It gets closer to that kind of evenness where things are just not that troubling to you.
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Yes, there are sad things in your life, but you understand that God is in control. You firmly believe that and you live it out.
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Does that mean we're never going to be upset? No, I don't think so. But I think our lives, like I said, are going to be more even keeled.
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Let's talk about really kind of continuing the idea of obedience because this is what obedience results in what?
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Not only a life that is more pleasing to God, but a life that is more, I'm sorry, stable.
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The more obedient you are, the more you grow,
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I would say. And again, it's not outward obedience. It is from -the -heart obedience.
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It is a growth pattern. First of all, we need to keep in mind, as we've said on many occasions, no Christian is perfect.
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Let's look at Philippians 3 -14. Steve, how can you say that nobody's perfect?
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Well, I'm going to give you a few examples here. How can I say nobody's perfect? I don't know.
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Maybe you're thinking, well, how can you say nobody's perfect just because you aren't? That would be a perfectly valid thing to say.
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Who has Philippians 3 -12 -14? Paul. Okay, now what is
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Paul saying about his own life, his own ministry, that there's room for improvement?
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He certainly understood that he was not perfect. In 1 Timothy 1 -15, he says what? That he is the chief of all sinners, the greatest of all sinners, whatever the translation is.
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And if you read the whole of Romans 7, here is a man who wrestled with his own imperfections.
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He said, I don't do the things I want to do. And the things I don't want to do,
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I do. If Paul, the apostle, wrestled with sin, if he saw himself as less than perfect, he never said, you know, why can't you guys be more like me?
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Now, he might have said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. In other words, when
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I'm right, when I'm following Christ, I want you guys to follow me. But he never said, do exactly what
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I do, because then you'll be good to go. Paul never set himself up as the standard.
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Christ is the standard, and we're never going to reach that. But that does not stop us from striving to attain that standard.
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But no Christian is perfect. Christians are to grow with respect to lordship.
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Let's look at 2 Peter 3, verses 17 and 18.
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And who has that? See, I thought Carmen was raising her hand. 2
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Peter 3, verses 17 and 18. Becky. Peter is, of course, closing this epistle, this warning about false teachers that will come.
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He wants them to be on guard against these unprincipled men. But look at verse 18 where he says,
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But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Learn more about Him. Follow Him more and more.
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Put yourself under His leadership, under His lordship, under His headship. That's what we should do.
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Again, as John MacArthur said, it's the direction of our lives, not the perfection. If you can't figure out the direction of your life, then there may be an issue.
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But generally speaking, no matter how flawed you might be as a child of God, there should be a definite direction to your life.
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You should be being formed into the image of Jesus.
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B. Lordship is not taking Jesus as Savior and making Him Lord. Taking and making.
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Two -step. It's a two -step process. Put the garment in the dye, rinse the garment out.
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It's not a two -step process where you take Jesus as Savior. I want you to come forward this morning and receive the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And then we'll talk at some point in the future about making Him Lord.
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It's never been about that. Again, this is the whole idea put forward by Zane Hodges and others that there can be
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Christians who receive Jesus as Savior, who receive forgiveness for their sins, but never make
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Him Lord of their lives, refusing to obey Him. Let's just look at this idea of Jesus as Lord.
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Jesus was installed by the Father. Let's look at Acts 2, verses 33 -35.
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Again, simply put, we don't make Him Lord. He is Lord. And our failure to acknowledge that does not diminish
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His Lordship. It shows us who we are. If we don't worship
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Christ as our Lord and Savior, the fault is on us.
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Acts 2, verses 33 -35. Who has those? Go ahead.
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Simon. Yeah. Sit at my right hand.
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This idea. I mean, this is all throughout the Scriptures of what Jesus is appointed by the
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Father. In fact, even in Psalm 2, it says that He has made Him King, that He's installed
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Him as King. This is the rightful position of Jesus Christ.
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He is Lord. He is in charge. We often talk about the Great Commission.
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Matthew 28 -18. I have it listed there. All authority has been given to Him. He has it.
