God’s Holiness and Goodness Various Texts

Eureka Baptist Church

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There was a Scottish pastor by the name of Robert Murray McShane Who pastored a fairly small church in the middle of the 19th century?

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He died from tuberculosis when he was only 29 years old But Christians still talk about him because he lived a life where he ran hard after God His life has inspired many including my own

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He said a quote that is ever -present on my mind and very very relevant to our sermon topic today

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He said more than anything my people so that the church he was pastoring need my holiness

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He said more than anything My people need my holiness These words ring loud for me because I too am a young pastor.

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I'm 30. He was 29. I'm 30 And it is very important that I live a holy life as your pastor and that you would follow my example

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And by God's grace many times I am the same person in private as I am in public because that's really the test of integrity

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Are you the same person in private as you are in public, but sometimes I'm not and if all of us are honest

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The time when we send most is probably in private and not so much in public And so this morning,

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I I want you to pray for my holiness And I too will pray for your holiness as well.

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And in by God's grace. I hope to be that example for you as Robert Murray McShane was for his congregation and First Timothy 4 12 is very relevant to this conversation

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Where Paul told a young pastor Timothy he said let no one despise you for your youth

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But set the believers an example in speech and conduct in love in faith in purity and So that's what

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I need and that's what all of us need in our life to live by that example as we continue our sermon series the ultimate pursuit of Knowing God we are going to look at God's holiness and goodness this morning

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There are many attributes, of course that we can that we cannot imitate we can't imitate God's omnipresence We can't be ever at once.

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We can't be all -knowing and we can't be all wise Like God is we can't we can't be omnipotent.

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We can't be all -powerful But there are some attributes where we can be like God and we can be holy

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Like God is holy and that's what this sermon is going to call you today to be holy and good as God is and our big is

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Understanding God's holiness. And goodness will be eternally helpful and change the way you live Understanding God's holiness and goodness will be eternally helpful and change the way you live

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I there's an outline in your bulletin And so you could follow along in there if you'd like and I'm going to show you three ways how?

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The understanding God's holiness and goodness will be eternally helpful and change the way you live And the first is your thoughts about God will be corrected

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Your thoughts about God will be corrected. It is very easy for us to have a wrong view of who

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God is. We often make Him smaller. We make Him so that we can understand

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Him and diminish His glory in the process. We make Him like man, oftentimes.

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When in reality, as we have seen so far in the sermon series, He is so much different from us and far bigger than we could ever imagine.

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Understanding God's holiness will correct the way we think about God. Holiness simply means a separation from sin.

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In the Old Testament, there were places set up as God's dwelling place on earth with the Israelites.

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They were designated as holy places. The first of these was the tabernacle. And some of you are familiar with this as you read through the

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Old Testament. The tabernacle was a place that God had the

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Israelites set up, and it was designated as a holy place. And it was a tent that traveled along with them.

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And the reason it was a tent and temporary is because they were not yet in the land, where it could be a permanent place.

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This place was set apart from sin in the world. Exodus 26 .33 says this, And you shall hang the veil from the clasps, and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil.

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And the veil shall separate for you the holy place from the most holy. Now, the tabernacle had two rooms here, the most holy and the holy place.

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The holy place was a place where the priest could go in. The most holy place was the place where the high priest could go in.

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Only the high priest could go in there. So God set apart not only this place, but these priests.

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And they were Levites. And Exodus 29 .44 describes this. So only the priests could go in there.

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Not any ordinary person could go in there. Because this was a holy place. Now, the most holy place was where the

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Ark of the Covenant was. The Ark of the Covenant held the original Ten Commandments. The tablets that God wrote on Mount Sinai when he gave them to Moses.

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So this place where God dwelled was holy. Psalm 24 .3

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says, The tabernacle was only temporary, as I mentioned, because they were traveling.

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It was a tent. And eventually when King Solomon came around, the temple was built permanently in Jerusalem.

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And we talked about that a little bit today in Sunday School. During the time of Israel, they had these two places that were devoted to the

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Lord. And he dwelt there, and it was holy. And the reason the place was holy is because God, who dwelt there, was holy.

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It had to be. God can only dwell in a holy place.

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He is entirely set apart from sin. He is called the Holy One in several places in Scripture.

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Isaiah chapter 6, and some of you are familiar with this passage. Isaiah chapter 6, the prophet

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Isaiah has a vision of the throne in heaven. And all of a sudden, he's at the throne in heaven, and he's surrounded by angels who are also without sin and holy.

