11/8/2015 Are We Saved Sinners or Sinning Saints? - Pastor Josh Sheldon - 5th Sunday Service

When you have arrived at page 704, and Jeremiah, there he is.

Please stand for the reading of God's Word. This is the

Word of the Lord. Behold the days are coming, saith the Lord, when I will make the new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant which they broke, though I was not the husband to them, saith the

Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the

Lord. I will put my love in their minds, and right upon their hearts. I will be their

God, and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,

Know the Lord, for they all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the

Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sins I will remember no more.

Amen. Chapter 15, verse 11 -12.

Then he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father,

Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided to them his livelihood.

And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger?

I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father, but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet, and bring the fat cat here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry.

For this son was dead, and was alive again, he was lost and was found, and they began to be merry.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant, and he said to him,

Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatty cat, but he was angry and would not go in.

Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years

I have been serving you, I have never transgressed your commandment at any time, and yet you never gave me a young goat that I may make merry with my friends.

But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatty cat with him.

And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.

It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us your word.

Thank you for giving us also eyes to see and ears to hear. And God, we wish that you would just be with us this evening.

As brothers and sisters from other churches come in tonight, we can hear the preaching of the word, the preaching of your word through Pastor Josh.

Bless Pastor Josh as he preaches this word. Help him to bring to mind all that he has prepared for us this evening.

And also please bless the ears of the hearers so that they can be edified and be strengthened in Christ's life.

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you. Be seated. We in the

Reformed tradition, in general, we have a worldview more in accord with God's word than is typical in the broader, wider, what we sometimes call the gospel light, evangelical community out there.

And nowhere, I think, is this strength better displayed than in our doctrine of sin.

What we call in theology our hermeteology. Some of you have studied theology.

You know that this subject can hardly be addressed, and we can hardly discuss it without also discussing anthropology, the scriptural study of the nature of man, which has obvious connection to the study of the nature of sin.

I'm barely going to touch the idea of anthropology tonight. Tonight the subject is sin.

My question is, how do we deal with sin given how God in Christ has dealt with sin?

And I want to narrow this question down a little bit. Quite a bit, actually. I want to ask ourselves, what is our self -identity as Christians?

From what foundation, from what platform do we proceed in this lifelong battle against sin?

And I would suggest to us that one starting place for this question, one place to begin to answer this question is simply that.

How do we identify ourselves? What is this self -view that we necessarily must have, that we should have before we enter this fray, this lifelong struggle against our sin?

I want to begin with a very short review of some very well -known passages just to be sure we understand what sin is biblically.

And to call what I'm going to do here, which I think I have three verses, maybe there's four in these notes, to call it a thumbnail sketch is way too grand.

To call it scratching the surface is much more elaborate than what I'm going to actually do.

I just want to set before us some of the core passages that we know for the description of sin, its ubiquity, how prevalent it is.

Genesis 6 -5 is a good place to start. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

This is depressingly soon after the first sin in the garden. We know how dangerous sin is.

Sin is a leaven that spreads very quickly. It might seem to start small, but its effect goes far beyond what its humble beginnings would portend.

It's like the poison of the black widow. It's the most poisonous venom in North America.

And the only reason you can survive even a scratch is because so little is injected. It's just minuscule and yet has terrible effect.

And if you're at all allergic to it, it's fatal. Well, sin is like that.

The slightest amount can spread and cause great harm. It's very different from sin because the wages of sin is certainly death.

Sin is so odious to God that when he saw the evil in man's heart, that his heart was only evil continually, that that's all man thought about.

And then we have that list of things that men did in Genesis chapter 6 if you care to read that sometime. And God looks at that.

It was so horrendous to him. He was sorry for having created man in the first place.

This should make us stop and sort of catch our breath a little bit. Is it really that bad?

And the answer is yes. That's how awful it is in God's sight.

We will never, while we dwell in these tents, understand how bad it is in God's sight.

Perhaps when we see Jesus as he is, when we are in heaven with him and glorying before God, beginning that eternity of joy, maybe then we'll have a better grasp of it.

And I say maybe because then and there, there will be no more sin. There will be no more iniquity.

No more tears. But if there's ever to be a chance that we understand how awful this is to God, I think that's when it will be.

Psalm 51 .5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

Which confirms what Paul says in Romans 5 .12. Therefore, just as through one man, meaning, of course,

Adam and the first sin, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.

Sin brings death. Sin started small. Sin affects everything.

