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Here, we're transitioning from the blessed doctrine of justification by grace through faith in which the believing sinner is pardoned of his sin and regarded as righteous by God.
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Righteousness is a gift. Transitioning to the matter of the believer's sanctification.
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And in Romans 7, it describes the Christian, but the difficulty and struggle the
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Christian has with living according to the will of God, the law of God. In fact,
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Paul, the Christian, describes himself as really, it's an impossibility. And so he's really laying the groundwork for Romans 8 in which we see that it is possible to live the
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Christian life only through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. But Romans 7 really sets the stage for the need of the
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Holy Spirit. Romans 7. Romans chapter 7.
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Or do you not know, brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives for a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives.
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But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive.
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But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.
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Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
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For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear the fruit for death.
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But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
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What then shall we say that the law is sin by no means, yet if it had not been for the law,
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I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet.
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But sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness for apart from the law, sin lies dead.
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I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
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The very commandment that promised life proved death to me for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
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So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good to that which is good, then bring death to me by no means.
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It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
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For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what
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I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I want now, if I do what
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I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
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For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what
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I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when
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I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, for I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our
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Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh
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I serve the law of sin. Let's pray. Our Father, as we read this passage, this is such an apt description of every one of us here.
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Lord, many times we want to do the right thing, but sin, indwelling sin is lying so close and it is fighting against the spirit and the spirit is fighting against the flesh.
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And Lord, this is the struggle that we have in our lives. But thanks be to the
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Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to the incarnation, thanks be to the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we have no condemnation because of Christ Jesus.
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So, Lord, I pray that we would remember these things, that we would remember our position in Christ, we would remember who we are in Christ, what
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Christ has accomplished on our behalf. And I pray, Lord, that we would exalt in these things.
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So, Lord, as we open up the word and we continue our our worship through the preaching of the word, help us,
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Lord, to clear our minds of all distractions and help us to be encouraged, help us to be admonished, help us to be rebuked if necessary.
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We pray, Lord, that we would fall under the authority of your sufficient word and that we would live to the praise of your glorious grace through the power of the spirit.
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Thank you, Lord. In Jesus name. Amen. Well, let's turn again into John 13.
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And we'll give further attention to the first 17 verses.
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The episode is a little longer than most we've dealt with. This, of course, is the account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
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And last Lord's Day, as we considered this passage, we focused on Jesus setting an example for us to be humble before one another and to be willing to serve the brethren on behalf of our
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Lord. Now, this lesson is set before us, of course, through Jesus humbling himself.
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And it's within the context of knowing he was soon to be with his father. He was soon to be glorified.
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Nevertheless, he took off his garments that hindered him. And he got on his knees and washed the feet of his disciples.
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He humbled himself in order to give an example to you and me that we are to humble ourselves and to serve one another.
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Now, this is one, however, of two major teachings of this passage.
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And so we dealt with the first last Lord's Day and we want to deal with the second today, the second major lesson.
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And this second lesson is shown forth through Peter's protest to Jesus that Jesus not wash his feet.
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And the response of Jesus reveals the teaching of our passage of the ongoing need for Christians to be cleansed of sin by Jesus Christ.
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The first lesson was that we should be humble and serve one another. The second lesson is that we also are in need of being cleansed of our sin.
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And as disciples washing one another's feet, we are to be in the business of helping each other to overcome sin, to be cleansed of sin in our lives.
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And so accompanied, this is the responsibility of the Christian to assist in cleansing the Christian brethren of their sins.
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In other words, the importance of the believer's sanctification is set before us, as well as the believer's responsibility that is upon each of us as Christians to serve others, helping them in this sanctification process.
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This is what's being illustrated and set forth. And so we'll consider this emphasis today in the study of our passage.
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And as we stated last Lord's Day, we can break down this passage through this five division outline.
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John's introduction to this portion of his gospel, verse one, we considered last week,
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Jesus began to wash the feet of the disciples, verses two through five, which we considered last week.
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And then beginning today, Peter's reaction to Jesus's action and then
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Jesus's response to Peter's protest. And then lastly, Jesus's resultant instructions to his disciples.
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And so let's read the passage once again, giving special attention, however, as we do to Peter's reaction to Jesus and the response of Jesus to his disciple,
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Peter, John 13. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when
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Jesus knew that his hour had come and that he should depart from this world to the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
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And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,
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Jesus, knowing that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, took a towel and girded himself.
