How Do I Truly Change?

Apologia Studios

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So this text is powerful. I told you before that you want to take Matthew chapter 15 and Mark chapter 7 and put them side by side.

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So as I said before, the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are gospels you can put down side by side.

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And synoptic means seeing together. So you can see those together. And it's important that you do that, actually.

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You take Matthew 15 and Mark 7, and you put them right by side by side, because Matthew gives some details that Mark doesn't, and vice versa.

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And so you can really get a good understanding, a full understanding of Jesus' teaching on this subject. For example, what

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Matthew actually leaves out of the discussion that Mark puts into the discussion is Mark 7 actually says, when

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Jesus talks about foods going into you and not actually defiling you because they are expelled,

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Mark says, and at this moment, basically, Jesus declared all foods clean, which is kind of a big deal.

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When you think in terms of being a Jew and God gave the holiness code, the commandment contained in ordinances,

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Paul says in Ephesians, this very particular way of worship and lifestyle and diet and even dress that the people of God had in the

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Old Testament under the Old Covenant, they had this very particular way they were supposed to live out all of this symbolism of holiness.

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And it's important because in the Old Testament, God gave the Jewish people training wheels, and this goes right into our discussion today about how we actually live in a way that's pleasing to God and are transformed.

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In the Old Testament, God gave them training wheels in terms of a sacrifice. They didn't have

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Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, as of yet, so God gave to them the symbolism, that innocent for the guilty sacrifice.

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There had to be an offering. There had to be a substitute. And so God gave them, for example, on Yom Kippur, we know it as today, the day of actually atonements.

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This is the day where the Jewish priest would rise up. He was a sinner himself, so the first thing he had to do when he represented the people of God is he actually had to provide a sacrifice for himself.

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So a bull would die, an animal would die, and blood was shed for his own sins.

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So much for being a good sacrifice or a good mediator. He has sins himself.

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He is just like you and I. He's gonna die one day as well. But as he presented the sacrifices before the

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Lord and the people of God, he would have the goats. One was the goat that would die, and one was the scapegoat.

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One would die and have its blood shed, and one would have the priest's hands laid on it.

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The priest would confess the sins of the people of God onto the scapegoat, and that scapegoat was pulled away from the people of God, and it was taken off into the distance as far as the east is from the west.

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You would watch your sins disappear over the horizon. Now, Jewish tradition says, because people wonder, well, what happened to the goat?

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Right, they take this goat out far away from the people. They watch this majestic symbolism of my sins being taken away from me and removed from me, and the question arises with the inquiring person, well, what happens to the goat?

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You don't want that goat just being let go off there, and then three or four days later, it comes wandering back into the town.

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Everyone's like running away from the goat, right? The goat with the sins confessed on it. Jewish tradition says that they actually took that goat to a cliff, and they threw it off a cliff to make sure that there was no way that those sins, the symbol of those sins, would return back to the people.

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But you see, these are training wheels, right? All these things are just reminders, continual reminders to the people of God that their sins are not yet taken care of.

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They have a temple that could fall. They have a priest that can die, and a new one takes his place.

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They have all of this symbolism, even down to their diets. They had dietary restrictions of no shellfish.

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You have no bacon, which is horrible. It's a couple, it's thousands of years of just awful for the

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Jews, right? Pigs walk by, they're like, man. But these are dietary restrictions, not in terms of the pig itself is infested with some sort of sinful disease, and if they eat that pig, they get sin inside of them.

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These were training wheels to teach the people of God how to be holy, how to be separate, how to be different and distinct.

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Now, when the new covenant comes, something amazing happens. God enters into our experience, takes on flesh.

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He lives the sinless and righteous and blameless life that we've all failed, and then Jesus dies in the place of his people.

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He rises again from the dead. He's ascended and seated on his throne as the promised descendant of David, who rules over the world as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he continuously, always lives to make intercession for us,

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Paul says in Romans eight. It's a once -for -all sacrifice. It's done forever, never to be repeated.

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He has the high priesthood that Hebrews chapter seven says does not pass from one to another.

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It does not get exchanged or passed on. Jesus is the high priest forever. He always lives to make that intercession with this perfect atonement.

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Matter of fact, what did Jesus say to the Jews when they said, he's saying he's gonna destroy the temple, and what does

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Jesus say? He says, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will rise it up again.

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We have now in Christ under the new covenant a perfect sacrifice once for all, a priest who never dies, that always lives to make intercession for us, and we have a temple now, a city now, not made with hands that can never be destroyed, ever, and now that we have

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Christ, all of the boundary markers that actually marked off Jew from Gentile, all those things are done away with as they were the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile.

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Now that we know Jesus, we have Jesus, now that God dwells within us with new hearts as regenerated people, we don't need the training wheels anymore, and so this little moment, it seems like such a small moment.

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It's actually massive. It blows apart so much where Jesus actually condemns the fact that they have raised up a standard that runs alongside the

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Bible that's supposed to teach them some sort of righteous piety, that's supposed to be divinely inspired in a way.

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This revelation that runs alongside the Bible that ends up eating the Bible up and destroying it, and Jesus condemns them for their man -made tradition that they were putting on people's backs saying, this is true piety, this is true righteousness.

