The Paradigm Of (Gospel) Inheritance

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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The Old Testament reading of God's Word Is from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 6 if you please stand with me in honor of God's Word In the pew

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Bible it is on page 151 Deuteronomy chapter 6 starting verse 10

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Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers

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Abraham Isaac and Jacob to give you great and splendid cities, which you did not build and houses full of all good things, which you did not fill and Hewn cisterns which you did not dig vineyards and olive trees

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Which you did not plant and you shall eat and be satisfied Then watch yourself least you forget the

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Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery You shall fear only the

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Lord your God and you shall worship him and swear by his name You shall not follow other gods any of the gods of the peoples who surround you

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For the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God Otherwise the anger of the

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Lord your God will be kindled against you and he will wipe you off the face of the earth The New Testament reading this morning is

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Romans chapter 14 verse 17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking

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But of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. You may be seated. Well, good morning it

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Feels great to be back. It's been Feels like forever the

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I was planning on being gone for two weeks in a row, but then I had that illness that 102 temperature that Tim stepped in for me at the 11th hour, which

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I'm appreciative of and so now I Returned before you and plan on preaching that same sermon.

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I was planning on doing that that day and I'm grateful to be back I asked you to open your

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Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5, please To the book of Ephesians chapter 5.

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I'll read 5 verses 5 through 7 and we'll go to the Lord in prayer

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Ephesians 5 verse 5 for you may be sure of this that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or Who's covetous that is an idolater has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God Comes upon the sons of disobedience.

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Let us pray. Well Father in heaven. I ask that Your word would be open before us

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Lord and our hearts would he would be ready to receive it Lord, I pray that You would use me as your your mouthpiece as an imperfect one, but Lord you delight to use weak vessels.

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And so I pray Lord that your spirit would be among us and that you would Help me to proclaim your truth and your word would be received by unbelievers and the

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Saints alike So that Christ would be glorified and believed upon and the process of sanctification would be furthered

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We pray for this man in Jordan God There are many enemies of Christ Lord and we pray for their salvation, but if it's not your will for them to be saved we we ask

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God that you would Cause them to fall into the traps that they have made that you would cause them to To fail in their mission to stop the spread of the gospel that you would

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Lord see fit to break their plans God in heaven. I pray that you would strengthen this man to preach the gospel in Harsh circumstances both abroad and in his own home.

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I Pray God that you would help him to Stay steadfast to you and faithful to you because you have proven to be such a faithful Savior not only to him

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But to the church at large So I pray Lord that we would even learn from that that we would see that although we may not have persecutions like he has

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Right now we know That we have the persecution of sin that constantly lays before us in our own hearts

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And may we prove to be just as much of a fighter as he is right now to hate the system of the devil wherever it may reveal itself whether it's in the

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Antichrist of the false prophet Muhammad and his followers or If it's

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Lord again in the world system That's before us and secularism and and all the temptations that sin of sin that comes with it

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May we Lord hate the works of the devil love the works of Christ and cling to him as our

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Savior Champion and leader we thank you for his great work And may we look to him to you now in Jesus name.

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Amen Well, if you remember where we have been in Ephesians 5 we have been talking about the imperative land and the good land of the imperatives the

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Land that Jesus Christ is open to us by his grace and mercy That is he has this land of commandments as from Jesus our

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Lord And he's opened the way to it by his grace by his blood by his resurrection So that we no longer have to live according to the world according to sin

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But now we have this land of imperatives commandments of Jesus opened up to us that we get to enjoy here in Ephesians 5 and if you remember we talked about how despite this beautiful reality beautiful land beautiful truth

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That these temptations to sin come And we can be joyfully enjoying

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Christ in this land and all of a sudden a temptation to sin drops right in front of us

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And becomes so massive so big even though it's completely against everything that Jesus has done for us

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But here it is before us and it looks so pleasing the temptation to sin looks so good

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Even though we know of the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan this temptation to sin looks far too good to ignore

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And if you remember we talked about how Paul in Ephesians 5

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He kind of brings us up and gives us the perspective Remember the perspective is is that temptation although it looks like life and goodness and everything you want

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And think about that feeling you have you know the feeling when that temptation to sin is before you

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Paul says but look where it leads to it actually leads to it is

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Idolatry and it leads to wrath It is not going to lead you to the inheritance of the kingdom and so then with that perspective you come back down You see that temptation and it's supposed to shrink in size as you see

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Oh, I know what's behind this and it causes you to say I will not go Now it's at this juncture

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I want to pause for a Lord's Day for a sermon and I kind of want to do a topical well,

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I do want to do a topical I am gonna do a topical message and What I want to answer and it's gonna seem almost silly.

