Evangelical Obedience - Part III

Grace Reformation Bible Church iconGrace Reformation Bible Church

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Hebrews 12:18-29

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Well, this morning we continue forward. As you recall, we've left off at Exodus 19 as we're about to, with Moses, go to the very summit of Sinai and there receive the ten words written by God's own finger, the
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Ten Commandments, written on tablets of stone given to his people Israel. Before we unpack the
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Ten Commandments over the next several months, we wanted to lay down this foundation of evangelical obedience or gospel obedience.
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In other words, there's a there's an important foundation we must have as we receive the
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Commandments from the hand of God. We must we must obey them evangelically.
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We must obey them in accord with the gospel. We don't receive the law as though it is a covenant of works, a demand to do this or you will die.
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Do this and unless you do this, you will not live. Rather, we receive it according to the gospel, which is, as the
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Merriman said, live and do this. It's a rule of life. It's because we've received life that now this is our way.
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The burden, the curse, the sting of the law has been removed. As far as that curse, as far as that demand unto life is concerned, we've died to the law.
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We were crucified with Christ, buried in His tomb, burst forth victorious.
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This is the picture of baptism that's held out whenever a believer breaks forth from the water, and that same spirit moves mightily in the midst of His people and empowers them to fulfill the law by the
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Spirit of God. And that's especially what we're going to focus on this morning. So we've been talking about evangelical obedience now for a few weeks, and this is the third part where we've been using
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Hebrews 12 28 as a working definition. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, that was the first part, by which we may serve
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God. And that was last week. So we have grace, and then of course the obligation of that grace, the obligation upon all life, everything that lives and moves and has its being is to serve
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God. But of course this raises a massive dilemma. How can a sinful people serve the
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Holy One? Which is to say, how can we serve God acceptably? And that's our focus this morning.
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Let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably. So that all -important word, acceptably, it's translated in a number of ways.
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I was asking my seven -year -old before I came up here, do you know what acceptably means?
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And the verdict was no. So I realized I should probably explain for the sake of other seven -year -olds.
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Another way to think about acceptable is pleasing, right? Something that's pleasing, well -pleasing, something that is given favor.
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You are acceptable when your dad has a big smile on his face. You are not acceptable when dad does not have that big smile, it's upside down.
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How can we serve God acceptably? How can we be well -pleasing in his sight? How can we find favor in his presence?
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I want to move through that in three sections this morning. So again, the question, how can we serve
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God acceptably? And the answer for us this morning, first, through Christ.
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Secondly, by the Spirit. And then third and last, with one another.
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So through Christ, by the Spirit, with one another. That is how we serve God acceptably.
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So we'll begin with the first part, through Christ. I mentioned 1 Peter 2 when we were in Exodus 19 at the beginning.
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Remember Exodus 19 is this beautiful language taken up by Peter in 1 Peter 2, where he relates this great depiction of Israel as a consecrated people, a royal nation, a holy priesthood unto
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God. And he says this is true of you now if you are in Christ. They were just a shadow, a type of what you really are.
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You are that people that were consecrated by the blood of the Lamb. You are priests unto God. You are a kingdom of priests coming to him, he says, as to a living stone rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, precious.
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And you also as living stones are being built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.
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There's that language. And as we said last week, what do priests do? Why are priests consecrated?
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To serve. To serve God. To serve in the holy place.
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And now the holy place is the holy people. You are the living stones being built up into the dwelling place. You are the kingdom of priests.
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What does a kingdom of priests do? It serves God. But as we see from Hebrews 12, we have to serve
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God acceptably. And what does Peter say? You are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.
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Well, how are we going to do that? How are we going to offer up service to God that is acceptable?
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The Holy One in whom there is no darkness, no shadow of turning, the One who cannot behold sin, whose eyes are too pure to look at the darkness.
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How can we serve Him acceptably when we're riddled with it? And Peter says, well, let me finish.
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You're a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
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It is through Jesus Christ. So notice that the spiritual sacrifices that we offer, laying our lives down as a spiritual sacrifice, the way that we serve
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God as a priesthood, as we gather together in worship today, all of that must be offered through Jesus Christ, rendered through Jesus Christ.
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In other words, the priests have a need of a great high priest, one who stands between God and they, one who can enter into the holiest of holies, one whose blood will cleanse from all sin and stain through Jesus Christ.
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Now this language from 1 Peter, this language from Hebrews 12, it's drawn conceptually from the requirements of sacrifice.
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In Leviticus 22 we read, whatever has a defect you shall not offer. It shall not be acceptable on your behalf.
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And whoever offers a sacrifice or a peace offering to the Lord to fulfill his vow or a freewill offering, right?
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Any kind of offering that is brought before God, it must be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no defect in it.
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So God receives nothing that is defective, right? It must be pure.
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It must be without blemish, without spot, without defect. It shall not be acceptable otherwise.
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That's a big problem for a sinful people. Proverbs 11 20 says those of a crooked heart are an abomination to the
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Lord. Those of blameless ways are his delight. Or 12 2, a good man obtains favor from the
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Lord, but a man of evil devices he condemns. Proverbs 15 8, the sacrifice of the wicked is good enough for the
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Lord? No. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.
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Now this is saying the same thing in different ways. In fact, that word delight, that word favor, that word acceptable, it's all the same word, ratzon in Hebrew.
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The question is, how can we be blameless in a way that we are his delight?
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How can we be good in a way that obtains favor? How can we be upright in a way that is acceptable to him?
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And the answer is, through Jesus Christ. Peter goes on to say we are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, knowing that he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame.
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There's shame when someone comes before the presence of God in all of their sin, but the one that comes believing on Jesus, trusting in Jesus, he has no place for shame.
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I own my sinfulness, he says, poor man that I am, but I'm not here holding up my merit or my lack, my goods or my evils.
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I'm not here bartering with God, rather I'm clinging to the cross. I'm trusting in my Savior, and Peter says then you'll never be put to shame.
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You'll never be put to shame. You've put your trust in the right place, therefore you've obtained favor. You are acceptable through Jesus Christ.