We know from Romans 8 that the entire creation groans under the weight of the iniquity that was brought into it by that first sin.

That's how prevalent it is. And as I understand that, I think what he means is all creation groans.

I think that when God remakes everything, when we have the new heaven and new earth, by and through and because of Jesus Christ and his redemption of us on the cross, when that occurs,

I think the furthest molecule is somehow redeemed, improved.

It's sin is corrected. Well, that's what sin is.

That's how prevalent sin is. That's how awful sin is to God. And like I said, far too grand to call this even a thumbnail sketch.

The point I'm trying to make, though, is not likely in this crowd to find any detractors. The point is this.

Sin. We all have it. It's inherited to us from Adam. It passes on down the line over and over through all generations.

Sin. We all have it. Sin. God hates it. Sin. Not only do we all have it, we all do it.

And sin must be dealt with. We need to deal with our sin. How do we do this?

How do we do this? Well, we know that if Jesus Christ has not dealt with our sin on the cross, then there's nothing for us to do.

I'm speaking exclusively of our part. What do we do? How do we begin this struggle?

And I don't tonight want to give you a method to go through. I didn't go through the Bible and pull out some points and I'm going to offer them to you as these spiritual disciplines and say, okay, now beginning tonight or beginning tomorrow morning, do it this way, do it that way.

Follow these methods, these disciplines, and you'll be better by Wednesday. I don't have anything like that for you.

And if you want something like that, the best work like that is John Owen's Mortification of Sin, which is a very hard read, really, but is worth every bit of the effort.

And he can tell you how. He has these wonderful descriptions of sin and how it affects us and how we mortify it, how we expiate it from ourselves.

Our part. All premised on what Jesus Christ did, of course, but our part.

When I ask how we deal with sin, from what reality do we proceed? What's our world view from which we leap off into this struggle?

Like any other question, if our answer is to be factual, if our answer is to be a reality -based answer, if it's to do us any good at all, then it has to come from one source and one source only, which is the

Scripture. It's the only place we find anything worth knowing. If it's not from the

Bible, then we risk following worldly philosophy, silly little methods that people come up with.

We risk being robbed because of empty deceit, as Paul says in Colossians.

And reality is crucially important, of course, to know what we're up against.

You know, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1942, you know what they expected? Among other miscalculations, but they expected 200 divisions of poorly trained, undisciplined, undetermined subhumans.

That's their philosophy. Instead, they ran into 400 divisions of brave soldiers who were ready to stand and get retrained and counterattack and eventually, largely because of this miscalculation, this misunderstanding of reality, praise

God, they did counterattack and the Germans eventually lost that war.

We have a great advantage over them because we have reality at our fingertips.

We don't have to guess about the strength of our enemy or his numbers or where he's deployed or anything like that because we have the

Scripture before us. And therefore, reality is right at our fingertips. The right answers before us.

And I think one of the most important things that we gain from the Bible, especially as it relates to this question about dealing with our sin, one of the most important things that we get when we read the

Bible is this realistic self -identity. Who are we? What are we in Christ?

What has God done for us? James says we must find ourselves in the Scripture and when we do, we must not close the book and forget what it says we look like.

We need to understand that it's telling us something about us. It's giving us our identity if you will.

And what is that identity? How do we describe ourselves as believers? I think this is crucially important in our engagement against our desires that are ungodly.

Against, in a word, our sin. In Reformed circles,

Jeremiah 17 9 sort of stands as a billboard, as a banner for this description of us.

Does it not? Jeremiah 17 9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Is that your reality? Are you able to start there as you look at sin and concern yourself with how do

I deal with this? How do I contest it? How do I engage in the battle? I ask this of course of Christians.

Do you open your Bible? Do you read this verse? Jeremiah 17 9, the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Do you see yourself there? Do you see you, you, the

Christian, in that verse? Well if you do,

I hope this evening to rattle your cage just a little bit, maybe a lot.

If your understanding is that that verse describes all mankind, Christian and non -Christian alike, then

Lord willing by the time we're done you'll agree with what I'm saying or at least check it out for yourself and consider it carefully.

If this is your self -description as a Christian, then I suggest you're setting out against your enemy, against sin, from a platform not based on reality.

Your striving against sin is not doomed by any means, but it is I think much weakened because the reality is that Jeremiah 17 9, and I pick on that verse because it's one of the ones that is brought forward in this question most often.

I have dear fellow pastors in the Lord, we disagree vociferously on this.