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But why is The inheritance of the kingdom of Christ and God.

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Why is that better than idolatry and wrath? I know what you're thinking. Well, come on.

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We just know it is We just know it's better to be in the inheritance than idolatry and wrath

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But in the moment of temptation when you give into it, you know what you're saying Idolatry wrath is actually better here and so we might think right now as we're all good

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Christians sitting, you know with our ties and polos and Dresses and everything that well, we know that the inheritance of Christ is better than idolatry and wrath

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But yet when we give in to that temptation to sin We are saying quite the opposite and I want to get fundamentally why is the good?

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Inheritance of Christ better than idolatry and God's wrath

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This is what I want to answer and I want to answer it and with three major phases of the sermon

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It'll be the paradigm of inheritance the paradigm of Idolatry and the paradigm of gospel inheritance

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So again, why is kingdom inheritance better than idolatry and wrath because of the paradigm of inheritance of?

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idolatry and the paradigm of gospel Inheritance so begin to begin with this.

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Let's start with the paradigm of inheritance. What does that look like? What is that? Well, I think it's good to start

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Look at again Psalm Psalm 16 11 go there Psalm 16 11

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And and I want to begin with the paradigm of inheritance to answer. The initial question is what is it that we all want?

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So so and Psalm 16 11 I think it answers that question very well

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And the question is is what is it that we all every single one of us wants now?

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I know it's it's it's hard to believe that in our society as Polarizing as it is the most polarized it's been since the

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Civil War perhaps that we could actually Commonly say we all want the same thing. I know it's hard to believe that but we are all made by God And we all do want the same thing believe it or not, whether you're a liberal a conservative

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Republican a Democrat Female male, whatever race you are. We all want the same thing and we see that in Psalm 16 verse 11 when the psalmist says you make known to me the path of life in your

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Presence there is fullness of joy and at your right hand.

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Oh God our pleasures forever more You see we all want you see those three main words there life joy and pleasures

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We all want that no matter who you are you and we all want life joy and Pleasure we all want life in our soul

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We all want joy in our hearts and we all want pleasure in our senses

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That is a universal desire of all of humanity And I think a helpful way to describe this in order to understand the paradigm of inheritance is to understand that these three things

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Collectively are called good We all want goodness. We want what's good

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All things being considered are all things being equal life is good.

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Death is bad Joy is good Sadness is bad Pleasure is good.

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Pain is bad We all understand these things and it's important to understand that collectively

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These things are called good and it's important to understand that they collectively all come from God who is goodness himself

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Look at what the psalm 1611 says once more you make known to me the path of life.

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Who is that? That's God He says in your presence. There's fullness of joy at your right hand our pleasures forever more

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We all want goodness or good and it only comes from God who is goodness himself

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When you see a sunrise come up, we say that is good, but it's not goodness itself It has received good properties, but it's not goodness itself

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Every single thing that you see good around you. It's not goodness itself It comes forth from the

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God who is goodness himself And so as we consider the paradigm of inheritance consider

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We all want we all want to inherit what is good and since God is goodness himself

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We can only receive it from his right hand And so that's what's laid out before us right now.

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We have God goodness himself We have us who wants goodness But there's a problem if that's all there is

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God goodness or goodness God and us and that's all there is there's no way for it To intermingle.