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Obey this to be holy, and in this moment where the Lord of Glory is walking among us, this is the

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Creator himself walking among us with flesh, teaching us, they're condemning

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Jesus. In this moment, when they say, your disciples are eating with unwashed hands, you realize that that was an indictment upon Jesus as a rabbi.

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They were saying, you're not a good rabbi, you're not a good teacher because your disciples are not following the tradition of the elders.

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You might be tempted to ask, who cares? Who cares about the tradition of the elders?

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Well, it was a big deal because they saw these traditions as essentially divinely inspired traditions.

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Now, what does this teach us today? How does it apply to us today? Here's the so what.

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For Jesus, God in the flesh, he says there's an ultimate standard, one.

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And what Jesus always refers back to, if he's not appealing to his own authority as the son of God, he always appeals to the word of the living

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God. One more example in Matthew. In Matthew chapter 19, Jesus is thrown into the conflict of his day, the difference between the

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Hillelite marriage and the Shemite marriage. There was a marriage in Jesus' day that could be dissolved, a form of divorce, for any cause.

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That was Hillel, the school of Hillel, Hillelite marriage. And what it said was this, you can divorce your wife for any cause.

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All you must do is give a certificate of divorce. And there was a more biblical and conservative view that said, no, you have to only get divorced on biblical commands, biblical reasons.

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And so they're throwing Jesus into that controversy. It's a social controversy. It's a political controversy in his day.

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It's a church controversy in his day. And they're essentially saying, what say you?

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And what does Jesus answer? He could just answer on his own authority. But what does

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Jesus do? He says, have you not read?

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And then he points them that from the beginning, God created what?

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Male and female. And Jesus says that a man shall leave his father and his mother and he shall come together with his wife and they should be what?

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One flesh. When Jesus is answering a political controversy, a church controversy, a piety controversy, where does he always land?

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The words of the living God. So how does this apply to us today as believers 2 ,000 years after Jesus?

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We can see that when God became man, he instructed us, he modeled for us what we ought to do in terms of conflict.

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There is an ultimate standard. Jesus says in John 17, 17, thy word is truth.

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The word of God is the standard. It is the plumb line. It's how you know something is right.

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And so what Jesus says is all these traditions, if they make void the word of God, your tradition must go no matter how much you revere it, no matter how comfortable you are with it, the word of God is the very standard.

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That's what we learned from Jesus here in Matthew 15 in Mark 7. I will say one final word on that.

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It sounds awfully similar to, of course, the Reformation catch cry, sola, what?

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Scriptura. Sola Scriptura did not mean, by the way, and this is important for Protestants today if they even know what it means to be

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Protestant, it did not mean that it's just me and my Bible under a tree, apart from the church, apart from people, all by myself, my lonesome with Jesus.

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Sola Scriptura did not mean that traditions were unhelpful or not good. Sola Scriptura did not mean that the creeds aren't good.

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Sola Scriptura meant that the scriptures alone are the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

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You wanna know what's true? Look to the word of God. If you have one person saying something and the

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Bible saying another, you go with the word of the living God. The controversy is always solved by scripture.

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So what does this teach us about spiritual authority? This is important too. Spiritual authority.

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These people in this day had spiritual authority and were revered.

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They were seen as holy, pious, disciplined, spiritual people. They were seen as leaders.

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And what Jesus teaches us here is that even your religious authorities and leaders have to be underneath the word of God.

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It's the standard. And so what does that teach us about pastors in our day? If your pastor says something consistent with the word of God, then that is binding on all of us.

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Amen? And if your pastor says something that is not consistent with the word of God, it is not binding.

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No matter how spiritual he is, no matter how much his ministry looks powerful and has spiritual authority, your pastor must be submissive to the words of the living

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God. Every word out of my mouth must be tested by scripture.

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And if it's consistent, believe it, embrace it, delight in it. If it's inconsistent, don't buy it.

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Amen? That's the standard. So Jesus teaches us so much in this text, but here's where it gets really interesting.

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After he confronts them over their tradition that's conflicting with the word of God, God says, honor your father and your mother.

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And you know what? Amazingly, God's word gives us the perfect blueprint for society.

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Wouldn't you know it? God enters into the world. He graciously gives his law to his people.

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It wasn't oppressive and tyrannical. It was a gracious act of God to reveal his own character and his standards of justice to his people.

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And when God gives it to the people of Israel, he says as much.

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This was to be their wisdom in the sight of the peoples. And all the other nations were supposed to look at Israel and their laws, and they were gonna say, what kind of God is this?

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And a people like this that has a God so near to them as this God, with laws and statutes as righteous as these, it was gracious of God to give his law.

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Problem was they were fallen. Problem was they were sinners. It was not the law that was the problem, but the people.

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Now, what's amazing is that God's law gives a blueprint of how we're supposed to order our society. And one of the things you can see in God's law is that parents were provided for, the elderly were provided for by who?

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Their children. Now what the leaders of this day had done is they had set up a standard that said, well,

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I can work it out this way. I can't take care of my parents because all of my money,

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I've already dedicated it to God. That sounds righteous, doesn't it? That sounds so pious, right?