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And after that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.
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And then he came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet?
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Jesus answered and said to him, what I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will know after this.
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Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me.
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Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but he is completely clean and you are clean, but not all of you.
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For he knew who would betray him and therefore he said, you are not all clean.
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So when he had washed their feet, taken his garment, sat down again, he said to them, do you know what
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I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord and you say, well, for so I am.
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If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash another one another's feet.
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For I've given you an example. That you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly,
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I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.
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If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. And so in verses six through nine, we read of Peter's reaction to Jesus's action.
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Jesus rose from supper. He laid aside the garments. Jesus then proceeded to serve the disciples by washing their feet.
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This was service rendered to them. He, of course, served all the disciples present, even washing the feet of Judas Iscariot, who was about to betray him.
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We don't know in what order our Lord served the disciples in this manner, but when he approached
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Peter, Peter protested. He said to Jesus, Lord, are you washing my feet or perhaps never will
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I allow you to wash my feet? And our Lord's explanation should have been sufficient for Peter, of course, his protest.
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But he said to Jesus, Lord, are you washing my feet? And Jesus said, what I'm doing you did not understand now, but you will know after this.
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But Peter perhaps moved by a sense of humility before his Lord continued to protest, declaring forthrightly, you shall never wash my feet.
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And Jesus replied, if I do not wash you, you have no part in me. Jesus made it clear to Peter that it was necessary for Jesus to wash his feet.
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Otherwise, he would not be regarded as one of his disciples. You've got no part with me unless I wash your feet.
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Well, of course, this put the fear of God into Peter, and so he responded by with a sense of not only acquiescence yielding to Jesus as well, but with an express willingness to have not just his feet, but his entire body washed by Jesus.
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Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
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But then the Lord Jesus responded to Peter. Jesus' response to Peter's protest in verses 10 and 11.
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Jesus said to him, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean.
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And you are clean, but not all of you, for he knew who would betray him.
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Therefore, he said, you are not all clean. Here we see that this action of our
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Lord Jesus in washing the feet of his disciples was a metaphor. A metaphor of Jesus sanctifying his disciples, cleansing them of their sins.
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When Jesus said to his disciples, you are clean, he was declaring that his disciples had been recipients of God's grace, having brought them into a state of salvation.
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They were saved. They were clean. It's as though they were completely bathed. When Jesus said, but not all of you, he was, of course, referring to Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve.
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Who did not have salvation. Judas had not been cleansed of his sins, as the others had been.
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When Jesus said to Peter, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean, he was saying that his disciples are in need of him to cleanse them of their sins.
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That they continue to commit, even though they're his disciples. Even though they had been formally, fully bathed or wholly cleansed, they were in need of having sins cleansed, as an ongoing act of Jesus Christ.
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Now, it's very important that we understand precisely what the metaphor of Jesus teaches us, and what it is to be washed or bathed within this context.
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If asked what it means, we might respond by saying, well, to be washed or bathed indicates that God has forgiven the believer of his sins.
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And although that's a true statement, of course, it is not what the metaphor is referring to here in this context.
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We commonly think in terms of forgiveness of sins, as having been washed clean by the blood of Jesus.
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And if we had time, we would talk about one particular verse in Revelation 1, that is mistakenly used to supply this idea, that to be forgiven of your sins is to be washed in the blood of Jesus.
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The verse actually, originally was to be released by the blood of the
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Lord Jesus. But the metaphor of being washed by Jesus conveys something more, or something else other than the forgiveness of sins.
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It speaks of God, through Jesus Christ, having enabled one to cease to sin, in that which he had formerly lived.
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For one to be cleansed of sin is to no longer be living in that sin. It's not talking about forgiveness, it's talking about a transformed life.
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It's talking about you're no longer living the way you formerly did in sin, defiling yourself, but now you're wholly clean.
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You've been cleansed from those former sins. Now, we may see that this metaphor is conveyed in other passages of Scripture, and particularly we can read it in the epistle of 1
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Corinthians. The members of this church were being rebuked by Paul, because there were
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Christians suing other Christians, and taking the matters before non -Christian judges within the community.
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And he rebuked them for doing such. And so we read in 1
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Corinthians 6 verse 7 through 11, Now therefore it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another.
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Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat.
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You do these things to your brethren. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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In other words, the unrighteous will not have salvation. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God.
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And then Paul said this of these Christian members of the church at Corinth, Such were some of you, but you were washed.