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And then the throne of God is there. Can you imagine what he must have felt like being in this presence?

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This is what he says, Woe is me, I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I am among a people of unclean lips.

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So he says, okay, not only am I in trouble, but the people back home are in trouble too. And he said this after one of the angels says to another, okay, by the way, the angels are holy, and they're saying this about the

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Lord. They say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

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Could you imagine being in Isaiah's shoes? Isaiah is a sinner like you and me, which is why he says,

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Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips, and I am among a people of unclean lips. Now, do you think this impacted

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Isaiah the rest of his life? It would be an understatement to say that this impacted

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Isaiah. Of course it did. You know what title Isaiah gives

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God throughout his book, 66 chapters, the book of Isaiah?

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He calls him the Holy One. And it was probably because of this experience he had with the presence of God.

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Isaiah saw the Lord's holiness, and the title he had to give him was the

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Holy One. Not only does Isaiah give him this title, but also the psalmist in several places. One example is

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Psalm 71, 22, where he says, I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness,

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O my God. I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. And the psalmist also praises

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God for his holiness in Psalm 99, 9. Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the

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Lord our God is holy. So we see clearly that God is holy.

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Once again, to say that he's holy means that he is entirely set apart from sin. We have never seen anyone or anything like God in our lives, because we are surrounded by sin all the time.

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And Isaiah was too. And when he encountered God, it was unlike anything he had ever seen.

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Now when I was younger, and it's fitting that George is here today, because George was at this trip I'm about to describe, we used to go to Canada on these fishing trips.

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And now we went on these rugged trips a couple hours north of the border, and we would go to this island in the middle of this lake.

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And it would take a couple hours to get through this path that was probably 10 or 15 miles long.

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And we'd have to get out and push the van multiple times, because it would get stuck over and over again.

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And so we found this lake out there, and they found it before we were there. They found this lake that hardly anybody had used.

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Now I came from Lake Minnetonka, which is quite possibly one of the most used lakes in all of America.

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And it's also one of the most polluted lakes in all of America, because people throw their garbage and you have the gasoline from the boats.

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Now this lake we found in Canada was unlike anything I had ever seen. You could take a bath in it without feeling bad about it.

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And it was clear. You could see the sand at the bottom. And so the reason I bring up this story is because it was unlike anything we had ever seen.

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And could you imagine being in the presence of God, your whole life being surrounded by people who are polluted, and then like Isaiah, stand before the pureness and the holiness of God.

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My illustration falls far short of this. I want to confess that right now, but I'm doing my best to make this clear.

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The cleanliness of that lake was unlike anything we had ever seen. And when Isaiah stood before the presence of God, it was unlike anything he had ever seen.

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While we have not been in a position like Isaiah, where we saw the Lord in His holiness, we know what the

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Scriptures say about God, that He is holy. And we know, too, that when we are born into this world as sinners, we are not.

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And that ought to cause us to tremble a little bit, when we think about our position and we think about God's. And I'll talk about that a little bit more in our second point.

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This should greatly impact us, at the fact that God is entirely holy, and right now we are not.

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And I say not, but not yet. We will be holy. For those who belong to Jesus, they will be holy, but not yet.

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So this is the first way understanding God's holiness and goodness will be eternally helpful and change the way you live.

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Your thoughts about God will be corrected. You will think rightly about God.

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He is unlike anything we have ever seen in this world. So knowing God's holiness impacts our thinking about Him.

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And when you realize this, you will be able to do the next step, and that is striving to become like Him. Striving to become like Him.

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And this is the second way understanding God's holiness and goodness will change the way you live. Your goal will be to strive for holiness.

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This is the second point. Your goal will be to strive for holiness. As we have seen, God is set apart from sin.

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But we come into this world not set apart from sin, but as fully sinners. But God plans for His people to be holy.

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God planned the nation of Israel. By the way, have you ever thought about this? Why did God choose one nation out of all the nations in the world?

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He chose a nation that would be different from the other nations. A nation that would be set apart. A nation that would be holy.

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And God has a plan for His people to be holy. He commanded the people of Israel to be holy in Leviticus 19, 2, where He said,

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Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the

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Lord your God, am holy. And the church is given the same command in 1

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Peter 1, 16. And we are the church. This is what it says. Since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy.

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The Bible commands us to strive for holiness. It's not optional. This is something we must do.

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Did you know that we cannot be in the presence of God without holiness? Hebrews 12, 14 says,

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So without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Your relationship with God will be fractured in this life if you are living in sin as a

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Christian. You experience this in your life. If you're walking closely with God, how sweet is that fellowship you have with God.