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There's no way for it to come together for God is far beyond us His thoughts are not our thoughts

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This he's a being a eternal being that we cannot even fathom or come close to So that's all this is

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God goodness in humanity. There would be no hope for us to receive any goodness What do

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I mean by that? We'll look at the scriptures to underline that Isaiah 55 8 and 9 for my thoughts

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God says are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts your thoughts

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He's far beyond us So if we are looking for the inheritance and we see

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God is goodness himself and we are humans There is no way those things connect

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But it's not as if we don't receive goodness why Because since God is so good. He has done something for us so that we can receive his goodness

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He has made a medium for us to receive it. He has made creation Think of it this way

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You know We've had some pretty good hot spells this summer and last summer and and imagine in the middle of a hot spell your little little

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Toddler is really really thirsty. He really needs a drink of water Let's say you're in an area where there's just not water around and he's really needing it and all you had was a fire hose

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It'd be very difficult for you to give him a drink of water with that fire hose. It'd be too much

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It would come gushing forth to him. It would knock him over It would be impossible for him to get the drink that you want him to get he would need some kind of medium or some kind of tool to get the

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Abundance of the water out of the fire hose into his mouth. He would need like a sippy cup

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You know he would need a cup and Preferably a sippy thing on it because if you've ever seen a young toddler try to drink from a cup of water

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It is torturous. They can't do it. And so he would need a nice medium. He would need a cup He would need a sippy cup

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He would need the water all the water coming forth from the hydrant in that cup so he could then enjoy the goodness of the

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Water and it's the same as us. We have all the goodness found in God He's so eternally rich and abundant and all that but we need a medium a middle thing a tool

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For us to receive that goodness and creation is that thing God has given for us to enjoy that goodness

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Have you ever noticed in Genesis 1 how often God declares it to be good

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Right six times. He's making creation doing all these things on these days and each time says this is good.

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This is good This is the same thing we're talking about right now God was on a mission to make a very good creation that would reflect his eternal goodness of itself

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You understand that he's good of himself and he says I'm gonna make a creation to reveal that But notice it goes from this is good.

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Good. Good. Good good to very good when what? When man was put when female when man and woman was put in that creation to drink up that goodness

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You see creation wasn't very good until until man and woman made in his image was put in there to receive that goodness

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That's what made creation very good The whole tell us the whole purpose of Genesis 1 is to say

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I'm gonna make a very good creation That reflects my eternal goodness and put man and woman in it so they can drink of my goodness in there and therefore it is

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Very good Now it's very important though for man to Use creation rightly

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For man to use creation rightly to be in creation and to use it rightly It's a very very important aspect that we see in Genesis 2 25

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When Moses writes and the man and his wife were both in this good creation. They were both in it naked and not ashamed

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All right, those words. I know as toddlers. We kind of as kids we joke about that but to be naked and unashamed

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Was vital for them to be able to drink up the goodness of creation around them that God poured into it they must be naked and Unashamed within God's good creation in order to use it rightly to experience the good

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God who is eternally above them This is the paradigm of inheritance In fact, we have a little paradigm going on if you can imagine it in your head you have

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God Right you have God and eternal goodness and then you have creation as the great medium as a tool and then you have man who?

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Can drink of God's goodness in creation creation doesn't be isn't an end of itself

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But it's a means to an end to enjoy the goodness of God. So you see that paradigm in your head

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God Creation man, or if we go the other way as men and women we think a man here

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We are this is who we are we you have your being right around you you have creation Surrounding you and the whole point of this creation surround you is for you to understand and to enjoy the abundant eternal perfect Goodness, that is

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God above you. There's a whole purpose of everything So what's the then paradigm practice within this paradigm?

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What's the practice of the paradigm? Well as Adam and Eve walked this creation without guilt or shame

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They had life in their souls joy in their heart and pleasure in their senses

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Every square inch of creation revealed to them the goodness of God and their souls

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Received it perfectly Imagine that imagine that existence for a moment every square inch was used to enjoy the goodness of God Imagine that every blade of grass every chirping bird every rustling leaf every sunray every

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Conversation every Adam Causing joyful and pleasurable worship to God Imagine that existence for a moment

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Everyone wants that existence Everyone wants life joy and pleasure and they are even willing to abuse alcohol drugs and each other in order to get it

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That's why they're doing it Yet it is God's good pleasure to give it as an inheritance in his creation

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It is a simple thing really sin what it does is it makes everything complicated, but really

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God says it's a very simple thing I made creation to reveal my goodness and then I put you in it to drink my goodness

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That's simple, but we complicate it with sin as we'll get to in a moment. This is the inheritance of This is the paradigm of the inheritance.

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This was the purpose all along And so what happened because that's not reality is it that is far that'd be beautiful wouldn't it?