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Here we see being washed is not being forgiven, but they were no longer living like they formerly lived.
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They were no longer thieves and covetous, fornicators, homosexuals, or sodomites.
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They were no longer drunkards or revilers, because God had washed them from those sins.
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And so they were now clean. Paul said, Such were some of you.
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What had changed them? They were washed. They were sanctified. They were justified. They were delivered from their former lives characterized by sin, having been set apart by God's word, having been justified, that is, forgiven of their sins, and declared to be righteous, given the gift of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.
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But they had, in addition to being forgiven of their sins, they had been washed, that is, delivered from their former sinful ways, living as ones now cleansed before the
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Lord. And so to be washed or cleansed is not a metaphor that speaks directly of the forgiveness of sins, but being washed is a metaphor speaking of deliverance from sinning.
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It's critically important to understand. Here are the words of Thomas Boston, a preacher back in the 17th century into the 18th.
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He wrote about 80 pages on one verse here in John chapter 13,
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I think verse 8. And he wrote this, The next thing to be spoken to is the sinners being washed by Christ.
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This is inseparable from his having part with Christ, in other words, what it is to be a
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Christian, and is the privilege of all and only those who have part in him.
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Concerning this washing, I offer these particulars. First, there is a filthiness in sin, whereby the soul is polluted and defiled before the
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Lord. This is supposed in the washing from it, Ezekiel 36, 25.
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And then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. From all your filthiness, from all your idols,
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I will cleanse you. Sin does not only make the sinner guilty, there's the need for justification, the need for forgiveness, but filthy and abominable, that's the need for cleansing.
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It is the abominable thing that God hates, filth itself. This filthiness of sin lies in its contrariety to the holiness of God expressed in his law.
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Holiness is the glory of God and the beauty of the soul, sin the deformity and filthiness of it.
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As washing is properly the purging away of filthiness, spots and stains from the object washed, so the washing from sin is formally and directly the satisfaction of the sinner.
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And so if Christ sanctifies us not, we have no part in him.
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How be it it supposes or implies more than that wherein it formally consists.
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And so when Jesus said to his disciples, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean, and you are clean, but not all of you, he was not speaking directly to their justification, that is the forgiveness of their sins and becoming right with God through faith in Christ.
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Rather Jesus was speaking of them of having been initially sanctified when they were converted, having been washed from the filthiness of their sin.
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Judas had not been washed or sanctified. We read elsewhere that he was a thief.
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He was also covetous and was complicit in the murder of Jesus. But the other disciples had been washed or bathed entirely.
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They were completely clean. They were no longer characterized by the sins they had practiced before becoming true disciples of Jesus Christ.
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Judas had not undergone that change. He was still filthy in his sins and in need of washing.
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And so what Jesus was describing was a true and lasting change that takes place when someone is converted, when one comes to faith in him.
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The doctrine of justification, which is essential and foundational to our salvation, does not directly affect the internal change of the sinner who has come to believe the gospel.
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Justification doesn't address a change of view from a sinner into a practicing
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Christian. Justification is outside of us. Justification has to do with our standing before God, not directly with our life lived out before God.
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When the believing sinner is justified through faith, God declares that believer to be no longer guilty before him under his wrath, rather the sinner's faith in Jesus Christ.
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Through that, God forgives the believer of his guilt of sin and begins then and thereafter to regard and treat the believer as if he were righteous before him.
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But our justification says nothing about an inward change that takes place within our heart and lives.
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Justification is wholly outside of us. It is a legal declaration of God as the judge declaring the guilty one to be righteous.
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The inward change of the sinner into a saint, a holy man or woman, takes place through the grace of sanctification, not the grace of justification.
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And washing is the biblical metaphor for God's work of sanctification in the lives of his people.
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Important distinction. It has implications, great implications.
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Titus 3, 3 -7 speaks about this change of the person through the power of the
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Holy Spirit, and it's described as a cleansing, as a washing. For we ourselves, Paul includes himself, were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.
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But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration.
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There's the cleansing. And the renewing of the Holy Spirit. He made us new in Christ, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our
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Savior, that having been justified, there you have forgiveness, by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
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And so here Paul wrote that salvation is experienced through an initial act of God and sanctification, which is the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the
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Holy Spirit. He also wrote of the believer having been justified, which is different from washing, although it also and always accompanies the
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Holy Spirit washing the center of his sin. Justification and sanctification can never be separated from one another, but they should always be distinguished from one another.