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It sounds so good, so holy, so Christian, right? I can't actually see mom and dad,

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I can't give you the money, I can't take care of your needs because I actually dedicated all my money to the temple.

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You see, that's the problem. And so I can't actually do it. And that was a tradition that said, you can do that.

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Korban rule was I've dedicated it to the temple so you can't have it. And so Jesus says, how dare you?

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How dare you violate God's command and his law where God says to honor your father and your mother, but you say, well,

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I've already dedicated it to the temple so I can't. So Jesus is saying to them, shame on you, you've voided the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

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Now this angers them and the disciples say, don't you know you've offended them? Now, by the way, it's obvious he defended, he offended them because what does

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Jesus call them? He says, you are what? Hypocrites. You're pretenders.

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You're pretending to be holy and pious and righteous and to love God's law all the while you're setting up standards that violate the very words of God and his law.

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And so they're offended. And what Jesus does is he says, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up.

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And he says this, here's how you treat false teachers. Here's how you treat them. You treat them with a heavy hand.

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He says what? He says, let them alone, they are blind guides and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit.

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And so Peter says to him, explain the parable to us and he said, are you also still without understanding?

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Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?

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That should be obvious to you, Peter. He says this, but what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person.

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Now I wanna just, as we get into now, how do we actually work this out as Christians? I just wanna say, because this gets complicated and it gets intense.

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This gets very, very intense for us as believers. I'm gonna just say as we enter into this to talk about how a person changes and we deal with our hearts,

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I just wanna encourage you to think about something that is both encouraging and also devastating to the way we've been living.

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It is transforming in a good way, but also in a way it pinches.

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You see, listen, true religion, true relationship with God, true intimacy with God is never gonna be satisfied with the external, ever.

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And that's frustrating to people who wanna fake it. So in this room right now, I will say there are people who are truly regenerate.

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They truly know God and have new hearts. They've been saved and justified. They're being sanctified. And there are those who maybe have never thought to turn to Christ and trust in him, and I hope that you do.

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And there are those in this room that are deluding themselves into believing that they are in Christ, but they have no new affections.

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They're in church, they like the culture. Maybe you were born and raised in a Christian home.

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Maybe you like having a Bible on your shelf. Maybe you like Christian music. Maybe this is something you're comfortable with, but you have never actually experienced new passions.

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You've never actually had awe over the holiness of God and desired that.

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You've never actually checked your heart to see, do I really know him?

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Do I want him, or do I just not want hell one day? Because you see, the message of Jesus is cutting in a way that world religions, man -made religions cannot be cutting.

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You see, men and women who aren't real with their sin, who wanna fake it, who are truly hypocrites, they're wearing a mask, they are never concerned with what's going on in the inside.

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All they care about is that everything on the outside looks religious, looks spiritual, and I look fine.

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Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his day, and he told them that they were always concerned with the outside of the cup.

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That's what religion does, it cleans the outside. And Jesus says you ought to be concerned with cleaning the inside of the cup.

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And Jesus does it again in Matthew 23 when he's confronting them, the religious leaders, he says to them, you're whitewashed tombs.

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Your outside looks pure and white, but on the inside, you're full of dead men's bones.

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You're full of rottenness inside, and this irritates hypocrites. Now, by the way, don't let that word please pass from this pulpit into your hearing right now and think that in any way

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I mean it to offend or to be abusive or to use it as shock value. I mean it in terms of cutting through the shell that we prop up.

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That shell, that external, outside religious affection, it looks so good on the outside, but it doesn't deal with the heart.

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Jesus says to them, he says, what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

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I said last week that the Old and New Testament use this term a lot, the heart.

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And the heart, according to Scripture, is the very foundation, it's the seat of your passions.

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It's not the physical thing bumping in your chest, but it's the inside, it's the real bottom line you.

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It's the passions of yourself, the foundation of your passions. It's where everything proceeds.

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And Jesus is saying, watch, if you wanna know what's truly inside somebody, if you wanna know the condition of you, then what proceeds out of the mouth gives the revelation of what's actually there.

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Someone might say this, watch. Ever heard this? Someone will say, well, you can't judge me.

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You don't know what's in my heart. And the truth is, is A, yes, you're right.

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I don't know the condition of your heart. That's true. And we're not as Christians to go around simply trying to guess what's in someone's heart and just lobbing bombs at people based upon our own speculation.

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However, there's a flip side to that. And that's this. If you wanna know what's in somebody's heart, give them enough time, and what comes out of their mouth will show you.

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So while we ought not to simply speculate over what's inside someone's heart and make these solid, hard directives of that's it, we can say that if given enough time, we do know what's actually in somebody's heart.

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We can see what's actually there. And Jesus teaches us, what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

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I pointed you to something last week, and I just want you to think of it in terms of an example. And this is important because for me, this tells the whole story.

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Jesus actually talked about a Pharisee and a tax collector. And the

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Pharisee in the story is before God bragging on his piety.

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He's comfortable to look up to God. He's happy to do so, and he gives God the glory for it.

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You see, religion doesn't always just brag on self. Religion will mix God's grace and power with my own efforts.

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And the Pharisee does this. He says, God, I thank you. You get the glory. You get the credit.