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Hebrews 13 21, he gives this prayer for God, he says, to equip you with everything good that you may do his will.
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What's another way of describing that? What is it to do God's will? It's to serve God. This is what servants do, they do the will of God.
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What are the holy angels who serve God do? They do his will. And so God, this prayer that God may equip you with everything good that you may do his will, that is serve him, working in you that which is pleasing.
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Another translation, that which is acceptable in his sight.
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How is that going to happen? Hebrews 13. How is it that we will do his will?
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How is it that even what he's working in us will somehow be pleasing or acceptable to him?
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Is it enough that he works it in us? Is it enough that there's some radiance, some warmth of his light?
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Is it enough that every good thing has come down from heaven above from this father of lights? Is that enough to then deflect and return it to him and for it to be received?
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No, no. Common grace is not enough to be acceptable in the sight of God.
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Just to own or to acknowledge God, just to return in some meager way what he's given.
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That is not enough. What does the writer of Hebrews say? That God may equip you with everything good, that you may do his will, serve him, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ.
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It must be through Jesus Christ. That means that we cannot render ourselves acceptable.
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Only the Lord can render us acceptable. Everything we are must be brought to God through him.
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There's only one mediator between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ. No fallen human being can somehow render themselves or dress themselves up to be pleasing to the
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Lord. There's no good you could do if you exclusively devoted the rest of your life to doing good.
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That would never be enough to save you, never enough to warrant the smile of God, but only a certain sure sentence of doom upon you.
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You who would seek to be justified by the law. What did we sing on Thursday at prayer?
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Not all my sighs and tears can bear my awful load. Not only is there not enough good you could do, there's not enough repentance you could show.
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There's not enough tears you could cry, not enough groanings you could utter from the depths of your being that would somehow make you favorable to God.
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That in and of itself is not what makes you acceptable. Neither your reformations, your revisions, all your vows, your attempts, your strivings, all the things that you're working so hard to work out in your life, nor all your repentance, all your tears.
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Though you cry by the night, though you're filled with shame, that does not make you acceptable to God. So then what do we need to serve
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God? What do we need to be accepted? As the Puritan John Jackson said, you have a need of God's strength to perform
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His will. You have a need of God's mercy to pardon your service. You have a need of Christ to accept
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Him. In other words, we must offer through Christ. That is the way that we serve God.
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Something beautiful about this is God wants to signal the fact that He is favorable toward those who will trust in His Son.
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That He is smiling, drawing, receiving, delighting in those who draw near to Him by His Son, the
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Appointed One, the Messiah. And so the very beginning of Jesus' ministry is depicted in Isaianic terms as the acceptable year of the
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Lord. The time of favor, the time of delight. In Isaiah 61 we read of this acceptable year.
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It's referenced again in Isaiah 49. And so we have it in our translation, the acceptable year of the
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Lord. Other translations, a favorable year of the Lord, the year of the Lord's favor, the year of His delight.
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And of course, it's not only that Jesus' ministry is replete with the favor of God, with as it were the smile of God to ruin sinners who will come in repentance and faith.
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But more than that, the sending of the Son, the ministry of Jesus, is actually in and of itself a signal of God's favor.
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It's not just that the favor is in the ministry as Jesus goes and encounters these people who bow before Him as Lord, who trust in Him as Savior, but the very fact that there is a ministry from Jesus shows that God has favor toward men.
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Peace, goodwill toward men. That's the acceptable year of the Lord. That's what the people were longing for.
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When will the Lord not move in judgment, but move in favor? When will He smile upon us, send us that promised one that will crush the serpent's head, liberate us from our bondage?
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When will the acceptable year come, the favorable year come? When will, in Leviticus 25 terms, when will the year of jubilee break out in Israel?
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Not the seventh year, the release from debt, release from captivity, but what that jubilee year always pointed to.
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The perfect rest, the perfect release, the perfect redemption from slavery. And so it's no wonder when
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Jesus is beginning His ministry formally in the
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Gospel of Luke chapter 4, and He comes into the synagogue in His hometown there in Nazareth, and they hand
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Him the book of Isaiah, and He unrolls that scroll sitting in this synagogue, as it were, and all the eyes are fixed on Him.
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And He finds the place, and it says, when He opened the book, He found where it was written, the
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Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He's anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the
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Lord. And He closed the book, and He gave it to the attendant, and He sat down, and Luke says every eye in the synagogue was glued to Him.
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And Jesus said this, today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
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Now is the time of favor. Now is the time of acceptance. Now God is smiling upon ruined sinners who would be redeemed.
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In my coming, in my hearing, in my preaching, this
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Scripture has been fulfilled. So Christ signals the favor of God in such a way that all acceptance comes exclusively through Him.
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How is it that you will be accepted by God? It is through Jesus Christ. The way for us, as Jeremiah Burroughs said, to sanctify
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God's name, to do what is acceptable to God, even when outward affliction comes, is to exercise our faith in the great promise of God in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying the same thing. The only way that our efforts, that our service, that our walk is somehow rendered acceptable is when it's done in and through the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Is that your testimony this morning? Are you alive in Christ?
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Are you here this morning worshiping God through Christ? Nothing else will do.
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Nothing else will be received. No prayer. No prayer is heard unless it's offered through Christ.
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No prayer is answered unless it's prayed in the name of Jesus. Is that your testimony this morning?
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Paul, like Peter, takes up that sacrificial imagery, the imagery of Hebrews 12 and 1
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Peter 2, and he says, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.
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He spends so much more of Romans spelling out why it is that you can be acceptable to God as a living sacrifice.
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Before the work of grace, the heart is stony. John Owen said you could please
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God as much as a stone could please God with that stone heart. Something radical had to happen for you to be accepted in Christ or through the work of Christ.
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Something radical had to happen for you to be accepted in the Beloved. It's the only place you can be accepted.
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There is no other way that God will see you, delight in you, receive you, unless you come to him through his
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Son, the one in whom he loves. Now I wonder, brothers and sisters, if it's struck you that you are accepted in the
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Beloved One, that if you are a believer in Christ, you are accepted in him.
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I wonder if that thought stirs you, moves you in any meaningful way.