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How do these two great works of God's grace and salvation compare with one another? Well, first, justification is an act of God about the standing of a man or woman before God.
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But sanctification is the work of God concerning the nature of a sinner, the nature of a man or woman.
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It's been said in this way, justification is an act of God as a judge about a delinquent absolving him from a sentence of death.
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But sanctification is the act of God about us as a physician in curing us of a mortal disease.
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It's been pointed out that David joins them both together in Psalm 103, verse 3. God who forgives all our iniquities, that's justification, and who heals all our diseases, that's sanctification.
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The two go together, but they must be distinguished from one another. Secondly, justification and sanctification differ from one another in that justification is an act of God's grace on account of the righteousness of another,
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Jesus Christ. But sanctification is a work of God in which he infuses righteousness into us.
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The first, justification, speaks of imputation. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, counted as if it were ours.
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God imputes or reckons the righteousness of Christ to be that of the believing sinner. That is
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God's work for us. The second, however, sanctification, speaks of infusion in which
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God works in us to make us holy. Thirdly, justification and sanctification differ from one another in that our justification is complete, and this is very important, or perfect, but our sanctification is incomplete.
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Justification occurred when the sinner first truly believed on Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
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Justification is complete. The newest believer among us is as justified before God as the one who among us has believed the longest.
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They're the same, the same standing. They're both equally justified. There's not a degree in our justification.
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You're either justified or you're not. Our justification cannot be increased.
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It cannot be diminished. It cannot be interrupted. It cannot cease to be.
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But sanctification is an imperfect, incomplete, changeable thing in every believer.
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Yes, every believer was initially sanctified in his conversion. That is what Jesus meant when he declared that all of his disciples were clean.
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But there are varied degrees of sanctification from believer to believer. One believer is more or less sanctified than another.
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Sanctification is many degrees between persons and even in the same person. A true believer may not become more justified than he is presently, but he can become much more sanctified than he is presently.
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A saint who has died and gone to be with the Lord is no more justified there in heaven than he is right now.
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We're justified in the same way to the same degree. But then when we get to heaven, the believer will be completely sanctified far above the condition in which he now finds himself.
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Fourthly, justification and sanctification differ from one another in that our justification involves no work of our own.
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It's based solely upon the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. But our sanctification involves very much our work as God has commanded through Paul.
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Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation, your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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And yet we know and confess that this work we do is in no way meritorious and in no way contributes to our justification.
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I spoke with a man yesterday on the telephone. You know, Pastor, I love the
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Lord. I'm in his word. And this guy reads. This guy's in the word. And I'll tell you who it was.
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It was Leo up in the prison when he called me. And he says, Pastor, you know, and he's reading some deep stuff.
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I mean, he hears me recommend a book on the radio. Somehow he gets a hand on it and reads it.
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He's incredibly informed as he's there in prison. But he confessed to me.
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He says, I've got sin that just rages within me and it's very troubling to me. What's the surprise?
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You know, this is common. In fact, the more you become sanctified, the more keenly you become aware of that sin that's within you.
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And the longer you're a Christian and the more sanctified you become, you become more aware of the glory and the holiness of Jesus Christ and more aware of just how faulty and frail we are.
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And so, you know, I was able to express a word of encouragement to him. Welcome to the
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Christian life. You know, that's what we all experience to various degrees.
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But the work we do as we make our effort to be sanctified, of course, is not meritorious.
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Our sanctification involves our believing, trusting, resting in Jesus Christ as we go forth with all of our effort, but not trusting in our own strength,
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Romans 7, but rather in King Jesus to give us the Holy Spirit, Romans 8.
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Otherwise, we'll fall on our face. We rest in Jesus Christ for our justification, but we work with all our might toward our full sanctification.
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And so the Scriptures liken sanctification to striving, fighting, running, sowing, seeking, journeying, enduring, overcoming, and even exerting violence in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.
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And there's no salvation for the believer unless you trust Jesus Christ alone for your justification.
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But on the other hand, there's no salvation if you refuse or fail to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, because although justification and sanctification are distinct, they can never be severed from one another.
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They go hand in hand in every believer. Now, I would argue that this matter, this metaphor of being clean, as used here to speak of sanctification, betrays a great problem in evangelicalism in its understanding of salvation and the content of the gospel.
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Salvation is commonly reduced only to the promise that God forgives guilty sinners of their sins.
