Know Your Enemy: Putting Sin to Death, Waging War on the Flesh | Romans 8:1-39

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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So, I wanted to open up today's message with a question, and that is, did you know that God calls every single one of us to become and be professional wrestlers and warriors?

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That might sound kind of funny and kind of weird, but it's actually, it's quite true.

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And part of the reason for this is because in this life, we should be so accustomed to wrestling, struggling, and warring against and putting to death the world, the flesh, and the devil daily, because the assault is daily on us.

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So we should become seasoned and experienced to the point of becoming professionals, seasoned professionals in dealing with these enemies on a virtual daily basis, especially, especially the flesh, this enemy that we've been focusing on these past sermons.

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And if you turn with me to Hebrews 5 .13, we'll see this come to light a little bit more clearly as well.

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In Hebrews 5 .13, which here,

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God's word says, For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, unskilled.

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For he has an infant, he has a babe, he is immature. And this is not meant to be cute or some kind of compliment.

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It is not good. It is not a good state to be in, in a state of immaturity.

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It is a rebuke from God. But solid food, however, is for those who are mature, the mature in Christ and in the faith.

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Remember Romans 7? That's what Paul is describing, or he's not describing the mature believer in the latter part of Romans 7.

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Because there is no such thing as a mature believer who is ignorant and unaccustomed to the word.

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That's by definition, not somebody who is not mature, just like this passage says. Because in Romans 7, he's barely discovering what's really going on.

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He's not a seasoned professional yet. A seasoned warrior and wrestler.

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He's not, he's just becoming aware of the war that he's engaged in, that he's in the middle of.

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And the word continues in Hebrews. Who because of, because of practice, regular constant daily practice, have their senses trained to discern both good and evil.

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Our spiritual senses, our discernment trained that this is the nature of a seasoned warrior and professional wrestler.

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Somebody who is mature in the faith knows how to discern good and evil.

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Okay, mature believers are the ones who have the discernment to identify our enemy rightly and to know how they operate in us, in our flesh, specifically, like Romans 7 says.

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They know to trust in the captain of our salvation. They don't despair, although fits of despair, attacks of despair can happen.

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But we know who the captain of our salvation is, those of us who are mature. And we know to wage war in the spirit of truth that now dwells in us.

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Of course, not with physical violence. That's not what the word says.

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In fact, the word really condemns violence, except in very specific nuanced situations.

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For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, not against physical opponents outside of our own fallen bodies, our own flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly supernatural places.

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Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, which is now, that is here and now, amen?

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We are in this last and evil day. And having done everything, having done everything, something that is placed on us with a responsibility as soldiers and warriors and wrestlers to do everything to stand firm, amen?

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This is from Ephesians 6 and verses 11 and on.

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We have a clear role to play. And God has given us and instructed us and commanded us with very specific things to do in this life as we wrestle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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And this is very important to bear in our understanding.

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Of course, the full armor of God is critical for warfare, for spiritual warfare.

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You have to have the right armament and equipment. The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, girding our loins with the belt of truth, the gospel of peace, shot on our feet.

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We all should memorize these key passages to help us to engage in spiritual warfare against our enemies because they are not, they don't let up, they don't slow down.

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They will seize whatever opportunity they can take to get a foothold into our lives.

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Like James 4, 7 says and several other passages, we are warned repeatedly against the insidiousness and the tenacity of our enemies.

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That flesh of ours in particular, because it's always with us. It's always there in our lives.

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We always have to deal with it. We literally have to live with it in this life until Christ comes back.

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Now, this is why I also named today's sermon to know your enemy and to be putting sin to death and waging war on the flesh.

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That's a parallelism as you might have suspected. Those are saying the same thing. Mortifying, putting to death, waging war is the very definition of the

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Christian life against the flesh and against sin that dwells in our flesh, just like Paul says in Romans 7 and elsewhere,

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Galatians 5 and so on. So we need to, as we start approaching the end of the, conclude the end of the series, now

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I'm shifting our focus more from knowing the enemy, because we should have a good idea of who they are by now, to now opposing the enemy, wrestling against the enemy, warring against the enemy, our enemy, especially the flesh, and how to do it effectively.

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We need to know how to do it effectively and apply these things biblically, properly, for the weapons of our warfare, in case you were doubting the fact that we are, in fact, soldiers in a war, in the middle of a war, that's what this verse says plainly.

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The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.

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They are not physical weapons, so to speak, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds, of spiritual strongholds, of the enemy, and of the flesh.

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That is what we have. God has blessed us with everything we need for life and godliness. Amen? It is these divinely powerful weapons, the sword of the spirit, the word of God, the shield of faith.

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I don't know if I forgot to mention that in the armor of God, but that's obviously a critical piece of our armament, to resist the fiery flaming darts of the wicked one.

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And that's from 2 Corinthians 10, chapter 10, verse 4. So amen, that's a powerful call to arms.