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Imagine all the problems float away because everyone is too busy enjoying God in creation every square inch

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We used to be annoyed with God to be annoyed with our circumstances Imagine that paradigm and its practice what in the world

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Happened. Why are we here? Well in order to explain that we must understand the paradigm of idolatry

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We must understand the paradigm of idolatry This is what Paul says in Ephesians 5 those who are idolatrous will not inherit the kingdom

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There is a paradigm of adultery that happens and so generally speaking to understand it

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You remember that paradigm God creation man? You remember that paradigm? Well the paradigm of idolatry is say hey

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Cut God out You still got a good creation and just enjoy the good creation without God being annoyance

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You get what I'm saying? Just cut God out. The creation is good itself Just enjoy the good creation itself.

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Enjoy it as an end. That doesn't need to be a means to God Just cut God out and let it be an end itself

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This is the paradigm of idolatry to treat something else as God who is not

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God And this is the paradigm of adultery again It is to cut God out and say we can enjoy the good creation of itself

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You ever notice that's exactly how the first sin happened It was a drawing a wedge between Adam and Eve and God Genesis 3 6

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Go ahead and go there. Go ahead and go there. Genesis 3 6 Look at look at the goodness of creation, but then the wedge is being created

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You remember the serpent comes and says hey You know God didn't really mean this

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Not eat the fruit He didn't really mean that In verse 6 we see so when the woman saw that the tree was what bad

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No Even though it was told not to he was she was told not to eat it didn't make creation bad

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And it make it bad at all. No, it was good It was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise

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She took up its fruit and ate you see the problem is it was a great tree great fruit good

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God made all things good But what made it not good support, you know in a certain respect as God said you will not eat of this one

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And what God is doing there is he's saying are you going to treat my good creation as if it's God? Are you going to do that Adam and Eve?

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Are you gonna do that humanity? Are you going to treat this good thing that I've done to reveal my goodness so you can treat me as God in it?

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Are you instead going to treat this as God by disobeying my command and taking of the goodness of creation as if you can enjoy

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It without me. That's exactly what this temptation to sin is doing. It's saying will you treat this fruit as an idol?

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And we know that Adam and Eve did as we just read they saw the goodness of it They saw it was delightful.

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And so they took it and treated it as an idol They said that we can have the goodness of creation without God himself.

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And so what happens well Goodbye to naked and not ashamed Goodbye to that necessary Important thing for Adam and Eve to have to be naked and unashamed

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Goodbye to that with their sin against the eternally good God Look at verse 7 of Genesis 3 then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked

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Bye -bye, that's gone and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths

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And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid

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Themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Goodbye to naked and unashamed now

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They are full of shame now. They have become idolatrous now. They have fallen in a sin No longer is that beautiful inheritance paradigm intact of God creation man man creation

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God now there is a creation and man kicking God to the curb so to speak and Then this has the result of what we see all around us with us

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Adam and Eve's offspring, doesn't it? Romans 1 20 go to Romans 1 24 and 25 we see the the how this has implications for us here in light of The paradigm inheritance paradigm of idolatry

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Romans 1 24 and 25

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Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity

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Right our hearts should desire after God and all creation instead. The lusts of impurity is that I can use creation of itself.

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That is damnable sinful lusts To the dishonoring he goes on to say of their bodies among themselves

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Romans 1 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the what?

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Not the Creator the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever

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Amen, they have become a doll. We have become idolaters. This is seen the paradigm of Idolatry that we would treat the creation as if it's the as if an end of itself as if it's

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God itself And you see the trip up because it is a good creation God has made it good for the purpose that he would reveal his goodness

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But we take it and we say ah, I can have God with this all by itself

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And so if you look at Romans 3 10 through 12 We see Paul go on to say as it is written

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Romans 3 10 none is righteous No, not one. No one understands.

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No one seeks for God We should be every square inch of creation saying

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I want to take that and seek my God How is he displaying himself in this? How is he revealing himself in this?

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I want to know him through this right? That should be our whole life existence right there But what

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Paul says is no one seeks for God All have turned aside and together they have become worthless.

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No one does good. No, not even one In fact, he says in verse 18. There is no fear of God before their eyes

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You know what? That means that everything that we see before it should create an awe in us

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Wow, look at the way God has revealed his goodness here. Praise God for this

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That that fear is that of Amazement that that equals worship in every square inch of creation and Paul says there is no fear of God before the offspring

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Of Adam and Eve's eyes. In fact, I don't know who's this is It's a Sunday school thing for children, but it says what does it mean?