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Spurgeon has a tremendous sermon on this text, accepted in the Beloved, and he says somewhere toward the end of it,
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I know some professors, he doesn't mean college teachers, he means people that profess faith, he says,
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I know some professors who seem to me to stand by their own experience. In other words, what gives them the sense of God's favor, the sense of God's delight?
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What makes them feel accepted? And he says, well, they're standing by experience. How they're feeling, things that are happening to them, or maybe in them, and they want to be accepted on the basis of that experience.
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At least that's how they perceive it. Maybe they had a visit from the presence of the
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Lord or a gleam of his love, and now they think God has accepted them. They feel so high, so heavenly -minded, so drawn above the earth.
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And then he says, the next day I see the same souls, and now they're cleaved to the earth. Something has gone differently, and they say, now
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I'm not accepted. And Spurgeon says, oh, that these beloved ones would know.
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God never did accept them in their experiences. God never accepted them when they felt accepted, and then rejected them when they felt rejected.
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They were only ever accepted in the beloved. I would, he said, that they would see their ups make them no higher before God, their downs make them no lower, though their joys do highly exalt them, though their despondencies do really depress them.
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But they stand accepted in one who never alters, who never dips, and one who's always the beloved one of God, always perfect, always complete, always without spot, always without wrinkle, or any such thing.
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Blessed faith that walks above experience, Spurgeon says. Do you have that blessed faith?
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Do you realize what it means for you to be accepted in the beloved? This is not plucking petals from a daisy and saying, he accepts me, he accepts me not, he accepts me, he accepts me not.
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If you have laid hold of Christ by faith, you are accepted in Him. No matter how low you're brought in the experience of your walk, no matter how high the bliss of God's presence or the movement of the
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Spirit of God, you can be no more or no less accepted in the beloved than you are by faith.
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Amen? Joyous trust,
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Spurgeon says, that in the darkest night will sing of heaven's unclouded noon, in the midst of blackness and vileness, consciously felt, will boast of pardon with his blood, of a righteousness made complete.
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This is what faith looks like. Owning my sin, saying, I know that in and of myself
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I am not acceptable, but I'm not trusting in myself. I'm not trusting in myself to be accepted.
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I'm trusting in Christ. I come to Him through Christ. So how is it that you are acceptable?
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How is it that you serve God acceptably? The first thing is you do it through Christ. Psalm 512.
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I love this imagery. If you look at this language of favor or acceptableness or delight throughout the
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Psalms, it's beautiful. It's sort of like this prism and you keep turning it and it keeps refracting new insights and angles on how
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God regards us and how God is in His mercy toward us. Psalm 512 says, Lord, you bless the righteous.
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You cover him with favor like a shield. Here's this image and he's saying, your blessing,
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Lord, is such that it's not that you bless them and for a while under that blessing they're able to find protection, able to find strength.
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No. The reason that he's blessing them is because he has favor toward them. The blessing comes as a result of the favor, right?
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Not the other way around. And it's because of this favor that God has that this blessed one is now covered over with delight, covered over with God's pleasure, and it's like a shield to him.
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A shield that gives him confidence, a shield that gives him strength, a shield that protects him from the darts of the enemy, from the stings of his conscience, from the murmurings of guilt in his life.
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That blessing that comes from God's favor is like a shield to him. And whence does that favor come?
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It comes through Jesus Christ. This is how we take refuge in him. Or another one,
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Psalm 30 verse 5, because of course, as we know, parents know, right?
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Your children don't have the sort of zero -sum game of your acceptance. They're your children.
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They have to work out of your acceptance. They don't have to work their way in.
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They begin every day with your acceptance of them, or at least they ought to. Moms, dads, every day begins with a smile.
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It may not end with a smile. It ought to begin with a smile. The mercy renews in the morning.
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And they don't have to work their way toward acceptance. They're already accepted. I love you. You're my son. You're my daughter.
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But things may happen in the course of the day that causes you to have displeasure toward them. Maybe there's some tension, something that has happened during the day that has cooled that affection, and now the smile is no longer present, or at least it doesn't seem to be.
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Of course, this is what we mean when we talk about the fatherly chastisement of God. Now, that acceptance with him, as we said, that doesn't change.
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You are accepted in the beloved. That's not something that ebbs and flows. But because you're accepted,
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God is faithful to discipline. He's faithful to prune. He's faithful to do whatever it takes to move you forward in his will, to make you more lovely, to make you more conformed to the image of the one he loves.
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And so Psalm 30, verse 5, sort of picturing this fatherly relationship accepted by him, and yet the affection isn't apparent.
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There's a chastisement that has come. And then the psalmist says, his anger is but for a moment. I love this.
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His anger is but for a moment. His favor is for a lifetime.
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What a contrast. Could you imagine mom, dad, having one passing moment where the smile dropped.
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One passing moment. A random Wednesday, 2028, and that was it.
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It was 20 minutes of the smile dropping away, compared to an entire lifetime of smiling.
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A lifetime of favor, of pleasure. That is who God is. His anger is but the moment, compared to favor that lasts a lifetime.
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That is rich, abundant, cascading favor. Why? Because we come to him through Christ.
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And that secondly brings us to by the Spirit. How is it that we may serve
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God acceptably, first through Christ, secondly by the Spirit, in that order? We serve
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God through Christ and that can only be by the Spirit. There's a missing connection.
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There's a bridge that must be built if there's any way we're to serve God through Christ. Christ is seated at God's right hand.
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How is it that we can even be in union with him? How is it that we can commune with him? How is it that our prayers and our worship and our walk is somehow offered through him to God?
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It's all by the Spirit. Ephesians 2 .18, for through him, that's
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Christ, for through him we have access by one Spirit to the Father.
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It's not through him to the Father, it's through him by the Spirit to the Father. 1st
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Corinthians 6 .11, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. There's this inseparable nature to the divine work of God.
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Though each person has a respective role within it, we cannot utterly divide. It is the singular work of God.
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We're right to worship the merciful Savior. We're right to worship God, our Redeemer.