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The gospel being proclaimed is a message that guilty sinners may have their sins forgiven them, at which time they are given the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
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But only the forgiveness of sins is being promised and declared. People who claim to trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins are promised they have salvation irrespective of whether or not they continue to practice their sin.
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And the result is that many claim to be justified before God who've never experienced the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the
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Holy Spirit. But again, if one is not washed from his sin, he's not forgiven of his sin, because the two go together.
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John wrote in 1 John 3, 7, Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness, that's sanctification, is righteous.
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That's justification. You're not justified simply because you understand the doctrine of justification,
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I believe, on Jesus through faith alone. You can know you're justified by experiencing knowing that the grace of God has been sanctifying your life.
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He's washed you. You're no longer what you once were. You no longer desire what you once desired.
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You no longer live like you once lived. The evidence of sanctification is evidence that you are justified freely and fully by the grace of God through faith alone in Jesus Christ.
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And so the way that you may know you're justified is if you're being sanctified by God. And so the question you need to answer is there a work of God's grace in my life, in your life, making you more like the
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Savior? If not, it could be said of you as it was to Judas.
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All of you are clean except one. If you haven't experienced a measure of transformation, you're no longer living as you formerly lived, but now you're living as a
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Christian. There's something very deficient about your Christianity. You can understand the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone.
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You can believe that you're trusting Jesus Christ alone for salvation. But if you're living a life in sin with no concern or compulsion to quit sin, if you haven't been cleansed by the grace of God, you haven't been justified by the grace of God because they go hand in hand.
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Extremely important. However, because of this defective and deficient gospel being proclaimed, salvation is the forgiveness of sins only.
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Sadly, there are Christians, so -called, in evangelical churches everywhere who are still in their sins, yet they think they have
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Jesus Christ as their Savior. And so it says Proverbs declares, there are those who are clean in their own eyes, but they're not washed from their filth.
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That was probably Judas. Salvation is more than forgiveness of sins, although certainly it includes that blessing, thank the
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Lord. When the Lord bestows salvation, He washes the sinner of his sin.
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He no longer lives in sin. He's been cleansed from his sin. God has caused him to be bathed or to be washed.
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He's now clean. He no longer lives as a filthy sinner any longer, for he's been washed.
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He now lives in newness of life, washed clean by and before the Lord. And so when we proclaim the need and the offer of salvation to the lost, we need to speak of God forgiving them of their sins, certainly.
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But we also must proclaim in that offer of salvation that God will cleanse them from their sin.
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God will enable them to cease sinning against Him and to begin to live a holy life before Him.
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And we should never offer the forgiveness of sins separated from the offer of deliverance from sinning. There's no promise of God of salvation to the ones who continue in sin.
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Jesus said of Judas that he was not clean. In other words, he was still in his sin.
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And so it is with everyone who's not been cleansed from sin. And so in consideration of this matter, a concern might arise as you're reflecting upon yourself.
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Well then, how do I know I've been cleansed from sin? If I can understand justification and believe myself justified by grace through faith alone and yet I need to be cleansed.
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How do I know I'm cleansed from sin? And Thomas Boston wonderfully addressed this question.
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How may I know that I'm washed by Christ? And then he gave certain, a couple of evidences.
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First, if you're washed by Christ, though you're not washed perfectly, none of us are, we all sin.
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We all have our feet dirty, knees washed. That's the whole point of John 13. Okay, but we're washed universally.
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In other words, you're not now an honest person and a person of integrity and you're no longer a liar and adulterer, but you're a drunkard.
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You haven't been cleansed universally, have you? That's what he's talking about. Washed in every part, though not perfectly clean in any part.
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Second Corinthians 517, if a man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away.
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Behold, all things have become new. You're washed from the gross pollutions of the outward man from the raining pollutions of the inner man.
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Psalm 24, who may ascend to the hill of the Lord, who may stand in his holy place, he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully.
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There is a new set in you for purity, that is a new desire, purpose, darting to all the points of the
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Christian compass, though you fall short of degrees in every part of that compass. So you're not perfect by any means.
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The compass you find, 1 John 3, 3, every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.
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Secondly, how do you know that you've been cleansed, washed? You lay the stress of your acceptance with God not upon your inherent cleanness, the effect of your washing, but rather on the blood of Christ, the cause of it.
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Philippians 3, 3, for we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Jesus Christ and have no confidence in the flesh.