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It's like Uncle Sam saying, I want you for the US Army. God makes it very clear.

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I want you in this war, because you are in this war. And we have an obligation to fight against these enemies.

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So we left off last Lord's Day at the end of Romans 7.

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And this is where we found that the principle of discovery that runs throughout the whole passage, including in Romans 8 as we will see, this is also you can refer to as the element of surprise.

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This principle of discovery and this element of surprise that Paul is describing in that latter part of the passage in Romans 7 demonstrates that this refers to either an immature believer, a recent convert, or to a convicted sinner that is being converted and transitioning into a new believer.

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And regarding this passage, again, I wanted to bring something out that I forgot to mention last time, that this is not primarily referring to mature believers, as it should be clear by now.

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The principles, even though that's not the case, even though that's not the case, these principles that Paul is expounding in this passage are still very much relevant for all believers, mature and otherwise, because they help us to understand our enemy, the flesh, and to fight back in mortification, in putting to death our enemy, the flesh, and God's means of grace.

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Very important, and this is what I wanted to emphasize, is that one of the main reasons this is the case is because our physical bodies, are they redeemed yet?

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Or are they going to perish and die? Our bodies are still fallen, amen?

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They are still unredeemed. They have not yet been transformed and resurrected.

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So that's why much of that passage still applies to us as believers, because the flesh is still evil.

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The flesh still wants us and tempts us to sin, and tries to subject us to the mastery of the law of sin in our lives.

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So it's not like, oh, yeah, that's just for these newbies, these greenies who still don't know what's going on.

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No, this still applies to even the most believable of believers. Mature of believers. The difference, however, is that mature believers are not suddenly realizing what's going on, amen?

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We know who the enemy is. We know what's going on. We have an obligation to know the enemy and to fight back, to subdue the flesh and rejoice in our inner man, and subject our flesh to mastery under the word of God and the spirit of God.

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To not allow it to control us and regain mastery over our lives.

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That's the important thing. Regardless of our maturity level in the spirit, it does not change the realities of sin and of our flesh that we all face.

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We all still face. And we can all fall. Any one of us, regardless of our maturity level, can still fall.

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Like Paul says, let every one of you take heed. Lest he fall. Not become confident in the flesh, but to trust solely in God's spirit and means.

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Amen? So we must, the flesh most certainly affects all of us.

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And we have to be careful with how we handle this problem that we all face.

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Romans 8 will make this even clearer. As Pastor David has read, there's some amazing points of elaboration and affirmation that Paul continues to put forward and expound, including some of the fourfold states of man in this life that I mentioned earlier, last sermon from Augustine, that he teaches us those things.

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The states of the first day being able to sin, able to not sin. That was the state of the garden in Adam and Eve prior to the fall.

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Second one is not able to not sin. That's the state of unbelievers. They are not able to stop sinning.

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All they do is sin. The very plowing of the wicked is evil, like the proverb says.

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Number three is able now to not sin. That is the state of us as believers. We are now regenerated by God's spirit, empowered by His means of grace and spirit, to now die more and more into sin and live more and more unto holiness and righteousness, and therefore not sin and obey.

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Of course, this doesn't mean that we're perfect or flawlessly sinless. That's not at all the case, because once again, we are still in this body, mortal body of the flesh.

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And the last state, of course, is not able to sin, where we will be glorified because our fallen bodies will be resurrected and glorified.

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And we will be fully perfected and therefore no longer sin at all, not in thought, not in word, not in action at all.

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That's a blessing, an amazing promise to look forward to. So Romans 8, then, if you turn back with me there, let's tackle our main passage for today.

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In chapter 8, Paul begins by saying, therefore, and take note of that therefore, there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.

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Amen. Hallelujah. Praise God almighty. This is a full -blown gospel promise.

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We just went from despair in the previous verse in Romans 7 to now no condemnation whatsoever for those of us who rest in Christ.

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Verse 2, for the law of the spirit of life that operates in our mind in Christ Jesus, this is the law that dwells in our inner man, in our spirit, that regenerate part of us that has been renewed, the law of my mind that Paul describes.

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It has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

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That operates where? Continues to operate in our flesh, our members, our melos, physical members, senses, all of that.

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Amen. Amen. Now, I want to stop here to take note of a very important rule of interpretation.

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OK, whenever you read the Bible, when you see the word therefore, ask yourself the question, what is the therefore therefore?

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Right? Why is it there? Because usually, when there is a therefore, it's referring to what was described or explained before.

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So therefore, in light of what was said previously, now this. Now there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ.

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Now the therefore here is there for this reason. Because if you turn back with me to Romans 7 verse 22, we will see what prompts

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Paul to write down this therefore. Verse 22, because I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive, a slave to the law of sin, which is in my members, these physical fallen members, wretched man that I am.

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There's the cry of despair. Who will deliver me from the body of this death?

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Where do I turn for help? Who is going to help me? Who's going to save me? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Here is his conclusion now. So then, on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God.