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We're right to say that salvation belongs to the Lord. We don't divide it and say salvation was only the
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Son and not the Father and not the Spirit. Rather, it's by the will of the Father, the accomplishment of the
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Son, the application of the Spirit, or through the Lord Jesus by the
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Spirit. Now Paul, just to get us back on the rail about the law,
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Paul, as we've seen now for some weeks, has this contrast, this antithesis between gospel and law.
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As we've said, if you get this wrong you make a shipwreck of your faith. This is where heresy sprouts, this is where people go astray, this is where people lose that hinge upon which the church stands or falls, that cardinal doctrine of being justified by faith alone.
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It's understanding this contrast, that we no longer serve according to the letter but rather by the
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Spirit. Romans 7 .6, now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve, oh there it is, so that we should serve, how?
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In the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. In the newness of the
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Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. So when we're talking about serving
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God acceptably, one of the ways we must qualify or define that is we serve
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God acceptably through Christ by the newness of the Spirit, in the newness of the
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Spirit, not according to the old letter, not in the way of the old covenant. Paul says in 2nd
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Corinthians 3, a whole discourse about this very thing but we're not going to unpack it in detail this morning, in the beginning of 2nd
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Corinthians 3 he says clearly to the church, you are an epistle of Christ, you're a living letter, ministered by us.
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Paul's like, I'm your letter carrier, here you are as it were, I'm your letter carrier, you're the epistle of Christ, ministered to by us, written not with ink but by the
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Spirit of the Living God. So not the oldness of the letter but they're written as it were by the
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Spirit of the Living God. What's in his mind? Well of course it's Exodus 20. Not on tablets of stone, he says, but on tablets of flesh, that is of the heart.
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Here we see the oldness of that old letter in high contrast to the newness of the
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Spirit. Paul explains that at Sinai the law was given externally to the people. It was written by the finger of God, that is true, but it was written on stone, stone tablets, what an image to give to the people.
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Do you want to know what the situation is, how bleak it is? This is what your heart's like. The law should be on your heart and I'm writing it on stone because that's what your heart is like.
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And so Moses is holding up the cardiac symbols as it were before this idolatrous people, they're idolatrous even as the law is being carved on the stone, that's how stony their hearts are.
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So the law is given as it were externally. Here's a stone heart mirroring your stone hearts, here's the law outside of you.
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And Paul says to the church at Corinth, you're written by the finger of God as well, but not according to the letter, not on a tablet of stone, but by the
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Spirit of God on the flesh of your heart. In other words, now there's something inside, the very center, the very recess of our being, now the law is written upon the heart.
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That's part of what it means to be in this newness of the Spirit, in this new covenant that God has made in Christ.
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It was the promise of Jeremiah 31, God said he was going to make a new covenant, it wouldn't be like the covenant he made at Sinai when he took his people out of Egypt.
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Not like that, he said. I'll do respect to our Paedobaptist brethren and friends, but it's not the same.
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We don't flatten it out, we don't pancake it and steamroll it and say it's just all part of the same administration of the covenant of grace.
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No, it's not like that. Something radically disjunctive belongs to this new covenant.
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I will put my law in their minds, I will write it in their hearts. That is the promise of the new covenant.
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Criminals go by the courts. I don't know where the court system in Massachusetts, they're probably the first in the state in the
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Union to get rid of the Ten Commandments as a public display, but at least in some God -fearing states the Ten Commandments are part of this very public display.
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Here's what justice looks like, here's how justice is to be meted out, here's the law, as it were, that corresponds to how
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God has made us. And of course a criminal that's being tried, one who has guilt because of their law -breaking, they go right by that public display, that statue of the
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Ten Commandments. What good is it to them? What good did it do them to have it carved in stone when they're on the bench being tried for some heinous crime?
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It was carved in stone, it's useless to them. What does it do? It just aggravates them. It's just a picture of dread, condemnation.
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Here's this law, this stone outside of us, and it condemns us. It's a standard we cannot meet.
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We're guilty on the bench. And what's the promise of the new covenant? By the Spirit of God, I'm gonna write it on your heart.
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By the Spirit of God, I'll cause you to walk in it. That's how Ezekiel 36 takes up this promise of the new covenant.
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He says, I'll take that heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
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God is in the stone removal business when it comes to the new covenant. I will put my
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Spirit within you. And what's the result of having the Spirit within? What's the result of the
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Spirit writing the law on our hearts? What's the result of the Spirit casting out that heart of stone?
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I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. That's the difference.
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This is the glory of the new covenant. You see, the organizing principle of the old covenant, what gave its structure, its logic, is you were circumcised in the flesh in accordance to this covenant with Abraham.
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But the the organizing principle, the structure of the new covenant, is the indwelling of the
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Spirit of God and union with the Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder it's not like the old.
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This isn't a circumcision in the flesh. This isn't something that corresponds to the oldness of the letter, the deadness of the letter, our dead and fallen flesh, this fallen way.
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Only external acts done upon our body. But now in this new covenant, the work is all internal.
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It subsumes all of us, both internal and external. Now there's an indwelling Spirit that brings us to offer everything through Christ.
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So what does that mean for you, believer? Well, don't merely conform externally.
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Don't try to patch up and pattern your life on the outside. That means from the very core of your being, from the deepest echo of your conscience, from who you are in a way that no one else can see, in a way that only the
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Lord sees from that place. Not externally, not enough to gain the notice or the applause of men, but as you stand before God, recognize that the
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Spirit is going to move in such a way that He will cleanse you and empower you to fulfill all of God's will in your life.
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Hebrews 13 21, we read that prayer that God would equip us with everything good to do
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His will, to serve Him in an acceptable way through Jesus Christ. And how does that happen?
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He doesn't spell it out, but it's implicit. How does that happen? What does that look like?
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It looks like the Spirit of God at work in your life. It looks like this indwelling
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Spirit saturating your thinking, your acting, your responding, your motivation, your will, your affections.
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That's what it looks like for God to give you everything good to fulfill His purpose in your life. We can have no power from Christ, John Owen says, unless we live in the persuasion that we have none of our own.
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We can have no power from Him unless we know that we have no power in and of ourselves. We are utterly dependent upon the power of the
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Spirit of God. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? This is not something we naturally believe.