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Paul is arguing, he's writing to Gentile Christians, we're the true Israel, we're the true circumcised people who don't put confidence in our merit, in our flesh, but our confidence is in Jesus Christ.
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And then thirdly, what's another evidence that you've been cleansed? Your hearts are loosed from sin though it cleaves to you.
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It lies not like mud in a pool where there's nothing to wear or wash it out, but like mud in a spring where the spring water tends to work it out, wash it out.
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And so you will be groaning under the remains of your uncleanness saying with the apostle, O wretched man that I am, who should deliver me from this body of death?
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You'll be content to see every spot that it may be washed off and really desires to made perfectly clean as was the apostle.
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I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are before,
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I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ. And so if you've been cleansed, you're not like you once were, you're probably not like you want to be, but you're not the same as you once were either.
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You have different desires and delights and you love holiness and that's what you desire for yourself because God had put that in your heart, didn't he, when he gave you a new spirit, a new heart.
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And so the doctrine of this passage, John 13, is set forth by our Lord. It could be stated in this way and it was by Thomas Boston, such an inseparable connection there is between a sinner's having part with Christ and being washed from his sins by Christ, that if a sinner is not washed from his sins by Christ, he has no part with Christ while he is so.
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Or another statement from Thomas Manton, similar time, that without the washing of the soul from sin, men have no communion with God in Christ nor interest in him.
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In other words, as Jesus said, if I wash you not, you have no part in me.
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And so this washing of the soul of sin is the result of repentance. Just as justification and sanctification go together, forgiveness and deliverance go together, so faith and repentance go together.
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Biblical repentance, which is turning from sin unto God, is a work of God's grace in the soul of the one that God is converting from sin unto salvation.
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And so repentance. Now we've been talking about how Jesus washes the individual and now we're going to talk about the manward side.
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It's through repentance that we're washed. It's through repentance that the
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Lord Jesus himself washes us. And so as a manifestation of true faith, repentance is necessary in order to receive salvation.
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Not all faith is saving faith. Only that faith that shone in repentance from sin and turning to God in obedience to Jesus Christ the
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Lord is saving faith. This is so is very clear from the
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Holy Scriptures. John the Baptist declared, Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance.
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Do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as your father. It doesn't matter who your daddy is.
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Individual responsibility and accountability, it matters how you live. Not how your dad or mom lived.
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How you live is what he's pressing. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
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And even now the acts, the acts of God's judgment is laid to the root of the trees.
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Therefore every tree, every individual which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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Unless a man repents of sin, turning to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, he'll not inherit salvation.
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But God will consign him to everlasting punishment. Now it's important for us to understand the nature of repentance and how it's associated with saving faith.
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Sometimes in Scripture the command to repent is given in order to be saved. Repent in order to be saved.
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In other cases, the sinner is called upon to believe the gospel so as to be saved. The Philippian jailer, what must
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I be to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. And then there are also places in which both the command to repent and to believe are both declared as we read say in Mark 1 15.
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Saving faith and repenting of sin go hand in hand. They occur at the same time.
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We might say that to repent of sin and turning to the Lord is saving faith in Jesus in action.
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That's what we do. They occur at the same time. When someone truly believes the gospel of Jesus Christ, he does so by turning from sin and submitting unto
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Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. And so repentance goes with saving faith.
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Two sides of a coin, faith and repentance, but they go together. What is true biblical repentance?
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Well, here we are in Roman Catholic New England. We have to underscore this repeatedly. Repentance is not penance.
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It's unfortunate that they sound similar in English. We assert very strongly biblical repentance should not be understood as doing penance.
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We had a, he's a friend of mine. I got to know him through the funeral home for years. He now heads up another cemetery not far from here.
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But he is a very, very good moral man, a very devout Roman Catholic. And he was lamenting the ills of society as we were driving in a hearse up to the cemetery for graveside service.
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And he said to me, boy, there's great need today. And he was lamenting, great need today as there needs to be a renewal of penance.
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I'm sorry, that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches repentance, not penance. And, you know, the rest of the drive
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I was able to explain to him the difference. And, you know, at least it got him to thinking.
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And he received it well from me. Repentance is not penance. Those who prescribe penance teach that penance is something a person must do in order to appease
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God. Go out and say, you know, three dozen Hail Marys, and you're going to appease God with regard to your sin.
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Penance is viewed as making satisfaction to God for one's own sin through things that you do or say.