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But if you're living in sin, there's this fracture that is there. One day, all who belong to Jesus will be without sin and will be able to dwell with God.

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The new earth, which is described in Revelation 21 and 22, is described as a holy place.

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2 Peter 3, 13 says this about the new heaven and the new earth. But according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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This is a place where there's going to be no sin, the future place that God is going to bring to this earth.

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It's going to be without sin. Once all things are made new in the future, God is finally able to dwell with mankind.

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The new heavens and the new earth will be the holy of holies, where God dwells and man is able to dwell with God because glorified humans, when the resurrection happens, and all who belong to Christ are raised from the dead, will be without sin.

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Revelation 21, 3 says this, For the first time in a long time,

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God will be able to dwell with man again. Only those who are clean can be in this place, those who are washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Jesus is the one who makes us clean. Only those who are washed by the blood of Christ will be able to enter this kingdom.

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That's what Revelation 21, 27 says. Do you believe this?

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Have you been washed by Jesus Christ? And if you haven't been, I encourage you today, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

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Are you washed? Because only those who have their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life are going to enter this place.

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And they are going to be entirely pure. God desires to dwell with his people.

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And as I mentioned, there was a time when God dwelt with mankind. In the Garden of Eden, he was there with Adam and Eve.

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And one day when humans are entirely sinless, he will be able to dwell with them again. But until then, once you become a

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Christian, God's plan is to make you holy. He doesn't take you to heaven the moment you believe in Jesus Christ.

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He leaves you here for a reason. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One of them is, he wants to make you holy. He leaves you here for that.

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In your own life, this is why God may be putting you through pain. You ever wonder, why are some things happening in my life?

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I'm facing these perplexing circumstances. You have to ask your question, why? The answer is,

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God wants to make you holy. And it doesn't come easy. He's taking you from a sinner to one who's becoming holy.

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He knows where your final destination is. In Hebrews 12, 10, and 11, tells us why you go through pain.

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He disciplines us for our good. That we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

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But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. He is leading you to heaven where you will be entirely without sin.

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John 15, 2 describes it as a pruning process. It says that you are pruned, that you would bear more fruit.

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And to be pruned, for those of you who are familiar with trimming trees, it's to be put through pain.

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And the words of Acts 14, 22 ring loud. Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

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That's what it says. There's a verse in Psalm 34. Many are the afflictions of the righteous.

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This is the normal Christian life, going through trials. It's the normal Christian life. As a

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Christian, you are on this path that leads to heaven. So you must stay away from the world, too, as you travel down this.

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As God puts you through these circumstances to sanctify you, to make you holy, there are great temptations to go after the world and to become like the world.

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And all of us feel this. You cannot tangle with the world as you travel down this road, this road of holiness that God has you on.

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2 Corinthians 6, 14 -18 says that they have no relationship with one another, holiness and the things of the world.

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It says, Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?

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Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

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What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said,

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I will make my dwelling place among them and walk among them. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, go from their midst and be separate from them, says the

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Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the

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Lord Almighty. As a Christian, you cannot have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God.

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It's either both feet in or both feet out. Which will you choose? The world is on its way to hell.

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That's what we must realize. As we watch the news, as we see all the things of the world and the designs of the devil, the world is on its way to hell.

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1 John 2 .15 -17 says, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the

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Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the

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Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires.

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But whoever does the will of God abides forever. So which camp are you in?

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You must ask yourself that question. Do not play around with the things of the world. You must be set apart.

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Once you become a Christian, Jesus calls you to be in the world but not of it. Like I said, He doesn't take us straight to heaven when you believe in Jesus.

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He leaves you here. When Jesus was praying to His Father in John 17, He says, I do not pray that you take them all into the world, but I pray that you protect them from the evil one.

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God leaves us here for a reason. And we need to recognize that. And what

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Jesus says here in John 17 -17 in this prayer that He's having with His Father, He says,

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Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Okay, the word sanctify means holy.

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So make holy your people with the word of God. Jesus is telling us here that immersing yourself in the word of God is what makes you holy.

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And I will touch on this a little bit more in a little bit about the importance of being in the word of God. The process of God making you holy, which is the fancy theological term is sanctification, is the process that takes place in the childhood of God.

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You come into the world as a sinner. Once you believe in Jesus, God begins this process of making you holy.

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And once you die or Christ returns, you will be completely holy and be able to dwell in God's presence.