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But on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin. So no wonder, it's no wonder you see these, how

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John Bunyan opens his book in his allegory, The Holy War, with such a strong exclamation that I've read,

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I've noted before. It's just such a powerful way of describing the situation that we find ourselves in, where he says, man's soul is the very seat of war.

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Remember, because the enemy enters our soul, the soul of man, our inner man, through our sense gates.

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There's ear gate, nose gate, feel gate. Mouth gates, all of these gates, these senses which are pathways into our soul.

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Even Christ said, the eyes is the lamp of the body. So, that is why we have to be careful not to leave them exposed, or open, or tempt ourselves to create an opportunity for sin to enter, for our enemies to enter and invade.

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We cannot leave them open and exposed. That is our flesh. Paul, however, does, the

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Lord, in other words, breathing and speaking through Paul, does not leave us to wallow in the mire of despair, in that dungeon of hopelessness and despair, because he not only proclaims thanks to God for Jesus Christ, our

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Lord, he also continues to answer and to reassure us from this cry of desperation and to develop and to further explain our hope in Romans eight.

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Let's reread verses one through three again. Therefore, in light of what was just said, there is now no condemnation whatsoever for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.

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For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, once again, that dwells in our inner man has set us free from the law of sin and of death.

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Amen, praise God. Verse three, he continues. For what the law could not do, for what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, remember the human weakness of the flesh, we were utterly hopeless, just being left to the law's demands, utterly hopeless.

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That's why Paul despairs, but God did it.

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God did what we could not do. God did what the law could not do in the flesh.

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What we could not fulfill, God did. How? By sending his own son.

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By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement of the law, the righteous demands of the law might be fulfilled and accomplished in us.

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Amen, amen. This is a continuation of what Paul said in verse 25.

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Romans seven, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is our gospel of hope and salvation.

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This is, brothers and sisters, the gospel. This is exactly what

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Paul is laying out. That is our precious hope, our only hope in this life and in the next.

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Our only hope from the condemnation of the law, the guilt of sin in Adam and in our personal wretchedness, our fallen nature, that is our hope.

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It is because God sent his own son to do what we could not do, what we utterly are incapable of doing.

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And that would lead anybody to despair if they realized what was at stake.

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That's what happens with Paul. That's why he describes it. But now we understand, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord, our savior, our deliverer, our blessed hope. He is our everything.

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He is that great restorer and repairer of our righteousness.

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That's a beautiful phrase from Calvin's Institutes. Just love that. He is the repairer, the restorer of our righteousness.

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That is Jesus to us. He is everything. He is our salvation.

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In us, Paul continues, who do not walk according to the flesh any longer, but according to the spirit of God, the

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Paraclete, the Paracleton, that spirit that Christ sends us by virtue of having chosen us and saving us.

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We now belong to him and to his spirit. For those of us who are according to the, for those,

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I'm sorry, for those who are according to the flesh, that is unbelievers, set their minds on the things of the flesh.

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They are, they only follow the desires of the flesh, the lust of the flesh, sin.

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But those of us, those who are according to the spirit, believers, that is, set their minds on the things of the spirit.

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For the mind set on the flesh is what? It is death. It is death.

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There is no hope in that. It is nothing but death and condemnation. It is law, full condemnation under the law.

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But the mind set on the spirit that believes in Christ as savior and deliverer is life and peace.

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True peace. Shulamon, Solomon, that's peace.

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Christ is our Solomon. He is our man of peace. The prince of peace.

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Amen. Because the mind set on the flesh is at enmity, at odds toward God.

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It hates God. Unbelievers hate God, make no mistake. Unbelievers despise

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God, even if they don't realize it or if they don't think they are. He who is not with me is against me,

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Christ said. Remember? It's all or nothing. You're either for him or you are against him.

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There is no neutral ground with Christ. Either you are saved or you are lost and will be trapped in the utter hopelessness of despair because you don't have

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Christ. So, and those who are in the flesh are not even able to please

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God. They are not even able to please God. However, you are not, oh,

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I'm sorry. Because for the flesh, the mind set on the flesh does not subject itself.

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It doesn't submit itself. It doesn't put itself to submission to the law of God as a slave of Christ and of God.

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For it is not even able to do so apart from the spirit and grace of God.

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And those of us who are in the flesh, I'm sorry, those who are in the flesh are not able, not able to please

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God whatsoever. Ever. Then, you know, speaking of which, there's this new thing that I believe

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Las Cruces is trying to do. They're trying to have a publicly funded abortion clinic, a $10 million abortion clinic that they're trying to build now because they're trying to provide these abortions, especially to people in Texas as well because Texas has banned abortion.

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And, you know, you see the other perversity of the Democratic Party. They supplied abortion buses to the

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Democratic National Convention. This is a marketing pitch for them.

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They want to supply death, utter death and destruction of life.

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You know, but you have this Roman Catholic organizations that are saying, hey, we need to team up.

