Colossians - What Freedom In Christ Looks Like

God Centered Theology

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Charles Spurgeon, who is one of my more favorite preachers in history,

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I have some books in my office with some of his more famous sermons transcripted in there.

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One of his quotes, he says, and this is a quote of him speaking to a Christian, he says,

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Christian, what hast thou to do with sin? Hath it not cost thee enough already, but inasmuch as sin did never give thee what it promised to bestow, but deluded thee with lies?

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Be not a second time snared by the old fowler. Be free, and let the remembrance of thy ancient bondage forbid thee to enter the net again.

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Sin confuses and distorts the mind.

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It deceives you into trusting the false security and false harmony of a fleshly desire, rather than walking in the freedom that results from trusting in the very real and eternal security, that true unity in Christ, that only

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He can produce as we seek righteousness and seek righteous desires and actions.

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The beginning of chapter 3 had the word, therefore, meaning that in light of everything that has come, now

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I'm going to say this, and in the beginning of our text today, which we will pick up in verse 5, he says, therefore, once again.

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And since this therefore follows another paragraph that began with therefore, he's not necessarily looking at the entire books, per se, at this particular moment in the book, but he's looking specifically at verses 1 through 4.

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So in light of what Paul's saying, in light of what I said in verses 1 through 4, therefore, thus and so.

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Well in 3, 1 through 4, as we looked at last week, it says that as we look above, and this is a summary notion of what the verse has said on my part, as we look above, or as we direct our mind towards the things above, now such will result.

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So as we look above, we will kill sin. He says in verse 5, therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead.

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He's saying, therefore, in light of the fact that we'll be looking above, put to death the sin that is the result of your fleshly or earthly members.

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So as we look above, we will kill sin. As we direct our mind toward things above, we will come into greater submission to Christ in all areas.

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Now next week, we're going to focus more on what the renewal looks like, and ultimately it is a transformation, it is a renovation, and we're going to see some verses next week where it talks about the fact that we are being renewed.

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This is preview verse 10, which we'll look at next week, renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created that new self.

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Our new life, our being raised to spiritual life, the new self, the new creature that we are in Christ, we owe it to the one that created us in Christ to be renewed, and we're going to look at that next week.

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And this week, we're going to look at the understanding of putting to death sin in our life.

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You see, sound theology, starting with the fundamentals of the faith, deity of Christ, justification by faith, authority of Scripture, the

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Trinity, those things that are most clearly taught in Scripture, that are the foundational building blocks of Scripture upon which everything else finds its rest, it is that sound theology and then including all the other things that go with it.

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Having sound theology in all areas in your life, your job, in the church, so on and so forth.

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Sound theology is not only foundational to spiritual growth in the life of a Christian, but it is also foundational to the comeback church.

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Every church that has ever had or suffered from a period of plateauing or decline or being in a place where they don't feel like they're quite where they want to be, usually there's some period where there was a lack of sound theology.

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I was talking with someone before the service today, you look at America right now, and you look at New York, and the promotion, and the celebration of murder.

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And someone I heard, not here, but someone, a personal friend I have on Facebook was posting about it and saying, well, you know, we better do something or God's going to send

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His judgment. And I had to correct him and say, no, this is God's judgment.

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This is God's judgment. Now to a far lesser degree, when a church either is in a period where they're in decline or a period where they're trying to relook at their vision or recraft a new future and trying to understand, okay, where is it we're going?

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And that's part of what I want for us in 2019 is to look back and appreciate where we've been, understand where we're at, and then look forward to the blessings of the future.

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As you're doing that process and moving forward, understand that God will bless obedience.

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But when you look at our country, you see that He does not bless disobedience, and it is

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His judgment on us that He's allowing these things to come to pass. And what does the solution sound?

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Theology, repentance, turning away from sin and turning to God.

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No, what do we do, at least in our world, Satan's world system that infects all levels of government in every country in the world?

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We double down on sin. We double down on turning away from God. Now that's a big picture in terms of government.

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Let's put them to the side for the rest of the sermon. Look at your own life, look at our church, look at those two things as being separate but also as a unified thing, because we're a group of individuals that comprise our church.

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As individual Christians, we need to be turning from sin into God, not the other way around. And we're going to get into that a little bit in a few minutes.

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But it is sound theology that is this foundational building block. John MacArthur has said, there can be no holiness or maturity in a life where sin runs unchecked.

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Putting sin to death then is not optional in the Christian life. We can't judge anyone's heart.