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I just saw it on the ground What does it mean to fear God? It does not mean to be afraid of God or mistrust him

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It actually means quite the opposite for those who belong to God this fear means trusting in God and Responding to him in awe and worship because of who he is and what he has done for us.

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Boom right there Exactly what we're talking about here That is what we should be doing the paradigm of inheritance is that fear of God and all every square inch of creation

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But in the paradigm of idolatry, there is no fear of God before their eyes

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Psalm 16 for you remember 1611 we described that we use that to describe what everyone wants joy joy life joy and pleasure sit in the same psalm and 16 -4 the psalmist says the sorrows of those who run after another

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God idolatry shall multiply That's their end. There's a paradigm of Idolatry the practice of this paradigm

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Right, what is the practice of this paradigm? where the practice of the inheritance paradigm is to use every ounce of creation to enjoy the good

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God and the paradigm of Idolatry and I want to say this as smooth as possible because I don't even like my notes here

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But in the paradigm of idolatry Satan uses just as much of the goodness of God's creation to make sin

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Look appetizing you get what I'm saying there. No, we're talking about temptation here That's the overall and we had this big temptation before us, right?

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And we see that that temptation really it's just Satan saying hey use creation without God here You'll be happy and what he does is he uses just the reason why it looks good to us one region

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I should say is that Satan uses just as much goodness of creation in Order to make that sin look nice and pleasing

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We can think again the context of Ephesians 5 is sex. Sex is a great example of that Right.

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God has made sex to be good feels wonderful It's great, right in a lot of different ways and Satan says hey use that in a way

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That's unlawful to God and you'll really enjoy life and we see there's this conviction within you you you all know someone who is

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Many people who they think that the goodness found in sex is to do it with whoever you want in whatever way you want

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Right, and so they they kind of twist the goodness of that activity in a way that dishonors

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God And so now all the goodness of it is gone Right And if you really think about it much of our temptation to sin if you if you really think hard about what you should

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You'll see that there's something good that is about it at its nucleus

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Typically, right? It's just now Satan saying and I'm gonna twist that goodness and disobedience to God and it'll lead you to death

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But he won't tell you that part He'll just try to showcase the goodness of it in some capacity While he's trying to lead you to death

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And the examples could go on right alcohol alcohol is given to us by God as a gift That doesn't mean everyone should be doing it

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Don't look don't hear that But there is no doubt that God has given us alcohol as a gift and if we use it and worship to him

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It is treated it is used as such but how easy is it to twist that good thing and to?

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Disobedience to God as if it's an end to itself and then it becomes a great curse

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So that is what? Temptation is Satan using God's good creation as an end itself and he makes it since it's good creation

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He makes it look just good enough for us to want to grab hold of it But since it's using disobedience to God it leads to God's wrath not inheritance

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God is way too good to let us use his good creation in a way that disobeys him and what

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God does is he Replaces inheritance with it with his wrath and what wrath is is a sucking away of his goodness

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He says if you're going to use this in a way that disobeys me I'm going to take the goodness away from it

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And I'm just going to put wrath in its place and what you see happen is that wrath comes in part today

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That's why people are miserable in their sin and it comes in completion and eternity when in hell

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There is no more goodness left in creation for them It is only his angry wrath no more good to enjoy no more sin to enjoy just simply

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God's wrath This is the inheritance of idolatry wrath in part today

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Taken away of the goodness in part today and a full taking away in eternity

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So what is the solution? What do we have here before us the paradigm of inheritance paradigm a paradigm of idolatry?

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We're in this paradigm of idolatry state. What is the answer for us? Is it to try even harder to avoid idolatry and overcome temptation to sin?

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Okay, fine Then I just got to use everything to glorify God. I really got to get good and strong at this No, the days of being naked and without shame are long gone

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That is not open to us anymore. That will only lead to more and more shame

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No We need the clothing of the one who succeeded where Adam and us where we failed

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We need the paradigm of gospel inheritance Jesus had no wedge

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Between him and the father as he walked this creation. Yeah, no wedge

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No Nothing in between nothing hindering his good relation with the father and the inheritance of the kingdom therein

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He had no wedge there we look at Matthew 3 16 17 when

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Jesus was baptized and immediately when he went up from the water and behold the heavens were opened to him and he saw the

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Spirit of God descending like A dove and coming to rest on him and behold a voice from heaven said This is my beloved son with whom

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I am well pleased The father was well pleased with the son we see the same thing whenever with the transfiguration where Jesus is up on the mountain and What does the father say?