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He is in charge. And the fact that someone says, well, you know, I just want forgiveness.
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I don't really want to obey. That goes against everything that Jesus taught. There is a cost to pay, and that cost is discipleship.
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And discipleship doesn't mean I get to pick and choose. I don't have to obey. Jesus has always been preeminent.
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Let's look at Colossians 1 -17. One that we like to use when we're talking to those who would come to our door and try to give us a false gospel.
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When they show up at your door and they say, I'd like to give you some good news. And you say, oh, good. How do I get to heaven? And they say, well, you can't really get to heaven.
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That's a problem. You can't get there. Well, how's that good news? I'm confused.
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Colossians 1 -17. I'll read that. He, talking about Jesus, is before all things.
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And in Him, all things hold together. He is before all things. He is preeminent.
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He is the prototokos. He is the firstborn of all creation.
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He is Lord. Always preeminent. He will always be
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Lord. Paul writes in Philippians 2 that at His name every knee will bow.
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That is not going to change. He is Lord, has been Lord, will always be
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Lord. Roman numeral number 4 down there. To have Jesus as one's
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Lord is to grow in recognition of who Christ is. We already read 2
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Peter 3, 17 -18. Let's see what James Montgomery Boyce has to say. Look at this.
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Biblical faith involves three elements. Number one, knowledge upon which it is based.
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The idea, some kind of philosophical argument that Christianity is a leap of faith, that it is devoid of content, that it can be an experience, a feeling, a sense, a shaking, a rolling on the floor.
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That is not Christianity. It is an intellectual faith. It is one that has content, must have knowledge.
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You cannot be saved unless you know certain things. You cannot be saved unless you know that there's a God. You can't be saved unless you know that you have sinned against that God.
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You cannot be saved unless you know that God Himself made a way for sinners to be forgiven by sending
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His Son, Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial, substitutionary death and was raised on the third day.
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And you must repent from your sins and trust in that Savior to go to heaven.
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You must know these things. Now, you don't have to understand all the finer nuances of the hypostatic union, the eternal spiration of the
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Spirit. You don't have to be some master theologian. But you need to know the
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Gospel. You have to have that content. Secondly, Boyce says, heart response which results from the new birth.
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It's not enough, and we're going to be talking about this tonight. It's not enough to just know the truth.
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There are people who know the truth all the time and then leave it, who depart from it, who teach against it, as Zane Hodges pointed out.
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When it says in the book of Acts that God opened the heart of Lydia, well, there was a reason for that because her heart, like anyone's heart, has to be open to the
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Gospel. But once it is, it responds with joy. We never see in Scripture, ever, and I'm willing to go through all the book of Acts or anywhere else, all the
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Gospels, and we'll look at this, where someone gets saved and they go, I don't really want to repent.
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I don't want to be forgiven of my sins, but okay. That is not what happens. There is a joy bursting forth of I can't believe the
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God of this universe would set His affection on me, forgive me knowing me for all that I have done.
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Why would God do that? I mean, it's just beyond my imagination. And a heart that has been regenerated, that has been born afresh by the
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Spirit of God is overjoyed by that. Think about the woman at the well.
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I'm pretty much convinced she was saved. Why? Because she went out and told everybody. Because you have to hear this man.
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You have to hear what he said, even after he said, you know what? No, you don't have a husband.
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You've had all these other issues. I always love the sir,
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I perceive you are a prophet comment, but it's just, it is a heart that has been set free from the bondage of sin and says,
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I want that. I can't believe I get it. That is the heart response. It's not just intellectual.
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It is a response that longs to honor the
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Lord that has saved you. And third, he says, commitment, without which faith is no different from assent to the demons or assent of the demons.
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Commitment, a discipleship, exactly what we've been talking about, where you say,
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I am going to, from this day forward, as God enables me, I am going to follow the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because otherwise, if it's just intellectual knowledge, and maybe there's a little bit of a heart response for a time, but there is no commitment to follow
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Christ, then it is ultimately, even as James Montgomery Boyce notes here, it is no different than that of the demons who apprehend the truth.