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But if someone has not been transformed, I'm going to be calling them to repentance.

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It's going to be a question in my mind, were they even truly converted to begin with? Because God's Word is clear that while we will not walk in sinless perfection, we have a resurrected life, and therefore we should be living a resurrected life.

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Now we're going to look at this in more earnest next week, but just fice it for today to say that we commonly say as Christians, you know, we have the sin nature and our new nature.

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It's not biblical. We need to change our vocabulary. I struggle with this too because it's an old cliché.

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This is what the Bible teaches. The old self, the unregenerate, condemned and going to hell self that we were, was crucified on the cross with Christ.

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And we are transformed and raised to spiritual life. We have a new self, and we're going to see this next week, and it assumes you've put off the old self, and it assumes you've put on the new self as a

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Christian. So the question is common, well why would Christians still struggle with sin? We're still in old bodies.

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We're still in sinful bodies. That's why he says, consider the members of your earthly body.

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That sin that comes from the earthly instruments, the earthly members of our body that we still struggle with and still sometimes produces sin in our life, it is that we put to death.

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Notice he didn't say anything about our nature. But what does freedom in Christ look like?

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Well freedom in Christ first of all means sin no longer has any power over us.

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You can turn with me if you choose to, but in Romans chapter 6, which is, I've just about committed the entire chapter to memory.

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It's probably one of my more favorite chapters in the entire Bible. But in Romans chapter 6 and verse 15 it says, what then shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?

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May it never be. God forbid it. I believe the old King James translates it.

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Paul's saying under no circumstances. Can that be? Why? Well verse 16, do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness.

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But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed and having been free from sin you became slaves of righteousness.

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There's only two types of people in the world. Slaves of sin, slaves of righteousness. It's the only two people that exist, unregenerate, regenerate, lost, saved, it's what he's picking up on here.

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I want to say it's Martin Lloyd -Jones that has the illustration of the two fields. There's two fields adjacent to one another.

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One's the one that's in bondage to sin, you know it's high walls, you can't get out, and the other field next to them is the one of righteousness and God when

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He saves you picks you up out of one and puts you on the other one. Completely different circumstances, completely different life, but you can still hear

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Satan calling to you from over the wall, hey remember the good old times? Come on back, let's do some of that old sin we used to do.

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Good understanding of our situation, but we no longer have to be dominated by sin.

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I think MacArthur in his commentary when I was studying he kind of put it in the understanding of sort of like a deposed monarch.

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He's off the scene, he no longer reigns, but he's going to do everything he can to devastate his former subjects.

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That's what sin wants to do in your life. As a Christian it has no authority over your life, but Satan through sin, if he can get your flesh and get the members of your earthly body to sin, he'll do everything he can to devastate your walk with Christ.

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To where you can't do what Colossians 2, 6 tells us to do, therefore since you've been raised with Christ, so walk in Him.

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Let the habit of your life, the conversation of your life, the totality of who you are be in Christ.

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The Christian has been freed from the slave market of sin. We're to be slaves of righteousness and putting to death the sin that so easily besets us and pursuing and walking in righteousness.

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And that is why in other places, Mark 8, 34, Luke 9, 23 and other places in the

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Gospels, you see a repeat of the count where Jesus tells them, you want to do the cost, count the cost, understand what being a disciple of Christ is, here it is, take up your cost daily.

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It's not a one time thing. Now in terms of our eternal security, in terms of our standing before God, it's settled, it's eternal, but in terms of this understanding in Colossians of putting to death the sin that our flesh wages war with our spirit, it's a daily taking up of the cross.

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Paul says 1 Corinthians 15, 31, I die daily. You can never assume that you got it, because if you do,

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Satan's got you right where he wants you. So he tells us

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Colossians 3, 5, therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead.

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Now he's not talking about what he just refuted earlier in the chapter, this

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Colossian heresy about asceticism, this harming of the body, and this humbling of the body through physical torture, it's not what he's talking about.

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It's a spiritual understanding, it's not physically harming your body, it's considering the members of your body in reference to performing sin is inoperative, lacking life, not able to function in reference to sin.

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We hear a lot of these, we probably shouldn't say this to people, but you hear a lot of people say, well yeah, you're dead to me.

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You hear that a lot, but I'm just going to, you know, brothers and sisters, I may or may not have done this when

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I was growing up, it pretty much means I did it, but you tell your brother, you're dead to me, you're invisible, so you're walking down the hallway and he's walking towards you, you just run right into him, well

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I'm sorry, you're dead to me, sort of the same understanding. It's not that you're aware of it and say, well

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I'm just going to choose to ignore it, no, sin is supposed to be dead to you, because it's not who you are.