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We need to team up and rally together and get churches to sign up and to protest and all this stuff.

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It's like, you know what? Sure, it's all well and good to protest. However, if you don't have the gospel as your mission, you don't have pro -life in you.

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Eternal life, you cannot be pro -life without the gospel of eternal life. Amen?

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Those are, that's, you are a contradiction. You are not pleasing God. If you are trying to save babies, but at the same time are providing a false gospel.

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We have to be very careful with this co -belligerence and trying to team up or partner with these organizations who in fact hate

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God. They are not submitted to Christ because they do not believe His word.

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They do not believe His gospel. Amen? So let's be careful, brothers and sisters, because the temptation is always out there to compromise.

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It is always out there. Of course, we must protest this vile wickedness of abortion, but the best abortion ministry is the local church.

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That is where abortion ministry takes place. The protesting and the evangelism, the pro -life ministry of supplying pregnancy help and helping to take people in and mothers in who are hopeless, who don't see a way out because they've been lied to and because they have sinned.

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We have to recognize that. It is sin to commit an abortion, and it should be punishable.

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It is murder. But these Roman Catholic organizations don't think it is.

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So how can you be pro -life, and yet you don't want to punish those who are killing the children, babies?

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That's a contradiction. That's why we have to know the will of God, and we have to know what is of first importance.

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This is what is of first importance. This is what Paul is expounding so clearly. 1

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Corinthians 15 as well. What is of first importance is the gospel. Even as important as resisting abortion is and resisting murder, the most fundamental way, the importance of all is the gospel.

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That is the only way we can actually oppose the culture of death, hell, and destruction.

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Everything else will be short -lived, I guarantee you. It will be short -lived.

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It won't last because only the word of God is forever. Amen? I just had to go there.

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I really just wanted to make that clear. And I do hope as a church that we find, we seek more opportunities to do this abortion ministry because it is so important.

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We are in the battleground. We are in the middle of it, literally, right next to a vile, wicked state that is trying to increase the supply of abortion.

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Okay, so brothers and sisters, let's continue here.

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Verse nine, "'However, if you aren't you, believers are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

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If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you, if it's a reality in your life and it shows a transformed life, but if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.'"

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Again, because you don't have hope. You don't have faith. You don't have the gospel. You have nothing apart from Christ.

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Doesn't matter how good you think you are. Doesn't matter how many good works you think you've done, whether it's opposing abortion or trying to fight against evil in this world.

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It doesn't matter. It is all filthy, unrighteous rags in the eyes of God because they have not been purified and cleansed by the blood of Christ.

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That's the simple reality. You are, in fact, still in your sin. And nothing that you can do can possibly get you out of that utter condemnation and despair.

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Because only by God sending His own

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Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, was He able to accomplish what the law could not do in the weakness of our flesh.

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Amen? So, remember too, the contrasting principles that Paul ties together all throughout these chapters in Romans, all throughout of the law of God and of the gospel of God, of the polar opposition and enmity and war of the flesh against the spirit, of slavery and submission to a single master to either death, sin, or Christ and the spirit, of death, of the law of death, which releases us from both the righteous demands of the law and from the bondage of the sinful passions of the flesh, which was at odds and at enmity with the law, because no slave can serve two masters.

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That is the reality. You will love the one and hate the other, period. And thereby becoming united in a new marriage, having died to the old marriage of sin, and a new master,

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Jesus Christ, because we have now died to our old man.

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Behold, the new has come. Behold, a visible change is now present in our lives, in the inner man, and it will outwardly show progressively more and more in our sanctification.

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So, we have now received new life in regeneration to serve

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God in the newness of the spirit, as opposed to the previous masters of sin, death, and the condemning power of the law.

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Amen? Now, this passage also powerfully highlights and distinguishes the law and the gospel.

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And one of the most important doctrinal distinctions of the entire

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Bible, one of the most critical that we must understand, it is the difference between salvation and damnation, between a true and a false gospel.

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Consider what that is. What am I referring to here? Think carefully with me on this.

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It is the distinction between justification and sanctification, okay?

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Justification and sanctification. And I love how the Baptist larger catechism, one of our standards here of our church, it does a fine job of explaining the doctrinal distinctions that this passage explains, that it illustrates between those two doctrines, between justification and sanctification.

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This is what it says. Although sanctification is inseparably joined with justification by virtue of our union with Christ, yet they differ, they are distinct.

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The distinction is all the difference. Listen carefully. In justification, God imputes to us, he credits to us the righteousness of Christ to us as believers.

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Whereas in sanctification, his spirit infuses believers with grace.

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He fills us with grace through his spirit and enables us to exercise therefore this grace because the gospel of grace transforms us and transitions us now from state two of utter failure to stop sinning to now state three, where we are now able to not sin and to glorify

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God in obedience. We now begin to obey God and do good works and put sin to death, to mortify it.