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They make penance a sacrifice that satisfies God with respect to sin. And yet the
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Bible says the only sacrifice God accepts for sin is the sacrifice of His Son upon the cross.
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The belief and practice of penance is foreign to the Gospel. It denies the full satisfaction that Jesus Christ provided God when
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He died on the cross for the sins of His people. Jesus called out from His cross, it is finished.
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Those who practice and promote penance say it's not finished. But you have to do something more in order to satisfy
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God's justice with respect to your sin. They say that penance means, quote, it means a more complete payment of the debt which the sinner owes to God.
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The Bible teaches and the Gospel announced that Jesus Christ paid all that was required for all the sins of all
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His people. We're commanded in the Scriptures to repent. We're never commanded in the Scriptures to do penance.
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Repentance is simply a fully turning oneself from serving sin to submitting to God and doing
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His will. It is the act of turning away from your iniquities,
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Acts 3 .26. What true repentance is, what we're to do and experience, we're going to have to begin to abbreviate quickly.
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I was thinking about this. I need to have it in my notes because of the distribution, realizing the limitation of time, and so we're going to have to start running through this a little bit.
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First, true repentance involves a true awareness and acknowledgement of personal sin, my sin.
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It's not enough when you're witnessing to someone to get them to say, yeah, I'm like a sinner like everybody else is a sinner in the world.
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True repentance is an awareness I'm guilty, my sin. Secondly, true repentance includes a sense of one's guilt because of his sin.
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I'm guilty before God. When the Holy Spirit convicts a sinner of sin, sometimes it's very hard to convince them that God will receive them even for Jesus' sake because they're so overwhelmed with the reality of their guilt before God.
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And that accompanies, thirdly, true repentance involves a sense of shame due to sin.
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If there's not a sense of shame, how can you have true repentance? Shame comes with it.
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I'm ashamed of how I have thought and lived and believed.
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And four, true repentance includes a sorrow over personal sin. You're broken for it.
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There's a sorrow before God, too. Not just sorrow for the consequences. How many times over the last 45 years
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I've heard of, say, a husband who's been caught in adultery and he's just horrendously ashamed of being exposed.
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And some well -meaning Christian worker comes and leads him to accept
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Jesus as his savior, as it were. And yes, he's guilty and he's ashamed for what he did.
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But really, he's not ashamed before God. He's ashamed because of how he was caught and exposed.
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And maybe he feels guilty for all the trouble he's caused his family. But this guilt and shame produced by the
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Holy Spirit is before God. He sees these things. And it's not just because I've been exposed and caught.
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Although oftentimes that is the initial way that God will begin to bring people to himself is expose their sin openly and publicly.
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And then, of course, true repentance includes, if possible, restitution. I remember my friend
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Tony. He and his two brothers raised in inner city Sacramento and they were thieves.
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And they used to gamble because they would have dog fights. They'd throw the dogs into garbage bins and they would fight.
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But they were thieves. And he was converted. He filled his van up three times and took his stolen stuff back to stores and back to houses.
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He burglarized. Told them that he had been converted. He had stolen from them. And here it is.
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And it was quite a witness. And only one man, a store owner, said,
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You stay here. I'm calling the police. And then all of a sudden the phone started ringing. People started calling him and finally said,
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Get out of here. And Tony went off. But he was clearly disconscious as he was attempting to make restitution for his sin.
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And if there is possibility, there's not always possibility, but when there is, we attempt to make things right, like Zacchaeus.
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Half of my goods I give to the poor. If I've stolen anything from him, I'll give them back four times.
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Zacchaeus desired to make restitution. True repentance, of course, involves confession of sin and owning a personal responsibility.
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True repentance involves confession of specific sin. There's a keen recognition of the pervasiveness of sin and sometimes one's sin will be peculiarly offensive to one's soul.
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The Holy Spirit is convicted. And true repentance also includes a hatred of sin in all of its forms, wherever it's detected.
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True repentance, there's a cessation from sin, a turning from doing those former things.
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And then last, true repentance is a turning to God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
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It's not just turning from sin. It's turning from sin in order to turn to God.
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Repentance isn't just sorrow over sin. That's the sorrow of the world. It's a sorrow for what
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I've done to God and before God. I'm turning from my sin because if I'm going to continue in my sin, there's no hope for me.
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And I'm turning to God. And so repentance is not just turning from, but turning on to God.