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And he gives two lists here, now these lists are not exhaustive, but Paul has a way of picking out and putting his finger on the sins when he makes his list, the ones that we most struggle with as Christians.

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So let's look very quickly through this first list, this is still in verse 5, he says consider your earthly bodies dead to, number one, immorality, this is the word meaning fornication, any form of sexual activity outside of the marriage bond between one man and one woman.

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Now we, in our American government and the news, we tend to focus on certain types, and yes it's true that, you know, these things are sin, but we don't need to limit it, it's very simple, any sexual activity,

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I don't care what it is, outside of the marriage union between one man and one woman, in marriage, in that bond of marriage, is sin, it's immorality.

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The Greek word I think is porneia, where we get the English word pornography. We don't have time today to talk about how much that has damaged homes.

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There's another pastor somewhere out in the west, I don't remember the state off the top of my head, I won't mention his name, but another one's been caught in adultery and pornography and all this sexual immorality, and he's done.

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You've got to be on guard, it's not just pastors, it's Christians. Anything you can do to get into your life to ruin your testimony,

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Satan will do it. We've been through the whole spiritual warfare series, so we're not going to preach that again, but I encourage you to go back and re -listen to some of that and do some study on your own.

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These things are important. Immorality, impurity, this is general filthiness, uncleanness, it's likened, it's a word that we use in that culture to refer to an open infection on someone, like leprosy or something like that.

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Only in this case, it's a leprosy, an open infection of the mind, untreated, unmedicated, allowed to just go wherever your mind and sinful thoughts will take you.

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He lists passion. Now this does not mean that passion is wrong, I preach with a lot of passion, it doesn't mean it's sinful.

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This passion is raw, strong feelings based in sin and lust, which is not guided by God.

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He mentions evil desire, which is a passion built on evil desire. Now when he mentions passion and evil desire here, these are somewhat interchangeable.

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They're basically covering two sides of the same coin. It's covering both the physical side of the sin and the mental side of the sin, so don't get too caught up or confused there.

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He then goes on to mention greed. This word greed here is something that should not be marked, or should not be the mark of a

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Christian. It's a word meaning covetousness. Remember the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet, and it goes on to list all the things we're not to covet.

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It's amazing to me as I grow in Christ's likeness, you know what

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I've found is one of the biggest secrets to living the Christian life? Biblical contentment.

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Oh, how we struggle with that. I speak from experience.

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Contentment is a very, very hard thing to do, because as soon,

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I got to, is Tammy, Tammy's around? I told

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Tammy last week I was going to stop using, because she's a preacher's kid, I told her I was going to stop doing this. I'm going to do this one more time, and Gina, you've got to get me to stop doing this.

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But my 7 -year -old girl, you get her something, and the second she has it, there's something else she wants.

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That poor child, having to grow up in a preacher's home, I feel so bad for her.

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She's going to be the illustration of so many sermons. But here's the trick, her father is not too much different than she is.

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Biblical contentment, it solves so many things in a Christian life.

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Because greed, this covetousness, this word, actually also means, it's the understanding that you have a desire for advantage.

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You have, or you want something, or you crave something, or you want to be something, gives you an advantage, or a control factor, or the ability to manipulate a situation.

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Greed places selfish desire above obedience to God, thus producing all kinds of idols.

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And these idols show up in all kinds of ways. The trick is this, if you do or give anything, whether it's in your life or in the church, whereby you're seeking an advantage, or seeking to find and hold a level of power or control, it's sin, and you need to repent from it.

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If you're doing it in your life, and someone in a personal relationship, and you're doing something, and they're really not your friend, you might call them your friend, but you're just trying to use them or abuse them because they bring something that makes your life better, that's sin.

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You need to repent, and either be a better friend to them, or let them loose so they don't have to be around you.

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And that goes both ways. People probably have done that to you, and it hurts, right?

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We don't need to do that. It can happen on just a strictly personal level.

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If you're elevating any sinful desire in life in hopes to get what you feel you're owed, this goes back to my food line days, why is that guy getting promoted?

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I'm way better than he is. That's what I'm supposed to be doing. That's the money

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I'm, you couldn't give me an extra $6 ,000 a year, but you hire a guy off the street making $45, yeah, these thoughts run through pastors' minds.

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I've been guilty of it. I needed to repent and stop doing that.