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And he says, I'm not like other men. He says this. He says, I tithe of all that I get.

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I fast, I pray. And he says, you haven't made me like this miserable sinner over here, essentially.

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That's his message. God, thank you that I'm not like this guy. And when the story changes over,

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Jesus said that the Pharisees trusted in themselves that they were righteous. And now the tax collector's a way off, and it says that he won't even lift his eyes to heaven.

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And this is the pinch. This is what I want you to grab hold of because it tells the whole story for a Jew. It says that he's beating his what?

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Chest. He's beating his chest, saying, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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What's he beating? He's beating the very place. He's beating the place with the seed of his passions.

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He's beating that place as though he's trying to tear it out. He's acknowledging before God, God, my heart is wicked.

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God, my heart is wicked. This is the source of it, God. And all he says is this. He says,

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God, have mercy on me, a sinner. That's all he has to offer, which is nothing.

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And it says, watch, that he went to his house justified. He went to his house declared righteous.

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And here's the horrifying words. Here's the terrifying words, ready? Rather than the other.

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The Pharisee went condemned. He went to hell. But what about his righteousness?

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What about his acts of piety? What about all of his fasting and his tithing and his praying? It says, watch, he trusted in himself that he was righteous.

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And the tax collector knew that in his heart, he was broken and wicked and foul.

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And he's trying to get at the very source of it. And all I can do is plead to God, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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He knows his condition. Do you think it's an accident that Jesus, in giving that illustration, do you think it's an accident of the text?

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Just a random thing? That of all of Jesus' discussion about the heart, that in a story of a person that is justified and a person who is not, a person who is saved and a person who is lost,

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Jesus adds the line that he's beating his chest. We know what

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Jesus teaches about the heart. That's the source. That's the foundation. And so we have to deal with our heart. And here's what it says.

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For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

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These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. See, the world looks at the external.

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So what do we do? We work on behavior modification. That's what the world does.

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If they don't want it to be a religious kind of system, the world looks at behavior modification. I often use my experience at a drug and alcohol addiction hospital because I saw so much of how the world handles true brokenness.

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And oftentimes I would sit in meetings with therapists and doctors and psychologists in the group setting, and I would listen to these therapists, these secular therapists, try to handle the problem of people who were truly lost and broken and had passions and desires that were so conflicted and broken, they didn't quite know how to handle it.

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So oftentimes, if you had a person that was dealing with a lot of anger, they were always exploding with anger, and that would lead them into using heroin or cocaine or alcohol.

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They would have courses on behavior modification. So here's how they dealt with a person that had explosive anger and then went to use.

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They would say things like this. You need to take a cold shower. Here's what

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I want you to do. When you have these explosive moments and you're really, really angry, let's modify that behavior.

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They would say, I want you to take deep breaths. Now, don't we all know with our big boy and big girl pants on that if we're throwing a fit, might be a good idea to walk away or to take a breath?

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Do you think these 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 year olds knew that they ought to take a breath, walk out of the room, calm down?

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Yes. But did that ever stop them in the past from having explosive anger? No. So they would say, well, how about this?

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Take a cold shower. Or how about this? Go on a walk and look at nature. Or it got deeper as the session went on.

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If you get really, really angry and you wanna actually hit something, here's what I want you to do.

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I want you to have a special pillow that you use for punching. So they told these people that what you wanna do is assign to yourself a special pillow.

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Maybe you can draw pictures on it. Maybe you can staple a picture of the offender onto it.

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And you can just beat the pillow rather than the person. So what they would try to do is modify the behavior but never deal with what?

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Never deal with the heart. Or you had a person that was lonely. They had sessions on how to deal with loneliness.

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And they would say, if you're really, really lonely, here's what you do. There's all kinds of fantastic online groups that you can join to have conversations with people.

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And there are great getaways with these people. You can pay a small fee and you can go on a cruise with a bunch of strangers.

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Let me tell you what, that sounds like hell to me. Totally. And they would say things like, well, get a

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Facebook account, make some new friends. If you're dealing with loneliness, when you're really lonely, rather than going to use the heroin or the alcohol, here's what you do.

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Go see a movie. Call an old friend.

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But you see, here's the problem. If your heart is truly, according to Jesus, the seat of it all and the source of it all, here's the thing.

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Wherever you go, there you are. And here's the problem.

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I can see every movie. I can talk to old friends. And at some point, I'm gonna lay my head down on a pillow and it's 3 a .m.

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and I am grieved. Why? Because I'm lonely. Why?

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Loneliness is a result of the fall. God is triune,

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has never been lonely from all eternity.

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He has been in infinite bliss and delight and fellowship, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from all eternity.

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There has never been loneliness in God. Not a moment, not a blip on the map, never.

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And God creates us in his image, the imago dei.

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If we are the image of God, then loneliness is not supposed to be a true part of our experience, notwithstanding the fall, because what does

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God give to us? An infinite, limitless place of joy and delight and fellowship in him.

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Here's the thing that's true if you're in Christ. There is no such thing as loneliness. Truly.

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Because the depth of our relationship and intimacy with God is to such a degree that God will never leave me or forsake me.

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I'm in his hand, Jesus says, and I will never forsake you. I'll never lose you.