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We flatter ourselves, we flatter our efforts, we flatter our reformations.
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It actually is an incredibly difficult thing to utterly cast your trust and hope upon the
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Spirit of God dwelling within you. That seems to be our last resort when it should be our first resort.
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That seems to be the sort of last -ditch measure, opening up the little glass box and pressing the red button.
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Well, I've tried all I can and it all came to nothing. Now I guess I'm gonna have to rely on the Lord. Fool, you should have done that from the start.
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You should have recognized that there's nothing you can do apart from Christ. He said as much.
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You can do nothing apart from me. And how can you do anything through Him? By His Spirit. By His Spirit.
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How is it that you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling? What does it look like to work out your own salvation?
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What does it look like to sweat and to strive and to fight and to resist and to put on the armor of God and to stand?
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What does that look like? Philippians 2. It looks like working out what
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God is working into you. It's God who works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.
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Another translation. It is God who works in you both to will and to do what is acceptable.
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Zechariah 4. If you remember this task that was put before Zerubbabel and he was to rebuild the temple.
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The foundation had been laid but the work had been put off. The prophet Haggai came and rebuked the people.
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You've all gone each man to his own house. The seed lies in the barn. And Zechariah as well.
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Now not so much a rebuke but rather a mighty encouragement comes to Zerubbabel. This vision is given to him.
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These elements that belong to the dwelling place of God. This golden lampstand that's surrounded by all of trees.
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It's a vision that he sort of wakes up and he doesn't quite understand. What does this mean Lord? And he says this is the word of the
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Lord to Zerubbabel. Not by might. Not by power but by my spirit says the
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Lord. Not by might. Not by power but by my spirit.
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Now does that mean great Lord? Thank you. I'm gonna take that little R &R that I've been talking about.
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I'll head back to my Airbnb. Your spirits got this? No. That's Keswick theology.
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That's let go and let God theology. That's spiritual passivity. There's no place for that.
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That's not what Zechariah 4 is saying when he says but by my spirit. What he means is
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Zerubbabel put no confidence in your might. Hang nothing on your own ability.
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On your own power. Recognize and depend wholly upon my spirit. This will not come about by your might.
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This will not come about by your power. This will come about by my spirit. He goes on to say who are you
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O mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plant. In the
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Christian life we we have these trials and these times of testing and these winnowing floors of sanctification and they feel like mountains.
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And again we begin in entirely the wrong direction. We put the wrong foot forward. We're depending on our might, our power.
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It's a mountain but it's not gonna get any shorter unless I start climbing. We just put our effort into it and it's like the spirit is who knows where.
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We're not dependent upon him. We're not seeking after his power. We're not asking him to draw us close to the presence of our
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Savior. We're sort of grinding it out, grueling. We're entrenched as it were and the mountain only gets taller.
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It only gets more difficult. It only becomes more despairing. Can I get an amen? Does anyone know what that's like?
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I know what that's like. I don't get it. I'm trying now. I wasn't trying a few weeks ago.
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Now I'm really fighting. So why is the mountain higher and why is the way harder and why am I more despairing and more exhausted?
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Well here's why, because it's not by your might. It's not by your power. It's by the Spirit of God.
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I would encourage you, I can only touch on it, but I would encourage you to spend some time looking at Romans 8.
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Romans 8 is so glorious. I've been on a Martin Lloyd Jones kick for some weeks now just relishing his sermons from Romans 7 and 8.
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And his exposition of Romans 8 is classic. For what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh,
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God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.
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How is that law going to be fulfilled in us? What does that look like? We have this picture of justification, right?
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The law could only condemn, the law could only damn us. What the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh,
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God did by sending His Son. He condemned sin in the flesh.
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Beautiful picture of the judgment of God falling upon Christ rather than on us, our justification in Him.
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And this has happened so that, not that the law would be cast away, no, the law is wholly just and good.
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This is God's will. This is what love for God and love for neighbor looks like. Not that that would be cast away but rather that the righteous requirement of the law would be fulfilled in us.
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How? That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the
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Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, even good things of the flesh.
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But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. And to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is at enmity against God.
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It's not subject to the law of God. It can't be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please
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God, cannot be acceptable to God, but you are not in the flesh, you are in the
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Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.
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So as Paul begins to unfold this, we recognize this way of keeping the law, this evangelical obedience, comes about by walking in the
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Spirit, by having our lives in accordance with the Spirit, by breathing in, dwelling by, being guided by, being drawn by, consisting in the
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Spirit, those who live according to the Spirit, those who walk according to the
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Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. You see, brothers and sisters, in ministry so often we have to pray for discernment because even in our own lives and certainly looking at sheep in the fold, we have to determine or try to discern how is it that the
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Lord is moving if he's moving at all. Well, you have it here in Romans 8.
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If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, you will be living according to the Spirit and if you don't have the
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Spirit, you don't belong to Christ. And let me tell you what that looks like.
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I'll give you a little behind -the -curtains elder vision here, kind of like the new
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Apple headset. You can put that on. Here's elder vision. I'm convinced that God answers prayers for discernment.
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I think in accordance with what positions of authority require, God will fit them.
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God will answer them. So a wife or a mother in the home needs certain things from the Lord to be able to carry out his will and he will give her that.
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It won't necessarily be on demand. It might trickle and come in fits and starts but God will ultimately supply all that's needed.
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His grace will be sufficient. And so for the husband to lead, to dwell with his wife in an understanding way, to lead his family,
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God will in due course give all that's needed, all that's required for that. I'm convinced that elders and their tasks are given discernment from the
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Lord or they can depend on the Lord to grant them some insight, some way of perceiving in prayer and in discussion of understanding and maybe sensing where people are, perceiving where people are.
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And here's what that looks like. It looks like a weather vane. We don't rely on weather vane, right?
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You just swipe to the left on your iPhone and you have all the weather info you want right there, radar tracking, all that. But it wasn't that long ago that people actually had to look at weather vanes.
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Now some of those weather vanes, if you go through some of these New England towns, are still there on top of the tall buildings. They're rather decrepit.