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So those of you here today who belong to Jesus, you may ask, what is God's plan for my life?

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People ask that question a lot. What is God's will for my life? Well, the Bible is clear. 1 Thessalonians 4 -3 says this is the will of God, your sanctification.

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God making you holy. That answer usually disappoints people, but it should.

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God doesn't give you a roadmap to say this is exactly how your life is going to go. But he says, wherever I send you, my plan for you is to make you holy.

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And he's going to send all of us in so many different paths. But he has the same plan for every single one of us, to make us holy.

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And God is not only making you holy as an individual Christian, he is also making the global church holy, of which we are a part at Eureka Baptist.

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We have talked about what the church is many times over the past month or so, but I will say it again. The church is the people of God.

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The church is not a building. A lot of times we say, the church, we're talking about a building. The church is a people, the people of God.

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The global church is all true believers in the world, all people who have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them.

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And God is making each of these people who make up the global church holy. And the church is found visibly in local churches, just like this one.

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All over the world today, there are people meeting at these local churches, worshiping

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God, worshiping Jesus Christ. And God has a plan to make the church holy.

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And God's goal with us at Eureka Baptist is to do that very thing. And this is one reason why it is so important to build the right way at this church.

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I have been here about five months and my aim is to build the right way. My old pastor used to say, what you win them with, you win them too.

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And that quote sticks with me. We don't want to win people to programs. We don't want to win people to a great worship band or things like that.

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We want to win people to Jesus. We want people to be drawn to this church because of Jesus, not because of those things.

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Although those things can be used for good, I'm not saying we shouldn't have those things, but the primary way we want to win people is to Jesus, where we would draw them in, where they would be attracted to this place.

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This is a light on the hill they would be attracted to. And we would win them to Christ. And yes, we desire to add new people to our midst, but that is not the primary goal.

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The goal is to be healthy, a healthy church. The way the church is healthy is by being a place that is full of mature believers.

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Where we follow the model of what a church is in the New Testament. We want to be a New Testament church. We want to be a church where God looks down on us and says, you know what, they're not perfect, but they're moving in the right direction.

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And to the best of their ability, they're following what my word tells them to do. We want to be that kind of church.

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So each of us individually needs to strive together in this church to become more like Christ. You may be asking, well, how do

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I do that? What are some practical ways to become more like Christ? Well, one is, each week,

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I hope that you are listening to the word preached. And I hope and pray that God is changing you through it.

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Because all I can do is present this to you. I can present the food to you and you need to eat. I can't help you eat.

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I can't spoon feed you. You have to eat yourself. Brianne and I have had this experience with Aletheia.

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You know, it's, any of you who have children, you put the food out there and the baby has to eat. And you have to eat as well.

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And if you do, you will grow. So are you receiving the word of God and desiring to change?

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That's one way. Another way is, do you spend time in the Bible and in prayer outside of Sunday?

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If this is the only food you get during the week, you're not going to be a very mature Christian. But if you are in the

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Bible on a daily basis, you're going to see the change in your life. I've enjoyed spending time with a couple of guys in this church and I know that they're starting to spend more time in the

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Bible. And you know what? I've seen good things in their life already. And you will see that too. So I hope that you take that seriously.

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Our bodies need food every day to live and remain strong. And our souls need food every day to be strong and grow spiritually.

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Another way to grow is do you spend time with other believers and talk about the things of God? Not just trivial matters like sports, politics, the weather.

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But do you talk about God when you're with each other? Do you talk about becoming more like Him? This is another way that you can grow.

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Fellowship is so important. We need the body of Christ. You can't be a solo Christian. The pastor

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I just quoted, here's another quote from him. He said, can you swim across the Atlantic by yourself?

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You can, but it's hard. We need each other. We need to be together.

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To be on this road to Heaven where God brings us there safely. Do you attend the men's and women's breakfast and learn from the teaching there?

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That's another practical way. We started those up. And the reason I'm doing that is because I want us to grow together. First Saturday of the month we have the women's breakfast.

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Second Saturday of the month we have the men's breakfast. And I want all of you to be at those. We are in this together.

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And this is my plan to lead our church in this direction. If we go down this path together, by God's grace, we will be a church full of people who reflect

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God's holiness. And that will be a wonderful sight to see. And no matter what our size is,

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God will be pleased with what he sees here. This is the second way how that understanding

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God's holiness and goodness is eternally helpful and will change the way you live. Your goal will be to strive to become like God.