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You're in my Father's hand, and you'll never be lost, Jesus teaches. There's no loneliness for those who truly know

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Jesus. Now, you might say, well, I'm a Christian, and I've struggled with loneliness. I would say that's called the need for sanctification and to trust the word of God and not your own feelings and emotions and not your own inner monologue, because what

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God says about himself is true whether you like it or not, whether you feel like it or not. But see, what does the world do?

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The world says, here's how you deal with it. Modify the behavior. Fix the behavior. Punch a pillow.

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Take a cold shower. Take a pill. Make a friend. And here's the problem.

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That'll never curb self -indulgence. It'll never change you. What does?

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Well, you have to think about your condition, my condition. Jesus says it's the heart. He says other things, too, by the way.

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He says, and this is powerful, and it goes with our catechism. He says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

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So we're slaves to our sin, but then he gives the promise of this. But if the Son sets you free, you shall what?

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Be free indeed. So we're slaves to our sin. We're Ephesians 2, dead in our sins and trespasses.

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We are, according to Romans chapter eight, in the flesh, unable to please

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God, unable to submit to his law. So we are in such a place that we are completely and totally lost and unable to save ourselves or to transform ourselves.

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What's the Bible say about our condition? It says, can a leopard change its spots?

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The answer is what? No. Jeremiah 17, nine talks about the depth of our hearts, and it says this.

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The heart is deceitful above all things. In some translations, and I like this, say, sick beyond cure.

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Who can know it? The condition of the heart is what's wrong, and Jesus points to it constantly.

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So if our condition is fallen, corrupt, broken, alienated from God, hostile, dead in our sins and trespasses, what's the hope?

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The hope is promised long before Jesus walks on the earth. In his earthly ministry, he says this.

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In Ezekiel 36, just mark it down. It's one of our life verses at Apologia Church.

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Couple verses you'll learn at Apologia after being here for a little while. Romans one, for sure.

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Ezekiel 36, and pretty much the entire book of Romans. We like that, right?

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But Ezekiel 36, God says this long before Jesus comes. He says that he's gonna do something new in the new covenant.

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He says, not for your sake, he says, but for the sake of my name. He says that you've profaned among all the nations.

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I'm gonna act, and it's not for your sake, it's for the sake of my name. And he says this. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you'll be cleansed.

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He says this, watch. I will cleanse you from all your idols. I will cleanse you from all your idols.

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He says, I will remove the heart of stone that's within you, and I'll give you a heart of flesh.

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So where there was a heart that was hard to God, God says,

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I'll give you a heart of flesh that is malleable, it's moldable, it's soft towards God.

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And here's the beautiful thing for those who are in Christ. He says, with that new heart, I'll put my spirit within them, and I will cause them to observe my statutes.

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How do you like that? You see, I often got in trouble as a pastor at this hospital.

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I did, I got in trouble a lot. I was in the principal's office quite a bit. They had a

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Christian program, they had a secular program, and my program was constantly colliding with their program and what they were saying.

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And I would oftentimes say to these people who were in there for the Christian program, who had turned from sin and come to Christ, I would say, right now, you want to grow in this beautiful thing of delighting in God.

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You want to get to know Him, grow in intimacy and obedience to God. And I said, what's more important than your

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AA groups or your intensive outpatient programs, what's more important is this, that you walk with God daily.

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You surround yourself with God's people who can love you and keep you accountable and encourage you and speak the word of God into your life.

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And it's more important than all of your medical groups and AA groups and AHA groups and NA groups and all the rest.

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And then I get called into the principal's office and they would say, Pastor Jeff, you can't go around telling people that Jesus is the only way to God.

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And you can't go around telling people that their commitment to going to church with God's people is more important than AA.

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You can't do that. And my response was, well, fire me.

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And they would say, well, no, we don't want to fire you. The program's doing well. It was making a lot of money.

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And they'd say, we don't want to fire you. Just please tone down the language. And I would say, well, you hired a Christian pastor and I'm going to be a

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Christian pastor. And so I won't do that. And I said, if you'd like to, you can fire me. And they said, we'll see you next week,

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Pastor Jeff. And so what would happen is I would say to people this, I am not ashamed at all that what

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I'm saying to you is entirely supernatural and miraculous.

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I'm not ashamed of the fact that what I'm saying to you goes against what you are taught here and elsewhere in the world.

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That what, watch, what has to happen in you is something that you can't manipulate and control.

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What has to happen in you has to be an act of divine grace and divine will.

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What happens in you must be miraculous or it's fraudulent.

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It's fake. And you want to know the proof of it? When we're talking about behavior modification and all this stuff, addiction, sexual morality, anger, evil thoughts, all this stuff, they used to say in those groups to people, you will never not be an addict.

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You will never ever stop being a drug addict. And this is why when you're in the group, you must stand up and say, hi, my name is

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Bob and I'm a alcoholic or I'm a pill addict.

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Why? Because they wanted you to stand up according to their program and say that your identity is forever locked in the addict.

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So you must stand up, stay straight and identify. So what

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I got in trouble with is I would tell people that if you've turned from your sin to trust in Christ, you have a new identity.