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They're sort of rusted and hanging over but as long as some WD -40 is in that little hinge point, when the wind's blowing, that old, rusty, decrepit weather vane will begin to shake and rattle and turn according to the movement of the wind.
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So in the Church of God, those who belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ and the
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Spirit, as Jesus describes Him, is like the wind. You don't see the wind.
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The wind isn't known by sight but it's known by the effects of it. You can't discern the wind just by seeing it.
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He's got the Spirit. She's got the Spirit. He doesn't have the Spirit. It's not like that. It's rather the effects of the
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Spirit, or to put it this way, the fruit of the Spirit. And it just so happens that you could have this beautiful titanium weather vane, precision crafted, milled with a
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CNC machine, not a spot of rust, perfectly straight, mounted on a building.
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Then maybe the next rooftop has one of those old 19th century rusty ones, something that probably Kenny would love to buy, some old antique.
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No one else sees the value in it but him. I'm just kidding. It's rusting. It's practically, it's a danger.
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It's gonna fall off the roof and, you know, kill someone. And here's this decrepit, rusty weather vane that's falling apart.
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And eyes of the flesh say, well we know the one that has the Spirit of God. We know the one that's polished, clean, vibrant, charismatic.
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We know the one that has everything going right. Clearly the Spirit of God is dwelling within them.
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Clearly that wind is blowing. But there's a problem. That titanium, that polished weather vane never budges.
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It's like a statue. The branches sway, tumbleweeds blow by, and no one has ever seen that titanium weather vane move a millimeter.
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But as that wind blows by, that old rusty decrepit weather vane that people would quickly forsake, it begins to rattle and to move from the wind.
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So you may think you're good, you're polished, the externals are clear.
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No one can really see inside the heart, right? That doesn't really matter to you anyway, so long as you're passing muster.
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But we look upon it and we see the Spirit of God is not moving in their life.
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There's no rattling, there's no shaking. We wish you were rusty and decrepit.
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If there'd be some movement of the Spirit of God, some impulse of life, that's what it looks like to walk in the
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Spirit. Walk in the Spirit, Paul says, Galatians 5 .16. Walk in the
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Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now if you're like me, you take that verse and you're looking for, all right, where's the little fine print here?
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That can't be true. There has to be more. Where are the strings attached to that? Where is the terms and conditions that I have to scroll 18 pages and click the little box?
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It couldn't be as simple as walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
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If it was that easy, I would have done that years ago. Now clearly that doesn't work. There's something more that's needed.
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I need that mountaintop experience. I need to go away for some special Vermont cabin retreat and there, in that mountaintop experience, there
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I'll finally be free from the lust of the flesh. Walking in Him, that's way too simple.
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It is that simple though. That's what Paul says. The problem is we want something else. We expect something different.
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It seems so easy. How could that possibly be? No, this should be some elaborate pursuit, some radical departure to a mountaintop moment.
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Only then could my flesh be subdued. Only then could I actually walk in strength or in glory or have peace.
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If it was just as easy as walking in the Spirit, well then I could do that tomorrow.
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I could do that today. Well, amen. Because that's the thing about walking in the
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Spirit. It's as simple as that. And yet that's the most difficult thing that you could ever do is to keep in step with the
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Spirit of God. Because the Spirit of God is moving in a way in the
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Christian's life that as you keep in step with the Spirit, the way of the flesh in the world and the devil is pulling you in another direction and it creates this chasm of warfare.
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And so it's as easy as walking in the Spirit and yet that's the most incredibly difficult thing a Christian can do is to keep in step with the
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Spirit. To walk in Him means to live in Him, abide in Him, dwell by Him, think upon Him, react, draw upon Him.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones depicts this folly, this poor logic.
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I've been waiting for years now for some experience to free me from the flesh. He says, my friend you'll go on waiting.
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Paul doesn't say you just keep grinding it out. Eventually that third year there'll be some amazing experience that happens and that's that's what will liberate you finally.
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In our despair as we're seeking to put sin under the dominion of the
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Spirit, in our despair we often think I've tried, I've resisted, I'm weak,
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I feel the power of this sin, the power of my flesh. Clearly I need something great, something grand, something out of the ordinary, something something radical and that's what
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Lloyd -Jones is getting at, my friend you'll go on waiting. The only way not to fulfill the lust of the flesh is to walk in the
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Spirit. Paul doesn't say anything more than that. You don't need to hear anything more than that.
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It's a daily walk, it's a daily seeking after, it's a daily taking up, a daily putting on and it's incredible when you actually find yourself walking in the
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Spirit and you see that grip of sin, that stain of sin, that power of sin vanquished in your life.
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Not perfectly but consistently, not utterly but progressively.
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I've always thought that I needed to have these grand cataclysmic moments in my life in order to be freed and even when
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I had great moments of bliss in communing with the Lord or going away and sitting under His Word in some special way that I prepared for and prayed after and worked toward, even that was only temporary.
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It lasted just a little while. The amazing moments in my life have been when the
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Spirit of God just says that's enough, that's enough fighting and you're just you're just walking in victory.
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This is what it means to walk in the Spirit and you realize in that moment if this has happened then everything in my life is by the
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Spirit of God. Everything, everything is by the Spirit of God. If you live according to the flesh you will die but if by the
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Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God these are the sons of God and you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear but you receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out
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Abba, Father. So again we have this contrast of evangelical obedience.
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Why is there not a bondage to fear? Because there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Why is there no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? Because those who are in Christ Jesus receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out
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Abba, Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have this spirit of adoption. We've become heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.
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The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Keeping in step with Him then grants you all of that assurance of who you are in Christ, of your hope in Christ, of your dwelling in Christ, of the benefits of Christ's redemption in your life.
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He applies them so faithfully, so graciously. He's a comforter. He's an encourager. He's the one who, as it were, casts the shadow of the
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Lord's wings over you. He's your buckler. Do you recognize, brother and sister, that every aspect of your walk is wholly dependent upon the
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Spirit of God? Every aspect. Every aspect. Lloyd Jones said of all his years of preaching, the give or take five months that he preached through those opening verses of Romans 8 were the sweetest and most joyful of his entire ministry.