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The third way how that understanding God's holiness and goodness is eternally helpful and will change the way you live is that you will approve what he approves.

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You will approve what he approves. Now I'm transitioning here a little bit from holiness to goodness.

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The holiness of God and the goodness of God. They're not the same thing, but in a little bit

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I'm going to tie them together so you'll see why I combine them. Obviously, when you only have 12 weeks to talk about the attributes of God, you have to combine a few along the way.

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The word good is a word that is used in many ways. We use it all the time. People ask you, how are you doing?

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What do you say? Good. Or we say, he did a good job with our kitchen floor. I know Sean and John did our kitchen floor a while back.

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We say, they did a good job. We also use the word good to say, she is a good person or he did a good thing.

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So the word good is used in all these different contexts. But what is the simple definition of the word good?

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This is very easy. One author said, whatever God approves. So whatever God approves, that is good.

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This means that God is the final standard of what is good. We know that since God's character is perfect, he cannot be wrong in what he approves.

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He approves of himself and he approves of his works. Jesus as God knew this in Luke 18 -19 when he said, no one is good except God alone.

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The Psalms say in numerous places that the Lord is good. Psalm 34 -8, for example, says, taste and see that the

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Lord is good. All of God's actions are good because he is good.

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Psalm 119 -68, the psalmist says to God, you are good and do good.

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So everything that God does is worthy of approval. After God created all things in six days, what did he say?

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He says, it is very good. He approved of his creation. God is the source of everything good in the world.

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James 1 -17 says this, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the

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Father of light with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. We can take comfort in knowing that everything that God does in our life is good.

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In whatever season we are facing, he has us there for a reason and the reason that he has is good.

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Psalm 84 -11 says no good thing does he withhold from those no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

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Now, a number of years ago, and my friend Kyle is here today to witness this, I was a single who desired to be married.

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Some people are content in their singleness and that's great. I was not one of those people and I wanted

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God to bring a wife into my life. And I was 23, 24, 25 and just waiting.

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The years felt like it took about 10 years to go by and eventually when I was 26 I finally met

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Brianna and we got married about a year later. And I remember those conversations that Kyle and I used to have and he was single at the time too and we were both in that same boat of longing.

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But this verse here was very powerful for me because it says here that no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

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Which means that whatever situation he has in your life right now he's not withholding anything from you. And you might think well isn't

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God shouldn't he be giving me these things that I perceive as good for me? Well the answer is well in his timing right now those things are not good.

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And the time may come when he gives you that. And so this is comforting to think about.

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God in his infinite wisdom knows how to order our lives. He knows what is good for us.

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Romans 828 is a verse that we looked at two weeks ago when we talked about how God wisely orders the details of our life and whatever it says is and we know that for those who love

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God all things work together for good. So every detail in our life pleasant or painful

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God works for good. And this is tied to our first two points about holiness.

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God approves of what he does in our life because he is making us holy. That's his plan.

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He has this end plan of what he wants us to be and so he wisely orders the details of our lives to bring that about.

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To bring that plan about to make us holy. So every detail pleasant or painful

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God is working for our good. And so how can we know that God is working everything for our good?

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Well one is his character. God is good. We know that and we can trust him. Secondly and this is very important he did the greatest good for us in the past.

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Through Jesus Christ. And so we can always say that God is doing us good because he did good for us in the past.

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Like for example the verse here Romans 8, 32 says

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So God did good for us. He gives us all things. He did good for us in the past. If he spared his son he's not going to leave us hanging now.

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He's going to help us. He's going to do good to us now. He is fully invested in you. He gave up his son for you.

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And that's an important reminder that we need to hear. So God approves of what he does in your life and it is for your benefit.

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And when we have the big picture we can say that what he's doing is good. Sometimes in the small picture which we always have we see what is he doing?

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But we know in the big picture God has it under control. He knows what he is doing and what he is doing is good. Not only do we approve of what

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God is doing in the details of our lives we also see God's standard of good in the world every day.

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As we observe a good painting or a good deed that someone does we can say this is good.

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I approve of this. For example if a man is shopping at Walmart and he's in line and the person before him is short change.

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Let's say they're short 50 cents and they can't buy the item without the 50 cents and be on their way with the day.

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If that person gives that person 50 cents so that they can pay for the item what would we say about that?

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What that person did was good. We see this play out in the world.

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This is God's standard. Everybody can see it. This is good. Now what if that same person took something from the store and walked out without paying for it?