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Praise God, praise God. That distinction is all the difference. In justification, sin is pardoned.

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It is pardoned. It is forgiven. It is cleansed. It is propitiated.

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It is satisfied so that there is now therefore no condemnation and it is all apart from any work of the believer.

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Amen. Amen. Whereas in sanctification, on the other hand, sin is now subdued.

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It is actively subdued. It is controlled. It is mastered by spirit empowered effort, the outworking of the spirit working in the believer.

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It is just how Philippians tells us, right? It is work out your salvation with fear and trembling for who works in you.

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It is God that works in you. It is God that works in you to fulfill these things.

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It is not by our own works or our own efforts. Don't get it twisted. Amen. It is only by God's grace that we are empowered and equipped to now submit and surrender to ourselves, to Christ and glorify him in holiness.

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So, the justification now perfectly and equally, finally frees us all believers from the wrath of God so that they never again, never again, fall into condemnation.

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That's exactly what Romans says. No condemnation now whatsoever because Christ paid it all.

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He did it all. He lived it all. He satisfied it all. Whereas sanctification is not completed.

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It is not perfected in any believer in this life because it is a joint.

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It is a, we have a part to play in it. Now, it grows towards perfection in progressive sanctification.

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Okay? We have a role to play and that's why it's not instant. If it was

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God doing it, it would have been instant, instantly sanctified. But no,

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God purposed it so that we would grow and wrestle against the flesh and wait and groan and hope for our final and ultimate redemption of our bodies.

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And so, that is what Paul is going to continue to expound and reveal to us in Romans further on in Romans eight.

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That was question 70 of the Baptist larger catechism. Just an amazing, that distinction is all the difference.

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It is the difference between life and death, eternal life and death. That is why Rome is a false church.

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It has a false gospel because it doesn't make proper distinction between justification and sanctification.

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It perverts the two. It conflates the two. It confuses the two and it mixes the two.

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And any gospel that does that is a false damnable heresy.

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It is not the gospel that Jesus and Paul and the word of God proclaims. And that Paul says in Galatians, if any man preaches to you any other gospel, no matter how good it may look on the outside, no matter how much abortion ministry they do, it does not matter.

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It is let them be anathema, eternally condemned because it is only

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Christ that will save us, that can save us. So now let us continue on in Romans 10.

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But if Christ is in you, pay close attention. Though the body, remember that word, the body, the soma in the

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Greek, physical body is dead because of sin. Yet the spirit, remember how many parts man has, okay?

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Body and spirit is alive because of righteousness, okay?

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Whose righteousness? It is the gospel that is Christ's righteousness, the repairer and restorer of our righteousness because of His righteousness that's given to us instead, not our own self -righteousness, okay?

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That body of ours is dead because of sin, meaning we are no longer slaves to it.

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But wait, there's more. I'll raise you one, pun intended.

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But if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead in a physical resurrection now dwells in us, in you,

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He who raised Christ Jesus physically from the dead will in the future also give life to your mortal physical bodies through His spirit who dwells in you, amen?

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That is the gospel. This is the same contrast that Paul makes in Romans 7. Whereas Christ's physical resurrection happened, now we have that promise of a physical resurrection of our mortal bodies that are going to die.

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But we are going to receive a resurrected body that will live, and it's physical.

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Note that it's physical. It's not, it's very clear. Paul is just further clarifying.

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If you didn't even think it was clear in Romans 7, which it is, it's even clearer and inescapably obvious more so that Paul is contrasting body and spirit and one being still fallen, the other still now being redeemed.

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Okay. Verse 12, so then brothers, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.

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For if you live according to the flesh, you must die because you are satisfying the mortal body.

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But if by the spirit, you are putting to death, ongoing, actively, the practices of the body, you will live.

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You will live. So we have seen now in Romans 6 through 8, a clear, continuous contrast between spirit and body, which is primarily our physical members.

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Notice also how Paul continues to expound the law and the gospel with several gospel promises and indicatives and with the law's commands and imperatives.

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We must live by putting sin to death, by waging war against the flesh, by killing sin.

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Because if you are living according to the flesh, you will die, you must die. But if by the spirit, you are putting to death, that's the irony there.

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You must put to death the practices of the body in order to live. So even though, even though our old self, our sin was crucified and we are to consider ourselves dead now to sin, even though the old man, our body of sin and our flesh were crucified with Christ on the cross, nevertheless, our fallen mortal bodies and members can still be tempted and reawaken like a zombie and yielded to sin and will enslave us back into sin unless we continuously mortify sin in our flesh and put it to death, deny it and kill it, but only by God's means.

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It is not by our efforts or works. It is only by God's means and by the powerful grace that God's spirit infuses in us, just like Romans 8 says, just like the catechism says, and empowers us with.

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We must let not sin therefore reign in our mortal bodies.

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To make us obey, to enslave us with its passions and lusts.

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Otherwise, the flesh and sin will start, they will.