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And the spirit of God lives within you. And though, yes, you still need to be changed and drawn into a deeper relationship of intimacy and obedience to God, if you're in Jesus by faith, you are alive from the dead.

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And a lot of trouble for that. And it never ended. They would stand up in the group and they would say, hi,

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I'm so and so and I'm forgiven in Jesus. Because you see, they were taught according to scripture, not according to the world system.

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They were taught that the foundation of my being changed and my heart new is something that exists solely outside of my will and power.

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It's something done by God and not by me. And that I have a new identity in Jesus and God sees me in new relationship with him.

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I am forgiven. I am not lost. I am a son. I am no longer an enemy of God.

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I am a child of God, no longer a child of wrath. That's what the

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Bible teaches us. And so I want to point you to a text in terms of how do I change? If our condition is totally fallen and God promises a new heart, then certain things must be true of me.

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And I will live now on the basis of that. And I want to show it to you in scripture so you can see from a biblical perspective, how does change happen?

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How does my heart, which Jesus says is the source of all this evil, how does it get worked on and made new?

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Go to Colossians chapter two first. Colossians chapter two.

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Now I want to point you, I actually want to focus on Colossians three here, but I want you to see

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Colossians chapter two, the very end. So look what the apostle Paul says about how the world deals with change, behavior modification.

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Nothing's changed. What does Ecclesiastes say? It says there's nothing new, what? Under the sun, just repackaged things, all the same.

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This is the first century Paul is dealing with. People who would think that you can change and curb self -indulgence through discipline and behavior modification.

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Here's what he says. In verse 20 of chapter two. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

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Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings.

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These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self -made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they, listen, are, listen, of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

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Some translations you might have in your hands right now, says they have no value in curbing self -indulgence.

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What's that saying? Watch, the first century, very much like today, just repackaged, they had people that were teaching you can essentially beat your body into submission to be more spiritual and to be changed and to curb self -indulgence.

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You have people, we know, right, you know in history, people that have separated themselves from society even, they've become monks, right?

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What's that saying, right? Evil is over there, so in order to actually combat that evil and not embrace it,

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I need to be over here. I'll separate myself. I won't handle, I won't touch,

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I won't taste. I saw that all the time in the hospital. Here's how you're gonna get out of this.

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You're never not gonna be an addict. They would say this, ready, all the time, all the time. Fake it until you make it.

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What's that? Now you heard me say this. I don't wanna use the word hypocrite to wound you, but just to tell the truth about the situation.

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If you're putting on a mask and faking it, it's not real relationship with God. It's not real change.

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There's no real transformation there. And so they would tell people, and it's all over the world system, they say this.

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Fake it until you make it. What's that mean? Be a hypocrite. Don't be honest with yourself and what's truly going on inside of you.

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Fake it until you make it, until it looks like you're no longer that, although you're always gonna be that.

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Fake it until you make it. What's that mean? Beat yourself up, discipline yourself, work on behavior modification.

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Don't touch, don't taste, don't smell, don't go there, and then you'll be able to stop what's going on in your heart.

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And here's what Paul says to that. It doesn't work. For all of you guys, listen.

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For everybody in this room that's frustrated, with all the ways that you've tried to change yourself, all the ways that you try to beat your body into submission, your body into submission, all the ways that that failed in the past, here's good news.

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In Christ, there is new life and a new heart and a new identity that is the foundation of everything that happens after this.

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This is the good news. Paul says this. Chapter three, verse one.

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If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

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When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

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So watch, when I said, I'm not ashamed to admit that my claim is that what happens in us is wholly supernatural and miraculous.

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I mean that on the basis of Colossians. Paul says, this'll never curb self -indulgence.

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It'll never touch it. It'll never work its way into the recesses of your heart. It'll never get there.

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Here's how it works. If you've been raised up with Christ, then you are seated with him in the heavenly places.

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And if you say to me, Jeff, explain to me what that means. I don't know.

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And what I mean by that is not that I can't fathom it or explain it to you logically and put a picture to it.

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What I mean is it's incomprehensible to have so great a salvation that according to God, he sees me as fully identified with Jesus in such a way that I am seated with him.

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That's madness from a human perspective. That God sees me as so new with such a new identity that I am now formed into Christ in such a way that I am with him seated.

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And my life, Paul says, is hidden with Christ in God.

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So watch, the way that according to the Bible, our heart is worked on, it's this,

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God rips it out. He takes it out and he puts a new one there.

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And he takes somebody who is hostile to him, enemy to him, dead, unable to work and move and cooperate and he breeds life into that death.

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And he takes that person and he joins them to his son so that Jesus' death,

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I am joined to. So that my life of sin and depravity and hostility is nailed to a cross.

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So that there's an old self that's nailed to a cross. And I am raised with Jesus in a new way.

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And I am made a new creature. So, Paul says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you.

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And notice what he talks about. Because Jesus talks about it as well in Matthew 15.

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What is it? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness.

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Which is what? Idolatry. So Paul says this.

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Here's the foundation of it. It's the only way it works. This is it. This is Christianity 101. It's the only way it'll ever work.

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You can write books opposing it. It won't be biblical. It doesn't matter. It's the only way you change. Only way you change.