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And that truth does nothing but make them shudder. Faith without commitment, faith without lordship, faith without any desire to obey is no true faith.
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It is a dead faith that will save no one. And he goes on to the bottom of the page, no true
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Christian will add anything to the finished work of Jesus.
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To do so is really to proclaim a false gospel. We direct people to the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, He is, and I've highlighted it, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. This Lord is the object of faith and its content.
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There is no other. Consequently, if faith is directed to one who is not Lord, it is directed to one who is a false
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Christ of the imagination. Such a one is not the Savior, and He will save no one.
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In other words, what he's saying is this whole idea that Jesus is a
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Savior and that He's not Lord, or that you can separate the two. You might as well separate
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His Godhood from His manhood and say, well, I love Jesus. I love Jesus the man. Not so well about Jesus the
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God. You can't separate the two. You can't say, I love Jesus the Savior. Not so well about Jesus the
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Lord. He is Savior and Lord. Other signs of spiritual growth.
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Any comments or questions? So we're moving right along. Other signs of spiritual growth.
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Increased holiness of life and conversation. Increased holiness of life and conversation.
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I just heard something while I was getting ready this morning. Some study that came out of Germany.
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I mean, it seems like all the dopey things come out of Germany. Anyway, that swearing releases stress and is actually good for you.
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I thought, well, you know. Let's see what the Bible has to say. Ephesians 5, verses 1 to 5.
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There is a way that sees right to a man, even to a German man. But his way is the end of death.
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Ephesians 5, verses 1 to 5. And who has that? Pastor Dave. Be imitators of God.
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Act like God would act. That's how His children would act. You know, we hear pastors say, sometimes, you know,
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I want my kids to act like Ebendross. Well, we ought to act like the God that we say that we're children of.
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I mean, if we were to look back further in Ephesians, in chapter 4. I mean, we could go through the whole passage in chapter 4.
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But even verse 29, let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you.
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And then he goes, therefore, be like God. And he says, basically, here's what you need to do. Is you need to have fit words and fit actions.
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Have a life that reflects the God that you say that you love. What did
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Jesus say about our language? He was talking about diet.
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And He said, look, it's not what you put into your mouth that defiles you. It's what comes out of your mouth.
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Why? Because it reveals what's inside. It shows what you really are focused on.
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What's really important to you. I thought Tom had a question.
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It's always dangerous to shift around when there's a lull in the class. Our language and our actions don't show that we are
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Christians, but they can reveal that we're not, or that we're not where we ought to be.
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Do you have an increased holiness of life and conversation? Are the things in your life considerably more
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Christ -like than they were a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago?
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Of course, if you weren't saved ten years ago, I hope they're more Christ -centered. If not, there may be an issue.
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Increased faith and love towards Jesus Christ. Seeing things of Christ which at first you never would have dreamed.
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Offices of Christ, substitute, intercessor, priest, advocate, physician, shepherd, friend.
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How would you find out those things, by the way? What's that? By studying,
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Peggy says, by studying the Bible. That's exactly right. And when you study the scripture, these things just kind of make you think.
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You go, yeah, that's right. Jesus is my substitute. He is my intercessor.
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He is my priest. My high priest. You become more careful.
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More careful about your temper, words, and actions. I've already said something about this, but I want to just hone this in a little bit more.
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Let's look at Galatians 5, verses 19 to 21. Galatians 5, verses 19 to 21.
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Of course, in the fruit of the Spirit. But this is not the fruit of the
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Spirit. Galatians 5, verses 19 to 21. Who has that? Go ahead.
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People who do such things shall not inherit the word of God. And certainly we look at those things, and there's a list of really horrible sins in there.
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But lost in the midst of those, at the new American standard, lost in the midst of those, just listen to these.
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Enmities. Not liking someone. Strife. Arguing.
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Jealousy. Being envious of somebody else. Outbursts of anger. Disputes.