And the question we disagree on is does this describe the Christian or not? I think that if it does, if this is the identity that we have of ourselves as Christians, then

I think we're much less able to contest our sin, to go against it.

I believe that verses like Jeremiah 17 9, or Genesis 6 5, or Psalm 51 5, they simply cannot describe the current condition of the

Christian. The Bible identifies, I should say, the Bible gives us a reality that is very different from that.

Let me try to establish this just by taking apart

Jeremiah 17 9 a little bit. And like I said, I pick on this one because this one is so often cited.

So I'm going to pick on Jeremiah 17 9. The context of it, when we come to that conclusion, the context is often,

I think, missed. Jeremiah in that verse is calling

Israel to hear and trust the word of God, meaning his, meaning

Jeremiah's prophecy, as opposed to, instead of, in preference to the false prophets.

You remember in the book of Jeremiah that we had false prophets in King Zedekiah's court. And these false prophets were calling out peace, peace.

God says the Babylonians will be turned away. God says peace. God says resist. And of course that was a false word.

And Jeremiah, throughout his prophecy, is pleading with the king.

He's pleading with Judah to stop listening to them because the word of the Lord was something very different.

So Jeremiah 17 9 culminates that argument. Going up to the top, verses 1 to 6 speak of the tragedy that comes to men whose lives are built on falsehood, on non -reality.

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron with the point of a diamond. It is engraved on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of your altars.

While their children remember their altars and their wooden images by the green trees on the high hills,

O my mountain, in the field I will give as plunder your wealth, all your treasures, all your high places within all your borders, and you even yourself shall let go of your heritage which

I gave you. And I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land which you do not know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger.

Then in verse 5, alluding back to Psalm 1, all the way back to the beginning of the psalms,

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the

Lord. That's just the verse 5 there. He's speaking of the tragedy that comes to men whose lives are built on the falsehood of a word that is not

God's. But then verses 7 and 8 speak of the blessedness that comes from putting your hope, your trust, your faith, everything in God's word.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which spreads out its roots by the river.

You can hear Psalm 1 all over this, can't you? And will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and you will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

And then we come to verse 9, the one so many take as the current right now state of the heart that resides in the

Christian. But Jeremiah is here not making a blanket statement about man's spiritual state.

He's warning Judah that they are trusting the wrong word, that the word on which they are placing their hope emanates from black -hearted, desperately wicked men.

It's not a blanket, ubiquitous statement. He's saying stop trusting these deceitful men, these who, to borrow from Paul, are preaching

Christ for gain, for their own egos, for anything other than God's honor.

He's saying stop listening to them. The heart is deceitful above all things. And right there in what

Jeremiah tells them is the cursedness from the second half of Psalm 1 of trusting not in God's word, and then the blessedness of trusting, which is the first half of Psalm 1, holding out the possibility of, yes, going from the one and to the other, trusting in this word that is the right word, the holy word, the word of God.

Now Jeremiah 17 9 does, in a sense, explain why men sin, does it not?

I mean, it is a heart problem. Jesus said, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

But I ask us to consider something from a purely practical viewpoint. If that is the reality for the

Christian, if this is our identity after conversion, if Genesis 6 5 or Jeremiah 17 9 describe us now as believers in Jesus, then it seems like a couple of things also then have to be true.

Well first, it would have to be true that sin is not a habit or something that we fall into at various times.

If Jeremiah 17 is our current right now post conversion self, then

I would suggest we really have no chance against sin. We just don't, because if that is me now, then

I'm nothing but a black -hearted, sin -loving, iniquity -driven man.

The other thing I think it implies, if after God converted me, this is still me, if following the gift of faith

I remain black -hearted, desperately unknowably wicked and a sinner, if the intents of my heart are only on evil continually, if the

Spirit's regeneration left me like that, then I would ask, what did God do to me, in me, for me, or you, when

He brought me, when He brought you, to faith in Jesus Christ? Did not

Jesus say He and His Father would come to the one whose faith is in Him and gladly make their home in Him?

Paul says that the Holy Spirit dwells within us individually and corporately. I mean,

He, the Holy Spirit, this one dwelling in us, He is that new heart. Is He not?

We need to view ourselves the way God views us. We need to see ourselves the way the Scripture says

God sees us. That's reality. We're nowhere allowed,

I believe, to think that sinless perfection is possible in this life, and I'm not saying anything like that.

It's a struggle. I've used the word several times already. It's lifelong militancy and violence against our sin.