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It was just recounting these basic truths that the Christian life is lived through Christ by the
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Spirit. You need nothing more. That is everything.
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To come to God through Christ by the Spirit. To pray to God through Christ by the
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Spirit. To be moved toward God through Christ by the Spirit. To walk in and through the
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Spirit. To dwell and commune with Christ by the Spirit. This is how we know that we abide in Him.
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This is how we know that He abides in us. By the Spirit whom He has given us. So we serve God acceptably through Christ by the
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Spirit. And then lastly and briefly, we serve God acceptably through Christ by the
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Spirit with one another. With one another. What the Spirit does when
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He inhabits our life, when we're keeping in step with Him, is He draws us into a corporate way of life.
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The way of the Spirit is not solitary reclusion. It's actually corporate participation.
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Fellowship. This is what the Spirit produces in the lives of sons and daughters. This household of God.
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Of course, what the Spirit produces, the very first fruit of the Spirit, is love. A day -old
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Christian has received that fruit. A day -old Christian knows what it means to, in a supernatural way, love other
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Christians. It's the first fruit to come. It's the last fruit to go. The problem is in the church, in the local church, we find it easier to love the
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Christians out there. Sometimes it's hard to love the Christians in here. But it ought to be a recognition that the love we feel naturally, the love that we are inclined to have toward brothers and sisters in the faith, is something that's produced by the
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Spirit. Where we lack that in this local body means we're not walking in the Spirit. To walk in the
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Spirit is to have this love, this bond of love, this bond of peace, this supernatural effervescent love toward brothers and sisters in the
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Lord. He's the Spirit of love. John Owen. Greg and I spent many months working through the third volume of Owen's works on the
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Spirit, and I looked through that again this week, just looking at some of my notes, and I just I wish
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I could just stay up here the rest of the day and just read Owen to you on the importance of the Spirit. One of the things that my mind was drawn to is he says he is the
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Spirit of love. He is love. All of his actings toward us are the fruits of love, and they all leave an impression of love upon our souls.
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You see, it's the love of God made manifest through Christ by the Spirit, and that way he's the
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Spirit of God's love. God is love, so the Spirit is love as well. And God's love toward us was such that he sent his
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Son to die in our place, and the Son sent the Spirit to apply that death to us. And so when we receive the
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Spirit who's sent by the Son from the will of the Father, there's this impressive love. We receive that love of God should have broadened our hearts.
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Romans 5 .5. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the
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Holy Spirit who was given to us. So the Spirit gives us this love of God, and it makes this deep impression.
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We become a partaker of that love, and now it must have an out. It must be communicated.
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It must be reciprocated, not only toward God, but toward others who are objects of his love, and even then toward those who are enemies.
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Anything less is not of the Spirit. We have to be very careful.
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We're in an election year, as our brother confessed and prayed. We have to be very careful. The rhetoric, the smirks, the cynicism, there's sort of this weird leather -skinned
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Reformed ethos that I find off -putting. It's sort of this subculture among Calvinists, where you sort of have to mock and tirade, and there's a place for that.
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There's a place for biting sarcasm. There's a place to mock idols. But that should not characterize every aspect of our walk, because then we become pundits rather than faithful Christians.
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I would do well to see that the so -called Gideons also be able to follow Paul's exhortation to lift up hands and pray for those in authority in every place.
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Seek to live in a peaceable way, because this is acceptable to God, he says. There can be a complete collapse of reverence, and with it, this sort of biting lack of love.
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And so you can listen to podcasts and interviews, and they can rail for 45 minutes with all sorts of invectives about the state of the culture, and not once have they mentioned
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Christ. That's a problem. They might as well be a talking head on Fox.
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That's not what a pulpit's for. That's not who Christians are. Read a letter from Paul. He can't go a sentence without saying
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Christ. In fact, he writes run -on sentences where he says Christ 20 times. His language, his thinking, his hope, his confidence, his joy, his pain, his yearning, all of it is bound up with Christ.
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I think there's wolves in the fleece of Christians, and I would say if they don't have the spirit of love, then they don't have the spirit of Christ.
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If they don't have the spirit of Christ, they're none of his. We have to be very careful, brothers and sisters, with these things, because it can bleed and infect into the
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Church of God. And the same divisions that we read in the New Testament begin to break out, and James would say, whence wars and fighting among you?
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This is not of the Spirit of God. Paul says to the
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Church in Romans 14, I know and I'm convinced by the Lord Jesus. There's nothing unclean of itself, but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it's unclean.
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In other words, never go against your conscience. Let your conscience be informed by the Word of God, but as Luther would maybe put it, it's neither right nor safe to go against your conscience.
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So here you stand. You can do no otherwise. Yet if your brothers grieve because of your food, you're no longer walking in love.
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Paul thinks of a church body being impressed by the Spirit of God in this way, that you would bend over backwards for the most minuscule things if it would mean your brother or sister would not be grieved.
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That's what the spirit of love does between Christians. Well, this is what, you know, this is how we do things, take it or leave it.
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Or I've already been kind and merciful enough. Paul says to walk in the love of the
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Spirit means you'll bend over backwards just so that they're not grieved. You don't want to see them perturbed.
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Therefore, do not let your good be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. He's saying when you get to that base level, you're just not thinking rightly.
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What does the Spirit of God do? It draws our minds to the higher things, the loftier things, the more noble things, the kingdom of God.
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And he says at that level, at that upper echelon, the kingdom of God isn't about food or table fellowship divided by food.
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The kingdom of God is ultimately about righteousness and peace and joy in the
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Holy Spirit. So where is righteousness, where is peace, where is joy come from in a
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Christian fellowship? How do we serve God acceptably through Christ by the Spirit together?
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That's how, with one another, with one another. Therefore, he says, let's pursue the things which make for peace, the things by which we may edify one another.
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Another variation on this, Ephesians 5, he says, you were once darkness, but now you are light in the
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Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit, most likely originally that's the fruit of light, is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.