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You are either in Christ with a new identity, turned from sin to trust in Jesus and God does the raising up.

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Or you're still dead, your heart's still fallen, your desire's still fallen and you are hopeless in the world.

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And yeah, you might be able to have some behavior modification and change and discipline and you might look like a clean cup on the outside but you'll never be changed.

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Never knew without Jesus. There's only one way to transformation according to God and that is you must be joined to Christ in his death and resurrection and raised in newness of life.

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And so Paul says this, watch. If that is the foundation, if you're there as a

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Christian, dead to sin, alive to God, Paul says this, therefore, only if that's true, therefore, put to death what is earthly within you.

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Now watch this. How could you ever wanna do that? How could you ever say to a person who say is addicted to pornography, put it to death?

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Here's the problem. You can't put something to death that your heart still loves and longs for.

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You can't tell a person say who's addicted to alcohol, who's a drunk, put the alcohol to death.

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You can't do that, why? Because my heart is still sold out for it. You can't tell a person who loves their idols to put them to death, why?

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Because their passions are still sold out for those idols. But the truth is, watch, if you've been made alive and new and you have a new heart and new affections,

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God has placed within you Jeremiah 31, 31, his law.

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And what does his law say as the first commandment? I hope we know it. You shall have what?

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No other gods before me. So if God's laws penetrated my inward parts now and I've been made alive by God, by his grace, then my longing and my heart is for God and not the idol.

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Which means now there will be a war within, a love for God, a hatred for my idols.

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And that can only happen in Christ with an old man and old woman crucified to Jesus and alive now with him.

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So watch, how do you put something to death? How do you mortify this thing? How do you kill it?

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How do you put it to death? Only if you've been raised with Christ. So watch, here's the rub of the whole thing.

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Watch, if you struggle with sin in terms of still longing for your idols, still longing for those things, and your passions and desires are not really changed, then here's the answer, ready?

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I have no tips for you. I have no help in terms of behavior modification because it'll never curb your self -indulgence.

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If your passions and desires are still towards those things, sold out for them, I'm not talking about struggling with them and hating them, that's a

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Christian experience, but if they're sold out for them, I don't have any tips for behavior modification. This is my call to you, repent and believe the gospel.

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Turn to Jesus in faith, be joined to him in his death and resurrection because then and only then will you have new heart and new affections, but here's to the

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Christians that now have this war within them, right? It wasn't there before.

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You love God, you wanna worship him and know him. You hate the idols now because you've tasted and seen.

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You've experienced God, you know him, and you long for him above the idols, but there are times where there's a conflict, and brothers and sisters, watch this.

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You know that you're in Christ when there is a conflict. If there's no conflict, then

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Christ isn't there. If there's a conflict, it means now you have new affections, new desires, and now you're making war with the old self, and God is transforming you from within, but how do you put it to death?

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I remember that, and that's, I don't wanna talk a lot about it myself, but I think this is relevant in terms of how

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I can see how this has blessed my life. After my addiction to drugs and alcohol, there was a really hard period of like six months or a year where I really struggled intensely where it's such a weird thing, like I had this longing for God and love for God, and I'm just pouring over the

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Bible, and I'm listening to worship music, and I'm literally pulling my car over to worship God, and I'm just thanking

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Him because I'm freed from all this stuff, but I also had moments where I'd pass by the old stomping grounds, and I would start to just really deal with this grief, like just grief over the thoughts, the memories, and stuff like thoughts even conflicting, like maybe

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I should go back one more time, and I'd be in tears, and why did I think that? I don't want that anymore.

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I'd have old friends calling my house, showing up, knocking, trying to get me to go back out into that life with them, and what

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I did was put it to death. When they showed up at my door, I didn't answer, and that was hard.

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One of these people was somebody that I grew up with. He was like my closest friend growing up, and to not answer the phone or answer the door when he called was a pretty big deal.

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It was traumatizing to both me and my wife to let go of these relationships and never even to call, so shortly after I had turned from my sin to Christ, I remember that I felt really grieved because one of these relationships with the person that was still using, that relationship was broken, and it hurt because I loved him, and so I remember that one day,

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I think it was about three months after I had turned from sin to Christ, I decided

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I'm gonna play this safe, and I'm gonna go to his house just when the sun is still up.

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Couldn't be using then. I'll go to his house just to say, hey, I love you, I care about you.

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I'm not trying to hate you and just leave our friendship, but I just can't do this anymore, so I thought

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I'll go on a Thursday when it's super safe, the sun is still up, and I showed up at his house.

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I knock on the door, and he shows up to the door, and he's using, and so I'm just there to tell you, hey,

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I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I've turned my life to God, and I just want you to know that I love you, and I just can't hang out with you anymore, and so after a few minutes of them begging me to come into the house,

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I collapsed. I came in, and I'm telling myself, no,

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I can do it. I can fight against this. I can war against this, and I'm hating every second of this, and then they opened their hands and presented a pill, and I'm telling him, no, no, no, and next thing you know,

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I took the pill, and I remember that I hated it from when

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I walked in the house to the moment I dropped that pill, and let me tell you what. They got more gospel the next five hours than they expected.