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I am well pleased with my son and John 8 29 Jesus says and he who sent me that is the father is with me.

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He is with me He has not left me alone for I always Always always always do the things that are pleasing to him.

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No wedge between Jesus and the father and it was Jesus was pleased with God as well.

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It went both ways He says my foods to do the will of him who sent me to accomplish his work

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There was no wedge between Jesus and the father Jesus did not fail when tempted to use creation separate from God and We needed that as well

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You understand when Satan came and tempted Jesus what Satan was doing is use this creation separate from the father

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Just like he tempted Adam and Eve the bread, right? It was God's will the Holy Spirit sent him into the desert too fast

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It was not God's will for him to eat of the creation the good creation of bread and what does Satan do?

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You're Messiah, you're the son of God Change this rocket to bread and eat it use this creation outside of will the father enjoy creation without him and of course our

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Champion succeeded when he told him that man does not live off bread alone man lives by God You cannot enjoy this without God What about the kingdom right?

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I'll give you all this kingdom Satan says the world. I'll give you the world I'll give you this kingdom simply bow down to me.

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You don't need to bow down to the father You don't need to do what he wants you to do. You can enjoy these kingdoms of the world creation without him

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And what does he say? You are to worship God and God alone he succeeded where he was tempted to use creation without God the father and If it was just that he could just say haha.

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I did it and you can't you losers But Jesus also did the work of the cross and resurrection to put that inheritance on us beloved

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Isaiah 64 6 says we have all become like one who is unclean all our righteousness deeds are like a polluted garment

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We all fade like a leaf and and all our iniquities like the wind take us away 2nd

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Corinthians 5 21 says for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become

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The righteousness of God we might put on the righteousness of God Philippians 3 9 and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law

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But that which comes through faith in Christ the righteousness from God that depends on faith Revelation 3 5 the one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments no longer naked

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No longer ashamed, but rather clothed with the garments that Jesus provides by his

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Accomplishments and I will never blot out his name out of the book of life I will confess his name before my father and before his angels

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Revelation 19 8 it was granted the church to clothe herself With fine linen bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the

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Saints when we became blind to God's goodness through our

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Idolatry God the Son took on flesh to reveal eternal goodness in the flesh

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When we became ignorant to what true humanity is in this good creation God has created

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God the Son creator of all things entered into true humanity to reveal what godly inheritance looks like When our nakedness became a great source of weakness and shame under the heavy weight of idolatrous pursuits

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God the Son Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior knitted together a pure garment for us to cover our shame and Empower our weakness a garment made of his blood sweat and tears when the paradigm was broken because We cut

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God out of his creation So to speak our God entered into the creation himself to restore the paradigm to a gospel inheritance

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So what's the paradigm practice? What do we practice in this paradigm? What does that look like?

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Well look at Galatians 2 20 look at Galatians 2 20 This is the practice of this blessed gospel inheritance driven by our

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Lord Galatians 2 20 is our blessed practice

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Paul says I Have been crucified with Christ It is no longer

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I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life. I now live in the flesh.

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I Live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me so the paradigm practice is everything

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I do now is to live in obedient faith to my Beautiful Savior who has done great things for me your whole life becomes one of practicing

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Faith in this one who has done all for you You Remember the paradigm practice of the inheritance at the beginning was using creation to enjoy

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God's goodness The paradigm practice of idolatry is using creation as an end itself through temptation to sin

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But the paradigm practice of gospel inheritance is using temptation to show your faith in Jesus Yes, as you build a habit of seeing that temptation and saying this is going to be used as an act of faith that I cannot receive

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The good things of this world without God I'm gonna place my faith in Jesus instead of grabbing hold of the sin as you build a habit of that in your life

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You get the inheritance of the kingdom in part today and in full in eternity so instead of receiving wrath in part today and In eternity as you place your faith in Jesus in light of that temptation to sin you've received an

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Inheritance in part today and full in eternity. What does that mean an inheritance in part today?