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Dissensions. Factions. All these things are not pleasing to God.
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And even if we went on in Galatians 5, they're not what the Holy Spirit brings forth in the life of a believer.
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In fact, I'll just read the very first part of verse 22.
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But, contrast. These are the ways that the world lives.
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Verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit. This is what the world looks like, but the
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Holy Spirit produces something else entirely. The exact opposite. Why would you become more careful about your temper, words, and actions?
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Because, not because of some extraneous legal standard that someone's going to impose on you, but because if the
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Holy Spirit doesn't work in your life, there's almost like a pause mechanism.
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You think of things and you just go, that's not right, I can't say that. I want to please the
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Lord in all that I say and do. I would like to please Him in all that I think, but sometimes my thoughts aren't always the best.
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But I'm going to be Spirit -controlled and not say exactly what
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I want. I'm not going to follow that study out of Germany and just let it go so that I don't internally stress over things.
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Number four, you are not content with your old holiness levels. You're not content, 2
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Corinthians 5, verses 14 and 15. You know, we talk about contentedness being a great thing, and I think it is.
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But I think there's a certain amount of discontent we can have, and I think it's reflected.
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Who has 2 Corinthians 5, verses 14 and 15? Okay. Look at the language he says there.
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Paul writes that the love of Christ controls us. Why? Because He died on our behalf.
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He died and rose on our behalf, and if we love Christ, if this is the focus of our thinking, we're never satisfied with where we are.
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We think we can always grow into more Christ -likeness. We want to be controlled by that love.
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We want to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. We want to have that kind of sense where we just think, boy, there was less sin in my life today than yesterday, or there's less sin in my life, or maybe we have a better awareness of sin, but in any event, the sins that trouble us are not the same, or they're not, let me put it this way, because it's hard to quantify, and I'll get in trouble if I try to quantify it.
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But we should see a steady progress in our lives, maybe not even steady, but there needs to be a progress.
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We ought to be pushing forward. We ought to be seeing improvement in different areas of our lives.
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In some areas, we're probably going to wrestle, but by the grace of God, when we work on those areas, and you know, this is a great place for one -on -one discipleship, one of the flaws with kind of adapting worldly methodology, you know, the world says, if you're an alcoholic, go join a bunch of group, a group of alcoholics, and you can strengthen one another.
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The world would say that, you know, I mean, they have all these 12 separate groups, support groups, where a bunch of people who struggle with one issue of life, issues that most likely we would call sin, all get together to support one another to stop doing that.
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Is that the best method? I remember
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I once had a man say he wanted to be kind of mentored, you know, in how to be, he was getting ready to get married, and this was in California, and he said, you know,
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I would like you and your wife to help my fiancé and I. And I said, well, that's very flattering.
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And I said, but what about this other couple of the church? Well, you know, he's got this theological issue that I don't agree with, and that theological issue that I don't agree with.
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And I said, well, there is that, but what we're talking about is marriage. And here is a man who has loved his wife for 50 years.
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I think you probably learned something from him. I think there's some knowledge that he has that maybe
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I don't have. And the same with the wife. Listen, if you can submit to a sinful man for 50 years, you have learned something, something that is valuable to pass along.
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So I would say that, you know, if you struggle with your tongue, then find someone who doesn't struggle with their tongue.
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If you struggle with anger, find someone who doesn't struggle with anger and ask them how they do it.
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Pray with them. Have them teach you. Again, one even, well, yeah, let's go ahead and read there.
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You become more troubled about sin in your life. I mentioned that that's the entire theme of Romans chapter 7,
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I believe. You know, there are all kinds of different theories about why this was written. I don't really think it's all that baffling.
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I think here we have a man who, you know, in so many ways, sets the bar for us as human beings toward other human beings.
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Certainly not perfect, but so instrumental in the growth and the promulgation of Christianity and the
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New Testament. And yet he writes this whole chapter and says, you know what, in a lot of ways he doesn't put this as, you know, my own very loose translation.
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I'm just like you guys. I don't even know why I struggle with the things I struggle with. Let me just read verses 23 and 24.
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In fact, I'll read 22. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. In other words,
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I love the law. My soul loves the Bible. But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
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I'm horrified. And he says in verse 24, wretched man that I am, he is horrified.
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Who will set me free from the body of this death? This is a man who says, you know what,
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I so hate the sin that I cannot stop doing that I wish I could die so that I would stop it.
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I want to stop sinning. But I know that that won't happen until I go to be in heaven.
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Paul was concerned about the sin in his life. We ought to be concerned about the sin in our lives.
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Horrified, wretched man that I am. Number six, increase spirituality and taste of taste and mind.
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The ways, fashions, amusements and recreations of the world have a continually decreasing place in your heart.
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Second Corinthians 7 .1 and we will close here. Second Corinthians 7 .1,
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who will read that for me? You have a question? Okay, go ahead
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Will. It's a very good question.
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How do you not cross into works righteousness when you're examining yourself to see that you're in the faith?
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Any thoughts on that? How do we do that? We know that it's all by the grace of God, not what we've done.
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In other words, if we look at it and we go, you know, I used to struggle with this issue and now I don't. Woo, good for me.
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I rock. I didn't think I could do it, but boom, yeah.
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That's not right. That's not right at all. What we do is we look and we just think, man, left to my own devices,
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I would still be that guy. How great is God? How great is the
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Lord Jesus Christ? How great is the Holy Spirit at work in me to change me from that? Even though I haven't arrived yet,
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I've moved. And that's the grace of God at work in my life, not me, not works righteousness because, again, on my own,
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I'm going nowhere. At best, I'm in neutral. And probably the truth is
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I'm in reverse and I've got my foot jammed on the gas pedal. I'm going as fast as I can backwards. 2
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Corinthians 7 -1. Somebody must be there by now.
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Perfecting holiness in the way of the Lord. Listen, this should always be our goal.
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Knowing that we're never going to achieve it, but still we press on. We want to, by way of application.
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I can remember seeing, I always kind of couch when I recommend a movie.
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I just think, well, I saw that 20 years ago and I wasn't saved yet. And should I even recommend it? I remember thinking it was funny, but what was in it?
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And my point there is not that that's some kind of legalistic standard, but the things that were once acceptable to us become unacceptable.
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Why? Not because we're prudish, not because we're old -fashioned, not because we're legalistic, but because we increasingly think,
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I want to have the mind of Christ and what would Jesus think of this movie? What does God think of this movie?
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What does God think of this song? How is this pleasing to the Lord? And if I want to be increasingly pleasing to the
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Lord, then it just follows that the things I do, the things that I wear, the things that I say, the things that I listen to.
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Here's just a really quick example. I used to say all the time, you know, somebody, I mean, believe it or not, I once had a reputation for being funny.
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And the people that I worked with would say, well, I've got a joke for you. And when
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I got saved, I'd say, okay, I have two questions for you before you tell me the joke. Is it racial or sexual?
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And, you know, is it racial in nature? No. Is it sexual in nature? And they'd say, well, it wouldn't be funny.
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You know, I mean, they're just like, they would look at me like I was crazy. Well, how could it not be racial or sexual and be funny?
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And I'm going, then I don't want to hear it. It's just, that's just the reality of life.
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There is a different standard. Why? Because they have no self -control. They have no sense or obligation that there is a
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Savior to whom they owe everything, a God for whom they are completely dependent and that they ought to try to please.
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There is no sense of that. And so they do whatever they want. And our lives ought to reflect the
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God who we call Father, the Savior who bought us, and the Spirit that is working within us.
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And if those things are not true, then there are issues. And we need to figure that out. Well, let's close in prayer.
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Our Father, Your Word brings such clarity to this issue that obedience cannot save us, but that a saved life is one that longs to obey
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You. A regenerated heart is one that wants to honor
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You in its thoughts and actions and words.
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Lord, would You make us a people who do not long for legalism, but long to show that we are