We'll never get over it. We do sin. But the more we grow into the image of Christ, the more sin we see.

That's part of the process of sanctification. The more we become like Christ, I'm speaking of the process of sanctification,

I'm speaking of growing in holiness, the more we do that, the more ghastly sin becomes, and the quicker we are to deal with it.

And I would say the more violently we deal with it. And the more finally we deal with it.

All this is true. The battle against sin is engaged upon conversion, and it's not over until the

Lord returns or calls us home. Now what must we do?

I just suggest one thing tonight. My topic is very, very narrow. I suggest one thing.

We see ourselves as God sees us. We see ourselves realistically.

We must look at ourselves biblically. It's absolutely true that without God's transforming power, we are in His sight depraved.

That's the reality of how He sees us, and He sees us that way because that is the reality. It cannot be true.

It cannot be true that after His transforming power has come upon us that we remain desperately, unknowably wicked, black -hearted, continually and only evil, depraved, iniquity - loving sinners, which is what we must be if those few verses

I read and others remain in effect after we've been converted.

If that is true, then there's a whole bunch of Scripture that I would suggest really makes no sense.

My favorite in the Old Testament is Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 26 and 27.

The prophet promises. This is one of the clearest predictions, prophecies of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we have in the entire

Old Testament. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit within you. It's just not conceivable that the new heart of flesh meets the specifications of the old heart, the

Jeremiah 17 .9 or the Genesis 6 .5 heart. Because if it does, if it did, then

I would suggest it's not really a new heart. It's taking out that black heart of stone and putting in a black heart of stone.

It's got to be a new heart. One that desires to follow

God. One that can respond to the things of God. One that wants to be like Jesus Christ.

There's this one. Titus 3, 4, and 5. But when the kindness and love of God our

Savior toward man appeared, speaking of course of Jesus Christ, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the

Holy Spirit. Could the Holy Spirit have done his work in us and left us miserable depraved sinners?

I mean, are we renewed or not? Was it a partial renewal? There's this one.

2 Corinthians 5 .17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. I think you take my point on this one without any comment.

And I could go on, I believe, but I'll just recite one more. Romans 13 .14

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.

All these base our response to God. Our ethical, moral response to God.

Our relationship to each other and the way we deal with each other. All these facets of our lives as they are molded into the image of Jesus Christ in compliance with the word of God.

The basis for it is always the same. That God, by his

Spirit, in his sovereignty, because of his goodness, his mercy, and through his power, has changed us.

He's made us want to do what is right in his eyes. He's made us able to do what is right in his eyes.

A few months ago we preached through the facets of Tulip. Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.

And I made a point in the way I said it was really to catch attention.

I said, you know, I did choose to follow Christ. It was my decision to follow

Jesus Christ and to get saved and to want to be like him. Now, what am

I trying to say there? That I had something to do with my salvation? No, not at all.

May it never be said that I think that. What I'm saying is that the

Spirit, when he regenerates your soul, when he effectually applies Christ's atonement to you, when he changes your heart, when all these gospel truths happen and you are transformed,

God has made you want to be like Jesus. God has made you want to repent.

God has made you decide so that you willingly come to him. Because he's changed your will.

He's changed everything about you. God gets all the glory.

He did all the work. God overcame our nature. But brethren, he did overcome it. Such were some of you.

And you can think of a whole series of passages where it's always, always, always in the past.

And not as often reminded us as what we are now.

Often enough to keep us humble. Often enough to remind us that we didn't do it, but God did it. Often enough to be sure he gets all the credit.

And we will not boast when we see God, but glory in our Savior Jesus Christ who did it all.

But when that old man is raised up in the Scripture, it is the old man.

I think that's of crucial importance. A depraved, black -hearted, desperately wicked, evil continually type of heart can't even want to repent.

Much less actually do it. Jesus said, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

He speaks of mourning over our sin, a movement of the spirit that's impossible except by God's transforming power.

Which is a true sign of conversion to Jesus Christ. And Paul affirms this at the same time giving

God all the glory. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.

God does the work. God makes you able to will. God makes you able to do.

And then we will. We want to do what God would have us to do. Why? Because God's working in us.

And yet now we want to. I do feel a little bit strongly about this.

As I said, I have dear friends who are pastors who disagree with me here. Especially on Jeremiah 17 9.

I obviously think they're in error. I mean to say that a

Christian, a person whose faith is in Jesus Christ, a person whose hope is in God alone for what he alone did for me in Christ alone.