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You start growing in maturity and sensitivity to the most common and basic blessings around you

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It is in our sin you all we all know don't you when you are in a grumbling sinful state?

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Nothing looks pleasurable around you all the goodness around you has been sucked dry by your sin, hasn't it?

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You know the feeling but then all of a sudden if you're living in obedience to Jesus Forsaking sin as you do that and so mature as you as you do that as a common practice of your life

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Forsaking sin for faith in Jesus Christ all of a sudden in your maturity in the Lord all these little things of creation around you

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You grow in your appreciation of it You grow in your love for it

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This is an inheritance in part that Jesus can provide you today All the longing of the heart is found in faith in Jesus Christ as he returns us to that Inheritance of the kingdom life in part today.

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Well, I was taking a walk at the LaRue Park there because of my I have this thing if I'm in my office too long

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I had nothing like just my heart gets hardened and I just yeah, my mind doesn't work It's it's you know, and so it just helps to go on walks

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It helps to get out and enjoy God's creation and I just in the LaRue Park and there's those mature trees where Joel and Libby got married if you were there and and you could just hear it's like a

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Orchestra the leaves just just rustling and just sound like a bunch of worship to God It's not like a crowd like as if you're in a sporting event

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It was all like a like a great like loud noise to the Lord And it's like it reminded me that that as Christ you mature in the

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Lord all these things to become attuned to it You're like wow, the goodness of God is there He's there in ways

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I never even noticed before in my sin as I gave into that as if that would provide the inheritance No, the goodness of God is there and you become all the more sensitive to it

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As you forsake the temptation to sin and faith in Jesus Christ you receive the inheritance in part today and beloved

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There is a hope for us that in eternity. We will receive it in completion.

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There will be no more battle No more fights. No more temptations before us it'll simply be a passive receiving of the goodness of God as Christ is there as our eyesight sees him in the center of the city

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John Owen, I was reading him recently. He was saying that faith is good. Faith is wonderful. It is our

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Our only hope in this life that we have but there's going to be a time that comes that comes where faith will just be

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A memory we will no longer have the would need for faith We will have our eyesight of Christ himself and we'll just receive goodness upon goodness upon goodness upon goodness

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How do you view your temptations to sin in the land of the imperatives today

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Look at them look at them as an opportunity from God Look at your temptations to sin as an opportunity from God to reveal your faith in Jesus Christ Through which you will receive the inheritance of God in part today with the hope to receive it in full and eternity

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Let us pray. Oh Father in heaven. I thank you that you have an answer to everything We consider what

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Jesus what the what Satan has done with sin The beautiful creation set before us

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That you poured your goodness into abundantly like a cup overflowing with drink

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And you place this in creation so that we would then receive that drink and be satisfied

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But the deceiver The liar Satan he said that we can find

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Our goodness by rejecting you and just using creation as an end Lord I want to thank you that you in this paradigm of idolatry

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Oh God the Son you put on flesh and you entered in to become goodness to us right before our very eyes

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And Lord in this kingdom you forgive us of our sins and you place your righteousness upon us so that as we face

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These temptations to sin to follow in the foot steps of Adam and Eve To be idolatrous as they were we instead can live by faith in Jesus Christ and reject the passions of the flesh and Receive the inheritance that Christ has set up for us in part today

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That we would enjoy this good creation around us be sensitive to the many blessings that you have overflowing even in the cursed state

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And Lord we long for the day when Jesus returns Where he will judge all wicked doing all sin will be dealt with finally and will be dealt with according to grace

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They'll be no longer any temptation and sin no longer any battle instead We will just receive goodness upon goodness upon goodness.

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Oh Lord Will you help us to remember this have this perspective when we are faced with temptations to sin even today?

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Would you give us this perspective so that we would see there is no good in this and I have something better in Jesus I shall follow him

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Will you cause that to be what's in our mind as Followers of Jesus and for those who are before me who are listening even right now

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And they are not followers of Jesus. Would you cause them to see that Jesus is better than anything they could even imagine?

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That sin will always let them down. It's not just well I have a bad luck these last few months.

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It will always let them down, but Jesus never will I pray that you'd give them that conviction and they would repent of their sins and Follow Christ so that they can receive the gospel inheritance as well

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So that collectively together will say praise be to our Lord who has done good things for people that do not deserve it