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I saw it for what it was because I had tasted and seen my heart was new.

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I had fallen into this sin, and I saw it for the lie that it was. It was false pleasure.

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It was false intimacy, this thing. It was a lie, and I'm preaching to them to the point where I'm preaching the gospel to them and telling them this is all fake.

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It's a lie from the devil. This isn't real pleasure. This isn't even real joy that they were like, show me.

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Shut up! They couldn't take it. They didn't want me around anymore, and so what

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I learned was after that repentance, you must put it to death.

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Putting something to death does not mean, for instance, Jesus says, if your eye caused you a sin, pluck it out and throw it from you, or if your hand caused you a sin, cut it off and throw it from you.

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It does not mean scratching your eyeball or rubbing a butter knife against your wrist. That's typical false repentance.

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Pretending like I'm grieved over something, but not willing to do the hard thing of putting it to death.

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Throwing it from me, and so Paul says this. All these things, if you're in Christ and you're alive, new hearts, put to death what is earthly within you, and what does it look like for us?

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We can't delude ourselves into believing, listen, that we can take fire into our chests and not be burned by it.

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That's in the Proverbs, by the way. That's not me. Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned by it?

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The answer is what? No. What else does the Bible say? It says bad company corrupts good morals.

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Do I truly believe that I can hang out with the old crowd and be immersed in the old life and not be affected by it?

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The answer is no. If I'm not putting the old life to death, then it's gonna return.

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And so when you consider the things that you struggle with as a believer, with a new heart, these conflicted things that happen within us, can

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I ask you this? The passions that you have for that thing, how we're sold out for it at times, why do you hate it?

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Something J .C. Ryle wrote about in his book Holiness that convicts me to this day, and I want you just to hear it.

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Please, listen. It's big. It's challenged me for a long time. Very few things.

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Someone wrote and you go, that just changed my whole life. He wrote in his book Holiness something to the effect of why do you not do the things of the old life?

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Do you, as a Christian, not do it? Not behave in that way, not go to those places, not do that thing.

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Do you, have you stopped doing it because truly, in your heart, your heart is broken and grieved that it offends

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God in private? Or watch, do you not engage in that sin and do that thing because you don't want the consequences around you?

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Right, like have you stopped using drugs and alcohol because of what you saw that it did to your family?

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Because I'll tell you right now, yes, we ought to be concerned with that, but from a

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Christian perspective of relationship with God, if you're not using drugs and alcohol because of what it does to your family and not primarily because it offends

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God and it's idolatry, it is not true, it is not real, it is not a righteous affection.

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It's peripheral, it's on the outside. So ask yourself the question, are you not engaging in the old life because you don't wanna get caught?

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Like when you think about that thing, that behavior, do you not engage in it, do you not do it?

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Because you think about, my wife will find out, my church will find out, my friend will find out because that's not a pure affection.

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The central place of why we turn away from these things is not because of the consequence, not because of the personal relationship, it is, it is truly, fundamentally because God, God.

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And if that's not the primary affection, then my brothers and sisters, I wanna ask you to please in this moment repent before God and cling to Jesus.

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If my affections are unaltered but I profess Jesus, I'm a fraud,

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I'm a hypocrite. If my affections are unaltered and I don't live the old life anymore because of any other reason than God, I'm a fraud,

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I'm a hypocrite. Brothers and sisters, the foundation of our hope and heart change is

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Jesus and our union with Him. And so my call to you is of course to repent, turn from sin and come to Christ for life, trust in Him and His work alone for forgiveness and salvation.

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And in Christ, you are alive from the dead, so put to death the old life and the earthly things within you.

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But brothers and sisters, the only way to truly put it to death is if the heart is changed. The only way the heart is changed is through a relationship with Jesus, through faith in what

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He's done. So you have to consider the foundation. And if you truly know, yes, Jeff, I'm in Christ, yes, my heart is new, yes,

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I hate my sin, yes, I have eternal life, I wanna put it to death. And brothers and sisters, I wanna encourage you, don't box it, don't wrestle it, kill it.

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When an enemy walks into your home to destroy you and your family, you don't tackle them at the ankles.

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You do what's necessary to put an enemy to death. If this enemy seeks your life and your family's life and all that is good around you, then you do what is necessary to destroy the enemy.

01:00:07

And can I ask you in Christ with new affections in Jesus, have you truly been putting that to death?

01:00:18

How? Do you confess it to others? Other believers you can trust that you love that'll keep you accountable?

01:00:26

Have you been honest with it? Do you still keep a connection to it, right?

01:00:31

You still have it within reach or you still have opportunity to go? Is there a person in your life who's drawing you away from Jesus?

01:00:43

What's Jesus say? Final word here, this is it. He says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate, father, mother.

01:00:55

And then he says, naming everybody you love the most. And he says, even your own life, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

01:01:01

He says, watch, don't come. It's better that you don't. It's better that you don't pretend.

01:01:07

He says, don't come. And so when you think about the things that lead you off to the old life when you have new affections and that connection to the old life because you've been made new.

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And Paul says, put off the old man and put on Christ. Put on his graces.

01:01:30

All of his graces, Colossians three, the things that are the antithesis of those passions put on Christ and his graces.