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What would we say about that? Would we say this is good? Absolutely not. We would say this is bad. And universally everybody would say this is not good.

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God sets the standard and we see it and approve of it. And I'll mention it a little bit here how this gets distorted a little bit but hang on with me until I get to that.

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So God who is good does good and calls us to do good. So we should do what God approves. We should do actions for the benefit of others.

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And this will come out as we grow in holiness too. We will start to do good in our lives. Luke 6 .35

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says love your enemies and do good. The world doesn't love their enemies.

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Christians are called to love their enemies. Galatians 6 .10 says so then as we have opportunity let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

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So we need to do good to both believers and unbelievers especially believers according to that verse.

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We should do good to all people. And I already mentioned the importance of being in the Bible earlier.

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We also need to be in the Bible so that we can know what God approves. This is such a major mistake that people make.

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They're not in the Bible and they make errors because they don't approve what God approves because they're not in the

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Word. This happens all the time. 2 Timothy 3 .16 and 17 says that all

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Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching reproof, correction and training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent equipped for every good work.

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We need to be in the Word of God to know what God approves and to do good. As you become a person who is in God's Word the

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Bible will be in your blood. I think in expurgence that'll be bibliine, right? It'll be in your

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DNA. And it will show in your life we must be in the Bible to know what

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God approves. Now this is an important point to make too. It is worth noting that our culture often has a wrong definition of what is good.

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I mentioned earlier the store analogy the man who helps someone and then the same guy stealing something.

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Universally everyone can see what he did was either good or evil. But when you're not in the

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Word you approve of things that God does not approve. And a great example of that in our culture today is homosexuality.

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This is a very touchy topic. The world says it's okay. It's good.

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It's good for someone to practice that in their life. The Bible clearly condemns homosexuality and says that it is not good.

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God's design is for a man and a woman to be united in the covenant of marriage and that is something that does not change.

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God does not change. His commands do not change. His design does not change. We're here this many years later.

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It does not change. Isaiah 520 says this. We see this in our world.

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Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Who put darkness for light and light for darkness. Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

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So we need to be in the Bible. Otherwise we'll go along with the culture and we'll start going in their direction.

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But if we're in the Word of God we'll be able to say no, that's not good. That's sin. And we need to be people who approve of what

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God approves. We need to follow God and not the culture because the culture is often in error.

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So that's the third way that God's holiness and goodness has a direct impact on your life is that you will have the ability to approve what is good.

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Understanding God's holiness and goodness will be eternally helpful and change the way you live. And we just looked at three ways how. Your thoughts about God will be corrected.

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Your goal will be to strive for holiness and you will approve what He approves. As humans, we are

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God's image bearers. I've talked a lot about how much different God is from us. Well, the fact that we are

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God's image bearers means that we are like Him in some ways, too. Out of all the creation, only mankind has this title of being

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God's image bearers. His plan for us is to be holy as He is holy and to do good as He is good.

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God has big plans for you to make you completely holy. Think about that. Think about the plans that He has for you.

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What you will be, you have not yet achieved, but you will be there if you go down this path of following Jesus Christ and letting the

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Holy Spirit change you little by little every day. Every day, this is

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His goal for you. So go along with His plan and day by day, you will become more like Him and you will shine.

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And may the words of Robert Murray McShane ring loud to all of us. What our families and Eureka Baptist Church needs more than anything from each of us is holiness.

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Let's live by that and become like God and reflect Him in that way. Next week, we are going to look at the attributes of God's justice and wrath.

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And I hope you come back for that. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, what an honor,

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Lord, it is to be Your people. You are so great,

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Lord, and Lord, if You never created us, You would still be infinitely happy.

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You would be fully happy. You don't need us, but You delight in entering into a relationship with us.

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And it's one of the great wonders of the world that You would enter into a relationship with us and desire to be with us and the promise of dwelling with us one day.

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What a great hope we have in Jesus. And I pray, Lord, that we would reflect

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You in these ways. It's not enough just to know that You are holy. You call us to be holy, too.

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And to be holy is a painful process. It's not easy. But along the way,

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Lord, You give us the spirit to make us more like You each day. And in the midst of the trials that come our way, there's joy.

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I think of what Paul said, sorrowful yet always rejoicing. And Jesus said, I say these things that my joy may be in You, that Your joy may be full.

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And so, Lord, even though being painful or being made holy can be painful, it's also the most joyful path possible.

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And that's what we need to remember, too. And so I thank You, Lord, for Your design. And may we at this church take this seriously and carry out this plan for each of our lives.