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It is guaranteed they will start coming back to life from the dead in you and will try to reconquer you, remaster you all over again.

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This is very real. This is a real danger. It's a real and present danger that we face.

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We must, and I've seen this happen. I have seen this happen in others and in myself.

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And if you all are honest, you have dealt with this as well because we still sin in this body, in this flesh.

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And we must diagnose the problem carefully, case by case. We have to be careful to identify the problem properly.

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And in many cases, sadly, where I have seen that, when

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I have seen people in church neglecting to deal with this problem, it is also the fault of the church leadership.

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Because this again, sometimes we need somebody to tell us, hey, we need somebody to snap us out of it because we're in a team, we're in a warfare.

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We are soldiers in the God's army and we need to help. Sometimes we need to look out for each other. Sometimes we're blinded by our sin and by our flesh.

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And the church also has a responsibility to look out for each other. Amen. Like Hebrews 13, three or 3 .13

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says, take care brothers, as any one of you be tempted to fall into sin, but exhort one another daily in so fear as far as it is still today to not sin, to beware of the deceitfulness of sin.

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So, you know, and I've wondered sometimes, I've even wondered in men and women who neglect this battle, it makes me wonder if they're even saved in the first place.

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Because again, the flesh is so dangerous, it will make you look, feel, think and act like you're not even saved.

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It is a dangerous enemy. We cannot neglect therefore the necessary, the necessary work of biblical confrontation and counseling and accountability.

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We must confront our sin and we must confront the sin of our fellow believers when it's appropriate to do so.

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Okay? We have to look out for each other and for ourselves. We must, it is a command.

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And speaking of coming back from the dead, I had forgotten to confess,

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I wanted to confess something in one of my previous sermons. And my son has been waiting for me to tell this story.

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So, you know, I was, sometimes I scroll through social media and, you know, sometimes you see these ads for these video games.

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And, you know, I haven't played video games in years. The Lord graciously delivered me from that bondage.

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You know, I was enslaved to my appetites and to video games when I was an unbeliever.

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And the Lord was very gracious to lift me from that slavery. It was slavery.

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I was enslaved to it. I lost sleep over it, insomnia. Still struggle with that, in fact, because of those bad sinful habits.

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Sin steals, kills, and destroys. Amen? But anyway, I started seeing these video games and they look kind of like, wow, this is kind of cool.

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So I got kind of enticed to go ahead and play it. So I download the game and I start playing.

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You know, okay, there's too much witchcraft here and witches and stuff. Okay, nah, let's not, fine.

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So I'm like, okay, whatever. I put it away. Didn't really play it for long. But then I saw another one. I saw another game that looked even better and it looked even cooler.

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So I downloaded that one and I started playing it. And boy, I got sucked right into it.

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It just sucked me right in. And man, I started losing sleep all over again and staying up.

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I stayed up late one night and I was like, oh my goodness, this is what, I just feels like I'm not, it feels like I'm back before I got saved.

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I just felt like, wow, my goodness. It just sucked me right in. And these games are just incredibly viciously tempting.

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They will enslave you. And it's ironic because it was about shooting zombies.

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And it's just, again, it's tempted my flesh to come back from the dead and to bring me back into submission.

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So this is a reality that even I myself still struggle with. And I had to catch myself and say, you know what?

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Okay, I'm done. To hell with this game, literally. I got rid of it from my phone.

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Okay, I'm done. This is a waste of time. This is an utter waste of time. And it's going to try to bring my flesh back to life.

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We have to know ourselves. We have to know our weaknesses. We have to know, we have to abstain from even the appearance of evil.

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Amen? The battle against sin in the flesh is very serious. And it is deadly if we do not wage war against it.

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So that's an illustration from my own life right there that recently happened, not too long ago.

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So that's the irony of it all. But we need to then, be very careful.

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We need to be very careful because the law of sin constantly seeks to enslave you to its own lust and to make you look like, like I said, look like, feel like, think like, act like you're not even saved.

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And now if this does happen, there may be, it may be the case that you weren't saved in the first place.

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That is a reality that we need to face. And we need to confront the people in church and professing believers who have this pattern of sin.

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They, we, hey, you need to stop this because if you, you might not, you're walking on, you're on dangerous ground here.

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You might not be saved. What are you doing? What are you doing? Snap out of it.

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Wake up. Stop enticing your flesh. Do not live according to the flesh because otherwise you will die.

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You will die. So, and of course there's always grace and hope.

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God is a God of restoration, amen. Even if you do fall into sin, it happens to us.

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It can happen to any one of us. I fell into it, but God's grace is this, what is the hymn that we sing?

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Grace that is greater, that is greater, amen, than all, any and all our sin.

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That is the power of God's grace. The infusing power of God's grace. So now, so in the spirit of Paul's letters, we must then die daily to our flesh by living a grace -infused and empowered lifestyle of professional wrestling and warring against the flesh.