I mean someone who believes with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength that in Christ God became flesh and dwelt among us and died for my sins and God raised him from the dead.

Someone who believes those things and relies on the promise of the scripture for what all that implies to me personally.

To say that such a one remains essentially in the same state they were in before I think is at best a very serious error.

It denies what the scripture says that God has done for us and in us. It leaves us a ready made, too easily made and available excuse for sin

I think. I said a few moments ago it may never be said

I'm preaching complete sanctification and holiness in this life. It's impossible. It's not going to happen.

But I think if we have the wrong view of what God has done in us, the condition of our spirit, our heart if you will, we have to look and say well which one makes sin easier to grab onto?

Which one makes sin easier to justify? That I'm desperately wicked?

My heart is black? I can't tell you how deceitful it is that's why I sinned?

Or you know where I'm going to land or God has given me a new heart.

God has given me his spirit. God has made me want to be like Jesus Christ. And then when a brother comes to you in that condition and says he has sinned you say to him by what excuse?

You don't have that same heart you had. Such were some of you. You are not a desperately wicked deceitful sin loving iniquity bathed person.

I'm not saying we don't sin. We do sin. If we don't sin 1 John 1 9 makes no sense and 1 John 1 9 makes perfect sense and we need it all the time don't we?

Because we do sin and we do have to confess. We do have to go to God and ask for forgiveness. I'm suggesting that all that, that whole process is a sign of a completely changed heart.

Now I think this view of ourselves as desperately wicked sinners while it seems to increase humility and gratitude to Christ and our sensitivity to sin and our ability to do battle against it,

I think it has totally the opposite effect. Because if I am all these things, if I'm still those things after being regenerated, if I'm still evil if with the

Holy Spirit in me I remain black hearted then I have to ask what did Christ by His Spirit do?

What was accomplished? What does Titus 3 5 mean? About the washing of regeneration by the

Holy Spirit not by works of righteousness which we have done. God did it by His Spirit.

But what does that mean if I'm left in this old state? I suggest that that other view gives an all too easy too readily available excuse for sin.

Because if God has remade your soul if He's remade your heart, given you a totally new one if God has caused you to believe

His Word and given you the resources to follow it meaning Himself residing in you we have no excuse and our repentance should be all the quicker and all the more intense and all the more consistent and all the more a common part of our life if we believe we're remade and have no excuse anymore.

I think the alternative implies that God actually failed to give us what we need to be what He desires.

I think it implies that having God Himself in our midst corporately and individually is just not enough.

So what am I arguing for? I'm arguing for us to be more vigilant against our sin.

I'm arguing for more violence against it and it to be more consistent for it to be more intense.

I'm arguing that we're not nearly horrified enough at how willingly we slip into iniquity.

And I'm arguing that we will be more successful in our battle if we have a biblical view of ourselves which is full trust and full reliance on what

God says He has done in transforming, in regenerating, in changing us.

You cannot be both cleansed from your old sins and still bathed in them.

You cannot be both desperately wicked and indwelt by God's Spirit. You cannot become what God has made you if your view of yourself is different than God's view of you.

Are you accepted by God? Are you accepted by God?

The Apostle Paul says you are. In the Beloved, in the

Beloved Jesus Christ, because you're in Him, because of the faith God gave you to believe in Him, you're accepted by God.

That's what the Bible says of us. Is that not a more radical position to leap off of to fight our sin?

Knowing that we are standing before God Almighty that because of the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross, we're able to be in God's very presence with His indwelling

Spirit with us and then to look at what we actually do.

We do sin. We need 1 John 1 -9 constantly. But when our reality is different than God's, it is we who must change.

When our self -image is different than what God says He sees us as, we need to adjust.

Ask yourself this, did Christ's sacrifice actually resolve your sins or not? Did Christ really transform you or not?

Some would say that the proof must be that we stop sinning altogether, something that's impossible as long as we remain in these tents.

That's wrong though. The proof of a new heart is seen in the repentance. The proof of the new heart is seen in a growing horror of sin and a removal of self from it.

A black wicked heart does not repent. A desperately wicked heart just cannot do it.

It can't even acknowledge sin. Why do we still sin?

I can only give the briefest answer. I was talking to a brother about this message and he was asking me some hard questions.

What does it mean to have indwelling flesh and how does Paul see the flesh?

I'll tell you the truth, I can't really answer all that. I'm not the guy with the intellectual firepower to put it all together for you.