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And the Scriptures speak of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord, Jesus Christ.
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And yet recognize, and even as we speak about these personal responsibilities and actions we are to take in the matter of repentance, and we're cleansed through this repentance, repentance itself is a manifestation of the grace of God in the soul.
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And so we're right now on page 9, moving right toward the end, just a couple more minutes.
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True repentance is a work of God's grace. It's something you're to do, but I guarantee you you won't do it, you can't do it unless the grace of God is working in your soul.
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And so the Bible speaks about the gift of repentance. We have the passage in 2
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Timothy 2 where Paul is telling Timothy in dealing with problem people, he says,
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A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance.
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God gives repentance, it's a work of grace on the part of God, so that they know the truth, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil having been taken captive by him to do his will.
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Repentance is a gift of God declared by certain Jewish Christians in the early part of the
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Christian era. They heard Gentiles were being converted, and when they heard the evidence of it from the
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Apostle Paul, when they heard these things they fell silent, they glorified God, saying, Then to the
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Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. See, God had given the
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Gentiles repentance, and even though we press upon repentance as something you're to do, we know if you do it, it's because the grace of God has been operative in your soul, and he's granted you repentance.
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He's given you the desire to do so, and he gives you the power to do so by the Holy Spirit.
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And then we read in Acts 5, the reason that God the Father exalted his son Jesus as Lord to be
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Prince and Savior was in order to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
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Repentance is something that you and I do, and yet even as we do, we recognize it's the grace of God working within us, because we didn't want to before, we wouldn't want to now, if it were not for the grace of God operative in our passage.
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Now, lastly, let's close with, again, applying this to ourselves. Our Lord's, top of page 10, the
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Lord's instructions to his disciples when he had finished, when he'd washed their feet, taken his garment, sat down again, he said to them, do you know what
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I've done to you? You call me teacher and Lord. You say, well, for so I am. If I then your teacher, your
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Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I've done to you.
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Most assuredly I say to you, a servant's not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.
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If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. What is he telling his disciples to do?
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Well, again, to be cleansed of sin is to experience deliverance from sin.
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And we are to be serving one another, washing one another's feet, helping one another to overcome and defeat sin in our lives and to become more and more holy before our
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Lord. Yes, as individuals, this should be our desire and striving, but more than that, as disciples, we should desire to lift the holy lives of other
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Christians about us to a higher degree to enable them and help them to become more like Jesus Christ.
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And this is what we do when we attempt to cleanse them of their sin by instructing them.
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I feel like I'm doing that somewhat today, right now. I'm washing your feet. I'm helping to instruct you and Lord willing, give you some motivation to pursue these things.
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And this is what we're to do, not just from the pulpit, but as one another, ministering to one another within the church.
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And so we're to cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of the
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Lord. We are to look to the Lord Jesus to cleanse us from all sin. We are to confess our sins where he's faithful to cleanse us, not just forgive us, but cleanse us of our sin.
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Paul told Timothy, if anyone will cleanse himself from what is dishonorable, he'll be a vessel for honorable use.
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We are to give heed to the word of God, and in this way, a young man can cleanse his way.
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And then if we had time, we could go through a number of verses that speak about our individual Christian responsibility to be in service to one another.
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May the Lord help us as a church to truly have the holiness of one another on our hearts, because it's the way of happiness, isn't it?
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It's the way to peace and joy. Sin is a way of misery. The way of the transgressor is hard.
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And if we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we want to see them delivered from that. And we can do so through praying for one another, patiently instructing one another.
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Once in a while, there's a need to exhort one another when we are faulty and we're going off the wrong way.
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As Kevin mentioned in Sunday school this morning, he and his family want to be in a church where he starts straight, somebody will come to him and tell him, and that's what we're talking about here.
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The Lord Jesus tells us as his disciples that we are to be in the business of washing one another's feet.
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And blessed are you if you do these things, is what Jesus said. May the Lord help us to do so as his disciples.
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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. We pray you'd help us, our
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God, to understand these things clearly and fully. And yet we understand, our God, that just knowing these things is not sufficient in themselves for you,
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Lord Jesus, declared, blessed is the one who does them. Help us, our God, to have a genuine concern for one another in the body of Christ.
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And help us, our Lord, to encourage and exhort and instruct and pray that each of us would become more like our
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Savior. For that would be our delight, it would be certainly, Lord, our pleasure and a wonderful existence for us as your disciples.