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We should look like those big buff, John Cena type wrestlers in the spirit because we have had so much practice.

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And that is what Hebrews 5 says. Our powers of discernment are sharpened, bulked up, buffed up through constant practice.

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We never stop to exercise those powers. And that is what helps brings us into maturity and to fight and resist and subdue sin.

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So do not let sin rebuild what you have already overcome and destroyed in your sanctification.

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Like Genesis 4, 7 says, if you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?

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And if you do not do well, sin is lying at your door.

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Again, and its desire is for you. It's for all of you.

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Sin is personified in the Old Testament as well. It is like a lion waiting to pounce you.

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You are the prey, but the word says, you must rule over it, subdue it, master it.

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That is our responsibility. And we have everything we need for life and godliness in the word, in Christ, in God's means.

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I love how John Calvin, our friend John Calvin, very nicely, very concisely says, believers, while encompassed with mortal flesh, while still surrounded in this mortal flesh, are still sinners.

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We are still sinners because we are still encompassed in our mortal flesh. Don't ever forget that.

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Do not be so spiritually minded that you're no earthly, you become earthly worthless. And that, you know, people say that to me like, oh, don't be so spiritual.

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Don't do so many spiritual things. No, that's not what I mean. That's not biblical. We should be, the

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Bible says to set your mind on heavenly things, not on earthly things. But it's to say, don't deceive yourself into thinking that sin is not a problem for you anymore because you're saved.

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Amen? Don't delude yourselves. Continuing on then in Romans 8, 14.

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As we start wrapping up here, for as many as are being led, notice the word, the vocabulary, as are being led, being mastered by the

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Spirit of God and consequently, therefore, not by the flesh. These are exclusive.

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These are sons of God. For if you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, you have not.

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But instead you have received the spirit of adoption. As sons, by whom we cry out,

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Abba, Father, Abba, Father. And the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.

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And if children also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him fully in spirit and body, physical body as well.

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I consider, for I consider that these sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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It is something to look forward to. Amen. For the anxious longing of the entire creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of God.

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For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery and corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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That is how pernicious sin is. It curses the entire earth, all of it.

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For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

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And not only this, but also we ourselves having the firstfruits of the spirit already in Christ, even we ourselves groan within ourselves eagerly awaiting our adoption as sons, the full adoption, and here it comes, the redemption of our, what?

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Our body, our soma, our physical body that is still tainted by the flesh.

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Because our spirit, our inner man has already been redeemed. It is the body that is still primarily the problem, okay?

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So now that we have a better understanding of the flesh and its dynamic in us, we can better understand why

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Philippians 3 .20 and 21 says this, but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform, who will transform our lowly body, our vile body of humiliation to be like His glorious body by the power that enables

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Him to subject, to subject, again the language of to master all things to Himself, amen.

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That is our savior. That's again a contrast, spirit and body.

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He is going to transform our bodies of humiliation, our physical bodies into the glorified bodies that are like Christ because our inner man, our spirit already is renewed.

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It's already delighting in the law of God, but it is still tempted by the flesh to sin. Our inner man has been restored.

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It has been regenerated. That is why we are new creations in Christ. We cannot lose sight of that balance.

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That always leads into trouble when you lose sight of these important balances because they relate to how we walk out our sanctification.

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Okay, Colossians 2, 11 through 13 similarly says, where Paul parallels circumcision with the death to sin that he describes in Romans.

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In him, he says, also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

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It's a spiritual one. By putting off the body of the flesh of sin in that spiritual sense, by the circumcision of Christ himself, having been buried with him in baptism, that regenerating baptism of death, in which you were also raised with him spiritually through faith in the powerful working of God.

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It was through faith. That is why our spirit is raised to life now.

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Our inner man, who raised him from the dead, and you who were dead in your trespasses and sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. Amen.

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Man, powerful gospel and indicatives all throughout there.

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Now, let me go ahead and finish up here. Romans 8, who will separate us from the love of Christ?

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In verse 35, will afflictions or turmoil, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, just as it is written, for your sake, we are being put to death all day long.

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We were counted as sheep for the slaughter, but in all these cases, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.

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For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor any other created thing, nothing else, not even our flesh.

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Ask yourselves, is our flesh a created thing? Yes, it is. Not even that will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. Amen. Amen. There's an

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Arminian documentary that actually teaches that there is one thing that can separate us from the love of Christ, and that is ourselves.

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That is our will. It is an utter, utter hopeless denial of what

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Paul is saying. How can you be so, and this is the stuff that John Wesley teaches, okay, that Arminians have taught.

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How can you be so utterly foolish to realize what Paul is saying? He lists the entire category of things that could possibly affect us.

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And then if that wasn't clear enough, he says, nor any other created thing, nothing.

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Not the world, not the flesh, not the devil. Nothing that has been created can separate us from the love of God.

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That is God's promise to us. How utterly sad of these folks, this theology.

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It is so dangerously false. So I wanna conclude here.