That's not a cop out. But in a very simplistic way, for our purposes tonight,

I'll just tell you the fact of the matter, the reality of the matter, because it's scriptural, is that it's just a constant war.

That's Galatians 5 19 -22. The flesh, the remaining desires, the wrongful part that is in there is struggling against the spirit of God in us and the spirit against that, they're opposed to one another, they're going different directions.

They're at war constantly. I can't give you tonight a good dissertation on Paul's view of the flesh and how that affects us and why if we have a new heart, we do continue to sin.

In a very simple way, I'll just say the fact of the matter is we do. And the scripture says we will constantly struggle against it.

I just want to close with a thought or two. One thing that's implied here is our view of God as our

Father. What did God actually do in us? This has to do with how do we see him as not just a

Father but our Father. What sort of a Father is he? Does he hold our past against us?

Or did he in fact, I mean did he really in time and space place his wrath for our sins on Jesus?

Did he really in time and space change our heart? Jesus said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

It's the flesh, our remaining desires to satisfy the old lusts that lead us astray. It's the

God made heart that enters the fray and cries out, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you.

So let's do our warfare with the right view of God. Much less ourselves. Let's begin our view of ourselves with our view of God.

He promises the new heart. He promises to dwell within us for the sake of his son Jesus.

He promises that despite our weaknesses, despite our constant failures, despite our all too easy concessions, willingly giving into sin, with all this, we are accepted by him.

As we are found in his beloved son Jesus. And because we're found in his beloved son

Jesus. So in the movie Braveheart, to give you an illustration of the wrong side of this.

In the movie Braveheart, the English King Edward the First, also called

Longshanks. Perfectly portrayed by Patrick McGowan. He's a cruel and a vicious man and he detests his son.

His son is weak. His son is effeminate. It is his only heir. So he puts up with him. And at one scene he returns home from war in France because Scottish rebels had annihilated the

English Northern Army. And knowing he must answer for this as well as whatever steps he has taken or not taken, his son waits for him.

And he's sitting at a table in this stone castle room. And he hears the footsteps of his father's armor as he's walking up the hallway.

And he's so terrified he can barely spit. He's ready to pass out out of fear.

Too many of us think of our father like that I'm afraid. They demand, think that we're being demanded what's not been provided.

We think of fathers as those whose love is conditioned on performance and is metered out in these miserly little bits.

And we identify ourselves as sinners as black hearted, depraved, stone cold against Christ type sinners.

I wonder if we're making God our father uncomfortably like Longshanks in that movie.

There's a better view of God. There's a better view of God which is reality. And I know it's reality because it comes from the

Bible. It's the parable that was read to you earlier. The parable of the prodigal son.

The father who represents God. He's obviously the hero of the story. And he represents a heavenly father who would never answer prayer for a fish with a serpent or for bread with a stone.

He represents God our father who liberally pours out his Holy Spirit on those who ask. My final thought is simply this.

Did you notice the difference between the prodigal's two speeches? Did you see the difference between the two speeches?

The one he practiced. I will go to my father and I will say to him, Father I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

That's a prayer of confession. That's a prayer of repentance. That's a sinner's prayer that stands with the tax collector.

Have mercy on me, the sinner. But did you notice what he was able to say?

Here's what he was able to say. Father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son and no more.

That's where the father cut him off. He said to his servants, bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.

What the father would not allow him to say, what he would not allow us to say is make me like one of your hired servants.

Why not? Why did the father stop him there? His son had practiced this.

He's all ready. He's got himself worked up. He's ready. He's going to say it.

Cut off. No, you don't get to say those words because that's not who he was. The father had declared it to be something different.

This is my son. My son. Not this miserable loud who besmirched my name. Not this gentile loving profligate whose sin reaches heaven.

He said this is my son. You put a robe on him. You put sandals on his feet.

And you put a ring on him that identifies him as my son. That's our father.

That's the God whose identity of us we need to have as our identity of ourselves.

I know the example of Longshanks was very extreme. I admit that. But if I'd used the best father we know of,

Fred McMurray in Father Knows Best who was wonderful. The difference between him and God our father would be no less stark.

The question is which one is our God? Which one does the scripture say is reality?

And what does the scripture say that God has done for us? Let our struggle against sin begin with our

God given identity in Christ. Amen? Heavenly Father we do thank you for your word.

For our time together. Let us pray Lord that what has been spoken here this day as it reflects your scripture, as it reflects you

Father will have good effect with us as we're built up and edified and strive for the image of our