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That's sin. Greed. Why do you think that's a love of, not that money itself is the root of all evil, but a love of money is the root of all sorts of evil?

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Because it finds its base sin, the root of that sin is in greed and covetousness and saying they have it,

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I deserve it, God should take it from them and give it to me. And that finds so many manifestations in our life.

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We almost need to have like a culture of getting rid of greed for a whole year, because all of us struggle.

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It's one of the hardest sins to get out of your life, because you, and I know with me personally,

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I mean so well, I think, man, if I had this one thing or that thing, I could do this, and you come up with all these justified reasons why you should have this, but then it's nothing wrong with wanting things or even dreaming or pursuing and thinking, you know,

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I want to enjoy this blessing, but then it turns into, God, why haven't you given this to me?

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And that's sin. Look at Arthur's quote on this, he says, when people sin, it is at its basis that they're doing what they desire rather than what

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God desires. I was speaking with someone before the service and we were talking about an idea someone had, and the idea is perfectly fine, and we're going to have a place where we'll be able to present it and talk about it and possibly do it, but I said, you know what,

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I caught something in the middle of the conversation, I said, this is an area I struggle, and this is something I'm trying to get all of us to start thinking in this vein.

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It was like, well, we or certain people want this, I said, the thing itself isn't wrong, but we need to reframe our minds and say, what is it that God wants, not what we want?

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And I'm sure, I have no doubt that God would want this thing, but it's still the practice of changing our mindset, changing the way we think, changing our vocabulary, and we're going to get to speech in a minute, but changing everything to fit into what does

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God want? What does he desire? Because if you're anything like me, the times in your life when you've had what you wanted and had what you desired, it's been marked by frustration, it's been marked by sin, it's been marked by just this level of different sins and different feelings and everything, it's miserable, but when you're seeking what

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God desires, there's joy, and after all, the

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Christian life is joyful. He goes on to say, when you're desiring what you desire rather than what

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God desires, he says, that is, in essence, to worship themselves instead of God, and that is adultery, but you know what?

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He's not wrong. If I look at those times in my life where I've pursued selfish desire over what

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God wanted for me, I was worshiping myself, and that's sin, and I needed to repent and stop doing that.

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My life is so much better now, so much better. God doesn't want to hurt you.

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His law, his moral law, his thus saith the Lord, his instruction, his imperatives, they're not there to hurt us.

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Verse 6, it says, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.

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Now we're going to park here, and I'm going to hold the rest of this sermon for next week, because I've got a lot to cover, and I don't want to, with time,

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I don't want to, I want to respect your time, but I also want to respect the sermon, and it's going to take more time than what I have available to me to finish, but we're going to, so we're going to park it here at verse 6, and we're going to tie this up, put a bow on it, and we'll pick this back up next week, but I want to hit on this point before we end.

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He says, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.

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Understand, and he says in verse 7, in them you also once walked when you were living in them.

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It's not who you are anymore. Sin brings wrath, not blessing.

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Sin brings judgment, not blessing. Sin brings decline, not growth.

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Sin brings bondage, not freedom, but putting to death our sin brings freedom from it.

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Tearing down idols brings freedom from them. All aside, we're going to pick up when we look at verse 8 next week, put it all aside, put it off, kill it, don't let it control you because it has no authority in your life.

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God has set you free from it, and you are free to pursue him.

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That's what freedom in Christ looks like. It is the freedom of our spirit, it's the freedom of our soul to walk in righteousness, to walk in that freedom, to have the power in us to put to death sin.

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And everybody's different. We all have different sins that creep into our life.

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It says, because of these things the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience. Those that are not saved will be judged for it.

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Thankfully for us that are in Christ, we don't have to look forward to that day. We can look forward with hope and understanding the eternal life that awaits us, but we need to be serious about sin in our life, and not because it's this understanding of beating up on someone or, you know, saying someone's not good enough, no, it's because there's a better way.

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God says, you once walked in that, now go. Remember the lady, one lady, he told her he was caught in adultery?

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He didn't condemn her, he didn't judge her, he said, look, he's still judging the sin, it was still wrong, but he says, what?

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He says, go and sin no more. There's forgiveness.

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It starts with repentance. Is there something in your life that needs to be repented of?

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Is there something in your life that's holding you back from God's best? I don't even care about the church in this instance, forget about that.

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Just you and your life. How can you have a comeback as a

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Christian in 2019? This Bible says you can. Repent, believe, walk in the freedom that is in Christ.