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My apologies for going a little long, but I did wanna wrap this up so that we can continue on to the next,

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I really wanna continue to the next important subject. Now, some concluding points and reassurances now.

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As believers in the third state now, where we can now not sin and obey

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Christ and obey God, we fight the sinfulness of our flesh with the sanctifying light of the truth of God's word.

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Amen? It is the primary means of our sanctification, of our growth in holiness and of putting sin to death in our flesh, okay?

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We need to carefully distinguish between justification and sanctification when it comes to dealing with the flesh.

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Because, and it's just like, you know, the Church of Rome does. When Luther, he tried to flagellate himself, whip himself and starve himself half to death in order to try to make himself right with God.

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That is a confusion of justification and sanctification. Total perversion of it. Putting our flesh to death is useless when you are not saved.

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You can't do it because you need to be renewed first. Amen? You cannot put the cart before the horse.

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And because we did not contribute anything or do anything to earn our justification and our regeneration.

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It is entirely the work of God and is therefore instantaneous and perfect. It is complete by his grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, based on the word of God alone.

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And consequently, our collective body of sins have already been put to death once for all on that tree, that cross.

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In sanctification, however, we do have a role to play and a law to obey.

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That is clear. It is therefore, that's why it is gradual. It is progressive.

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Not because of our own obedience sanctifies us, but because just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, to sin in the past tense, which led to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to, present your members as slaves to righteousness.

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Which leads to sanctification. We must present our members by taking hold of the means of grace.

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Those successes, the means of grace, preaching of the word, attending fellowship, sound doctrine, all of those things we need to take hold of, okay?

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We must mortify, we must put to death, and we fight the flesh, therefore positively and negatively in our sanctification, which as the catechism says, is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man, the entire man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, negative sense, and to live unto righteousness in the positive sense, okay?

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This is why God commands us to exercise ourselves unto godliness, 1

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Timothy 4, 7. We must exercise ourselves and take hold of these means.

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And it is because God uses these means, these efforts of ours, that God performs in us, through us, these certain spiritual disciplines and weaponry, these weapons of our warfare as secondary means of our sanctification, because they are means by which we receive and apply

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God's word, which is the primary means of how we are sanctified. But we must receive it this way.

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We must read it. We must live it. We must believe it.

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We must grow in it and study it. We must take hold of the six S's, those spiritual disciplines that I've described before many times.

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Number one, scripture, reading, memorizing, studying, preaching the word. Two, sound doctrine, right?

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Three, sacraments, baptism, the Lord's Supper. Four, self -awareness and self -denial. Fasting included.

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Five, sage counsel, wise counsel. Six, spiritual warfare, including prayer and intercessory prayer.

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And I will leave you with this thought as a spiritual sneak peek for our next

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Lord's Day, okay? Next week, I want us to focus on this number four, that spiritual discipline of self -awareness and self -denial and fasting specifically.

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Very important to deal with these things. And you know, this is the reality, okay?

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This is the punchline. Like in Aesop's fable, what's the moral of the story? The moral of the story, one of the main ones, is you must know your own weaknesses, your particular weaknesses, especially.

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We all have them. And deal with them accordingly and biblically, amen? Let us close with a word of prayer and approach the throne of God's grace boldly.

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Almighty Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for this beautiful day of worship and a fellowship to receive your means of grace,

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Father. We are so thankful for the power of your spirit operating, working through your word, through these amazing means,

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Father. We ask that you help us, Father, that you equip us, that you infuse, that you would continue to infuse us and infill us with your grace and spirit,

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Father, putting, allowing us and enabling us to constantly put sin to death and to wage war on the flesh,

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Father God. We thank you, Lord, for all of the, everything that you've provided for us,

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Lord. You have given us everything, but yet at the same time, you have also given us the grace and the power to now walk these things out and to glorify you and to put sin to death and to live righteously,

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Lord. Help us, Father, to take hold of these means, to understand them rightly, Lord, and to seek your will, to make our calling and election sure,

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Father. We thank you and we ask those, we pray for those who could not be with us, Lord, and for those who should be with us,

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Father. We ask that you would encourage them, that you would draw an eye to them in their time of need,

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Father, help us to bear each other's burdens and to help each other, to be, like your word says, how can two walk together except they be agreed?

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It is so much more effective to have us as a church to look out for each other.

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When one falls, the other can pick, the other one can pick him up. Let us be that kind of church,

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Lord, where we help each other and pick ourselves up and each other up from the struggles and the battles that we face,

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Lord, even though we may fall and sin, Lord. We know we have a real hope, an undying hope in our resurrected

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Savior who has given us everything. He has given us his life. Father, we thank you so much for that, that you, having given us your own son, how will you not freely give us all things, all other things,

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Lord? Help us to remember that and to embrace that, to believe that fully and to apply it,

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Father. We ask all of these things in your gracious, almighty Son's name, amen.

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Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the Bible alone and the

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Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

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