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Do you see what happens when the Spirit of God moves in the midst of a people? How will you know a congregation of the
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Spirit, moved by the Spirit? It might be a rusty weather vane kind of congregation, not a lot going for it by appearance, but is there righteousness?
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Is there truth? Is there goodness? Is there a heartfelt concern, a sharing, a joy, a peace that suffuses row by row?
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Then that Spirit is indwelt, that congregation is indwelt by the Spirit of God. You can be assured we're to edify one another in this way.
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It's the fruit of the Spirit, which means to serve God acceptably, you cannot serve alone. Your righteousness, your peace, your joy, your gladness must be channeled toward edification.
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You must be about building up as living stones this dwelling place of the Spirit of God.
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That's what it means to serve. If we live in the Spirit, Paul says, let us walk in the
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Spirit. Again, what does that look like? Well, here it looks like this. If we live in the
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Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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That's what it looks like to walk in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit means I'm not conceited.
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I don't have a chilled feeling toward people in this body. Where I do, I repent of it.
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God, forgive me. That's from the pit, to think that way, to react that way, to have that outlook, forgive me,
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Lord. Not to be conceited, not to provoke one another. Let them come sit with me, you know,
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I don't play that way. Not to provoke one another, not to envy one another, not to sit across with a
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Swedish meatball on your fork, looking longingly at that other lunch table full of envy. And then
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Paul goes on to say, this is another way of walking in the Spirit, brethren, if someone's overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual, in other words, you who are filled with the
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Holy Spirit, you who have received this Spirit of love, what are you to do? You're to restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness and consider yourself lest you be tempted.
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Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. No wonder
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Paul could say, if you walk by the Spirit, you fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. This is what the
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Spirit of God would seek to do. Let him do it. Let him have his way. Keep in step with it.
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Where that light illuminates something that you're convicted about, some guilt, some tension that you bear toward others.
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Repent. Maybe that's something just in your own mind and heart you can do with the Lord. Maybe it shot its way out of the sides of your mouth and you need to also repent before your family.
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Maybe you have to go to the person. This is what the Spirit of God will compel you to do.
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This is what the Spirit does in our lives. Let me close with this.
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This is beautiful. This is from another Puritan, John Flavel. He says, if the people of God would diligently keep their hearts, right?
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Remember, now we've been given by the Spirit of God this heart of flesh. That stony heart, gone.
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The law now written by the Spirit of God on our heart. Now the Spirit indwelling, compelling, guiding.
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We're to walk by Him, walk in Him through Christ. And what's the result of that? We need to keep our hearts fleshly.
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Don't let them become stone. Don't let those outer layers ossify or calcify. We need to keep our hearts.
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Every issue of life depends upon it. If the people of God, Flavel says, would diligently keep their hearts, their communion with each other would be unspeakably inviting and profitable.
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Why do you have to keep your heart tender? Why do you have to recognize that part of the Spirit moving in your life is actually how you interact with and participate with one another?
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Why? For this reason. It is the fellowship which the people of God have with the
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Father and with the Son by the Spirit that kindles the desires of others to commune with them.
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What a picture that is. People don't like sitting around you. They like sitting around the communion that you're partaking of.
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Our brother Bruce Binney has such a great testimony in this regard. Whether you've known him a week or known him for a decade, he has a simple gladness.
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It's a spirit -wrought gladness. And you kind of want to be around him just to kind of get the scraps off the table.
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It's an impossible challenge. You could make a YouTube challenge out of try not to smile around Bruce Binney.
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It's so hard because he's just filled with this gladness and this love. And even his sorrow somehow has this silver lining of gladness.
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That's remarkable. That's what it looks like to have the Spirit of God. We participate in this communion with God and that enables and invites others into communion in the body.
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So if we're not having that drawing effect, the question is how is the Spirit of God dwelling in me?
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Am I communing with the Father and the Son in such a way that people want to commune with me? Because that's evident, that's inviting, that's palpable.
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I want some of that. I need some of that. If the saints would be persuaded to spend more time and take more pains about their hearts, there would be such a divine excellence in their walk that others would say it's no small privilege to be with them.
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But it is the pride, it is the passion, it is the worldliness of our hearts that has spoiled
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Christian fellowship. Whence come this uncharity amidst the brethren but from their ignorance?
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Why are they so rigid and unfeeling toward those who have fallen but because they don't know their own weakness, their own liability to temptation?
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Why is their discourse so light and unprofitable whenever they gather but because their hearts are earthly in vain?
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My brethren, these things have spoiled Christian fellowship. They have made it so dry and disgusting that even
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Christians are weary of it and therefore they seek in withdrawing happiness that the fellowship was meant to afford.
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You see what Flavel's saying? Where the Spirit of God is not like a stream in the desert of our flesh, just this atmosphere of peace and gladness, this celebration of grace.
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I come as one who despite my failings and sins I am accepted in the Beloved and here
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I am gathered with all those who are accepted in the Beloved and there's this atmosphere of gladness, celebration, peace, joy.
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This is what the kingdom of God consists in. And to lack that, as Flavel says, fellowship becomes dry, disgusting.
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We get tired of it. Do we really have to stay for lunch fellowship today? Can't we just leave?
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Go start the car. Let's make our way out. How are you gonna serve
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God acceptably? With one another. With one another. And that means walking by the
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Spirit, building and edifying one another, building up this dwelling place as a fellowship of His love.
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That's what edification is. That's what it requires. And so I close here. We serve God acceptably and that only happens when we serve
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God through Christ. That only happens by the Spirit and that has an effect with one another.
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Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your
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Word. Do this work in our midst, Lord. Do this work in our lives as David would pray,
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Lord. Do not take your Spirit from us, but rather give us your Spirit in far greater measure.
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Give us more of His ministry in our lives, Lord, guiding, compelling, convicting, illuminating, drawing us to the
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Blessed One, drawing us, Lord, to sit in the heavenly places with Christ our Savior, hiding us in Him, drawing us to the foot of the cross where we take refuge from all of our guilt, all of our stains, finding by your power and in your grace all that cleansing, all the way the wrinkles and the blemishes and the spots are covered over with the righteousness that was from you.
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We bless you, Lord. Even now we pray. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight,