Fellowship With God - [Matthew 5:8]

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When I was in seminary, I found out about this little animal called an ermine. How many people know what an ermine is?
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And an ermine is from Northern Europe and Asia, and it's a small little animal. And they have snow white fur in the winter.
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And as I read, I read that they instinctively protect that white coat no matter what.
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Hunters know that and take advantage of the ermine. They usually find its little burrow by a little rock or some little cleft area with a hole there.
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And they go and take all kinds of filth and dirt and mud and yuck and guck and paint it all around the hole of this little ermine's entrance.
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Hunters set their dogs loose, chase the ermine. The frightened animal flees towards home to try to run to safety, but sees the filth.
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Rather than soil his white coat, he gets trapped by the dogs, refusing to go into the filth, and loses his life because his purity is more important than his life.
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I wrote down in my notes, how much more should we, the children of Almighty God, desire purity in our lives?
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The road to heaven is along the road of purity. Do you know you were made to be pure?
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Do you know why that's why God elected people? Ephesians 1 .4 says, he has chosen us that we should be holy.
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Titus chapter 2 verse 14 says, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a particular people.
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Proverbs 22 .11 says, he who loves purity of heart and whose speech is gracious, the king is his friend.
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How much more the king of kings? If you have your Bibles, turn to Matthew chapter 5, as we're going through this, I think, life changing series on the
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Beatitudes. Lisa was singing about God loving us, by Calvary, I'm going to now show you that I love you by preaching the word to you.
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This is my expression of love to you, I'll preach the word to you. Matthew chapter 5 verses 3 and following are what we call the
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Beatitudes, statements of blessing by God. When men and women deserve to be cursed because of their sin, because of our sin in Adam and our own sin, yet God makes these eight declarations of blessing, approval statements of God instead of curses, blessings, but they are conditional.
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What are these conditions? And to review, we'll review the first several. By now, you probably have them memorized, don't you?
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What's the first Beatitude? Blessed are the second one. Blessed are those who...
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See, you're already memorizing Scripture. Do you know, beloved, as a side note, when you study the text deeply, you will memorize it even without trying to.
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You say, well, I can't memorize anything. If you study the text with detail and you're not in the,
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I've got to read through the Bible within a year mode and I don't even understand what I'm reading, but you want to understand it with depth and with study, you get to memorize
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Scripture. You don't even have to try. What's the third one? Blessed are those who...
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Blessed are the gentle, which would help if I would read my own notes, wouldn't it? Blessed are those who are approved of God in certain ways.
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Let's just review them in brevity. Beatitude number one, found in verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs and theirs alone, the
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Greek says, is the kingdom of heaven. God with an objective statement of approval says, these kind of people are blessed.
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These poor in spirit, the ones that have been on the side of God's grace that will allow them to say,
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I am nothing, I bring nothing to God. When I asked Frank, what did you contribute to your salvation?
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And Frank said, nothing, empty set, nil, zero, zed, I contribute nothing to my salvation.
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I receive salvation because you are the gracious God who works and who works alone and is all by the grace of God.
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And when God is working in the hearts of people and they realize that to be under the privilege of Messiah's reign is nothing but the gracious gift of God, God says,
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I approve that. Number two, the second beatitude is found in verse four, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
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And this is a very logical sequential sequence. This is not, well, first the blessed who mourn and then now he just throws out another random statement.
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No, this is something that is very logical. And on the intellectual side of verse three, I realize I'm nothing before God.
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Then it becomes emotional and then we mourn. Blessed are those who mourn because of their sin, personal grief, to be sad over sin, for they shall be comforted.
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God alone comforts. It is a loving of Jesus to tell us these things, is it not?
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Jesus could have just let us go our way, but it's love for him to tell us, you know, you're going the wrong way, you're wayward children and let me tell you the truth.
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The third beatitude is found in verse three, excuse me, in verse five. Blessed are the gentle for they shall inherit the earth.
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The gentle are the meek, are those who assess themselves properly by the spirit's enlightenment.
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They realize who they are. They have a proper self -assessment. When they look at their lives, they realize,
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I have nothing in my hands to bring to God. I have no personal merit and I realize
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I am what God says what I am. I'm powerless, I can't promote myself, not going to fool myself anymore.
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I know who I am. I'm a sinner needing salvation. And now the solution comes, number four, found in verse six.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. The first three realizing in our minds, we have no righteousness.
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Now there's a solution and we have Christ, the righteous one who imparts righteousness to all who believe.
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God credits Christ's righteousness to our account. He credits our sin to Christ's account.
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We get the great exchange. We are made righteous in God's eyes with a forensic judicial proclamation, a judgment, and now we have righteousness because someone else gave us his righteousness.
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Those people are blessed. Now the first four kind of talk about internal attitudes, thinking.
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We have a need and now we have this overflowing in our lives and it becomes not just vertical but now horizontal.
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Beatitude number five, blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. God changes you.
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He gives you a new life and changes the way you live. One of the first manifestations in our own lives as Christians starts off with mercy.
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Blessed are the merciful. I used to teach this the wrong way, true confessions. I like to teach my kids lots of things and here was an object lesson for my kids.
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If you disobey mom and dad and you need to get punishment, I want to teach you about the justice of God.
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God is a just God and if you disobey him, you get justice and justice in our family equates to the rod.
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Occasionally though I would say, you know what, mercy is not getting what you deserve so this particular time you disobeyed and you hit your sister or you pulled the dog's hair or whatever our rules were of not to do but instead of giving you justice, a spanking, we will not give you what you deserve so you don't have to have a spanking.
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You can get mercy. What one would you rather pick, children? You can imagine that on their tippy toes they were shouting out that they wanted to see justice prevail.
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I want mercy. I can just see my kids going, I want mercy dad and so for the longest time
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I've teaching our kids that mercy is not getting what you deserve and then occasionally there would be something that we would give them, it would be called grace.
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This one I still have right. They earned justice but you give them candy or you give them ice cream or you give them something else and if you get caught disobeying and you get an ice cream that would be grace but for the longest time
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I have taught that mercy is just not getting what you deserve where here mercy is so much more in the eyes of God in the
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Old Testament and in the New Testament as well. Mercy and you think of the Old Testament where it has said it is this active kindness of God.
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It's not just a feeling of kindness, it's acting on that kindness and it's not just well you deserve this and you're not going to get it but it's you deserve this and I'm going to in an active way with intentional kindness love on you.
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I'm not just going to feel sorry for you in trouble but I'm going to get inside of your skin and feel what you feel and I start thinking about the incarnation right away.
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God is not just up there saying oh you know this is all going wrong, they are sinning but God cloaking himself with humanity and coming to be the merciful and faithful high priest for us.
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Mercy is something that doesn't just say I'm going to get my calculator out and say this person did something to me and I'll say how much
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I can kind of give back based on this calculus plan. No as Joseph showed mercy we are to show mercy as well.
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If God takes those who have no spiritual worth, who mourn over their sin, who hunger and thirst after righteousness, who can't forward themselves, those kind of people he changes.
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He changes them into people who represent God and God is merciful and therefore we are to show mercy as well.
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God wasn't just sorry because of sin. Remember in Genesis chapter 6 he wasn't just sorry that he made man, he was sorry that he made man and then there was a plan of salvation.
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You say well when should I be merciful? To whom should I be merciful to? You look at the text it doesn't even tell you.
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It just says the kind of people that God changes are merciful in all kinds of different situations. Wasn't the real issue when and where in the situations but that you would be merciful.
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Active kindness towards others. And now in typical preaching fashion we come to the sixth beatitude and Martin Lloyd Jones says we come now to what is undoubtedly one of the greatest utterances to be found anywhere in the whole realm of scripture.
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He said that last week too. But when you're preaching you come to the new passage and you think this is my new favorite verse, this is so full.
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Beatitude number six and it's going to take us two weeks at least to get through this. Ten Greek words, I think we're going to do five this week, five next week.
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I didn't preach this last week because I didn't want to preach this new beatitude to 40 people. You look at the giving and you think well giving needed 6 ,000, giving given 1 ,000.
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It's probably 1 ,000 more than the rest of the churches in the area got combined. Here I didn't want to waste this, not that I didn't want to waste it on the 40 that were here but this is the sixth beatitude, it's just amazing.
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Just listen to the words. We just run by it quickly. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
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God. If that doesn't strike you as one of the most amazing statements in all of scripture.
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Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. I'll tell you this right now, no one can see
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God and live. So what do we do with this? Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
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God. Are you pure in heart? Do you have a desire to be?
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Well let me ask you several questions for our outline today to determine if you have a pure heart. We'll help you evaluate yourself and you can understand it.
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It'll just be a different way to have the outline today. Questions to ask yourselves to determine if you're pure in heart. Question number one, are you a
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Christian? Are you a Christian? These questions should convict us and motivate us and comfort us but the question number one to find out if you have a pure heart is to ask if you're a
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Christian. Are you born again? In our society there are
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Christians and there are born again Christians, aren't there? You almost have to explain the difference just like there are pastors and there are
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Bible teaching pastors. Whenever I meet someone now I just say, I'm a Bible teaching pastor because there are other pastors that don't teach the
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Bible. Well there are Christians and there are born again Christians. Frank who got baptized today, he calls sometimes people semi -Christians, meaning he doesn't call them that anymore,
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I made sure of that. They're kind of on the road, you think God is drawing them, you think
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God is moving in their lives but as one old preacher said, you're either a saint or you're an ain't.
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There's no in between. And this beatitude is going to talk about Christians who have pure hearts but you can't start off showing purity towards others and have purity in your own life if you're not a
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Christian to begin with. The first four beatitudes, the sequence shows
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God drawing the unbeliever. Now the last four beatitudes you see, the believer's life.
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Believers are merciful, believers are pure in heart, believers are peacemakers and believers are persecuted.
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Doesn't do any good to have a pure lifestyle if you're not a Christian. So are you a
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Christian? We're going to have to be pure in heart and have God save us knowing the diagnostic x -ray like vision of God to see in our heart.
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Listen to what our heart is like according to Jesus in Mark 7. This is an unbeliever's heart.
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He was saying that what proceeds out of the man is what defiles the man. From within, out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.
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All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. When our kids used to sin,
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I used to try to talk to them and I didn't want to just say what did you do and why did you do it?
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I used to try to say to them, well, you know why you sin? Is because you have a black heart. Remember that Haley?
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I have a black heart. Our heart's not really black, but out of a black sinful heart comes what?
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Sin. And we are going to be having to... We have to be cleansed of God. How can you see
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God if you're not pure in heart? Listen to Revelation 22, 14. Blessed are they that do
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His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are the black -hearted ones, the dogs and sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, those who love making lies.
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Nothing that is unclean or impure or has any undefiling touch in it shall enter into the heavenly
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Jerusalem. Commentator's right. Has to be a pure heart.
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I used to go to the operating room and they would take out lobes of people's lungs. Sometimes with lung cancer due to smoking and sometimes just lung cancer just without smoking and they'd open up the people and you just see within the chest cavity and they would take out this black, black section of lungs.
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I also found it was very interesting because the same nurses that stood next to me as we took out a section of someone's lungs, immediately at their break got themselves changed and went outside to smoke cigarettes after looking at that, but that's another sermon.
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Like I always say, the Bible doesn't say you can't take a bunch of leaves and dry them out and put them in your mouth, light them on fire and inhale.
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It doesn't say that at all. I don't think it's the wisest thing, but how quickly we digress.
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This is not just black because of some kind of physical cancer. This is a spiritual cancer that eats away.
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I was shocked when I read Ivan Turgenev's, the 19th century Russian novelist.
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He said this, I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I do know what the heart of a good man is like and it's terrible.
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We're fallen. We're in Adam. We were shaped in iniquity and in our mother's womb, we were conceived in sin as Psalm 51 says.
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And so we need the God of the universe to take what was unclean and make it clean, to take something not pure and make it pure.
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God regenerates us. He makes us born again. Acts chapter 15 verse 9, it says, God purified their hearts by faith, taking the pagans and giving them new hearts, giving us new life, new nature by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the
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Holy Spirit, Titus says, I like this sweet refrain, it was the same love that spread the feast, that sweetly forced me in, else
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I had still refused to taste and perished in my sin. God, this great
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God of the universe says, these people are unclean and I'll make them pure. I'll give them a new heart, a new nature, a new will, new motivations, new affections.
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I'll make them a new creation in Christ. And out of that new heart, people can do pure things. So the reason why
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I asked, number one, are you a Christian? You can't be the kind of pure in heart person in chapter five until you're a
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Christian. If you try to be ethically clean without internal purity, it's going to be futile.
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So question number one, are you born again? Question number two, are you morally pure? Are you morally pure, ethically, practically?
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Look at the text again, Matthew 5, 8, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the katharos, does that sound familiar?
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That's the Greek word, katharos, what's that sound like? Catheter, cleanses, because it takes the bad stuff out, cathartic, this is the word that means to clean.
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This is free from every kind of filth and dirty, sinful thing, anything that kind of soils or adulterates.
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It was used physically of something having a pure cup in Matthew 23.
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It was used of a person who is bathed, is clean all over in John 13. But this is more spiritual, this is free from moral guilt, free from all kinds of sin.
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You say, well, how can I be sinless then? Are you talking about sinless perfection? Well, of course
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I am. No, I'm not, I'm just saying if you're awake. First John 1, 8 says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and what?
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The truth is not in us. So what is he saying? If you're free from sin, but yet we still have sin, I think that's a test of a
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Christian by the way, don't you? Saying that we do have a pure heart, but we know we're burdened with impurity and we want it gone.
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Like Romans 7, for what I'm doing I do not understand, for I'm not practicing what I'd like to do, but I'm doing the very thing
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I hate. God, the Son, Jesus Christ says, blessed are those who have ethical, moral, practical purity.
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Did you know it is God's will for your life to be pure if you're a Christian? First Thessalonians 4, verse 3, for this is the will of God, your what?
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Sanctification, specifically their sexual sanctification, but let's keep probing this a little bit more.
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Question number one, are you a Christian? Question number two, are you morally pure? Question number three, and here's going to be a tough one for our church.
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Question number three, are you pure on the inside? You know what I like about God's word? It's like going to the dentist.
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You think, what does that have to do with anything? I went to the dentist the other day, I was eating some candy and I thought, this candy is not supposed to have big chunks in it.
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I thought, I got chunks of stuff in here, it's like the flaky kind of candy.
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Anyway, I just was chewing and one of the fillings kind of came out a little bit and had to go into the dentist. And one thing about the dentist though, they fix a little problem.
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While they're in there, they see a few other things, and then a few other things and you go in for the $50 deal and all of a sudden you're walking out trying to figure out how do you budget two crowns.
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That didn't happen, but that often happens. And here you get into God's word, you think, God, I want to be pure,
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I want to be blessed, I want to be a vessel for you, I want to be a sharp sword.
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Robert Murray McShane used to say, a holy minister, a pure minister, is like a sharp sword in the hand of God.
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God, use me, I want to be like that. And all of a sudden, God begins to examine us and it's for our own good.
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Question number three is, are you pure on the inside? This is the kind of not purity of life on the external, but do you see the text?
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Pure in heart. Remember the circumstances? The Pharisees are all around and the
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Pharisees are pomp and circumstance, all external show. We tithe seeds, we pray when people are watching only, and it's just this whole big thing.
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Look at us all, external piety and ceremonial cleanliness and just...
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That's not pomp and circumstance, but that's the Olympics, but it was that kind of song. External praying and tithing.
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Purity of heart, what Jesus is after is never I conform to the rules, I do the external things.
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I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke cigarettes, I don't chew tobacco,
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I don't go to R -rated movies, I don't listen to heavy metal rock music,
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I don't send my kids to public school, I have my kids on a feeding schedule,
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I don't have my kids on a feeding schedule, I don't put my elbows on the table, my kids say, yes ma 'am, no sir, my kids go to private
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Christian school, I go to church, I go to church business meetings even. Now all those may or may not have some merit, but it's never an issue of external conformity to rules that Jesus says,
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I approve. If we conform to external rules because it's motivated from a heart that wants to please
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God, well, of course that's fine. And right here we have a problem because in our society we think of head knowledge and heart knowledge.
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A Jew would never think that way and neither would a Greek person. And here's how it manifests itself in our society. Have you accept
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Jesus in your heart? We're not even sure what heart is. People say, well, I have a lot of head knowledge, but I don't have a lot of heart knowledge.
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How many times have you heard that said? Heart could mean physical organ, we think heart means kind of emotional, but to the
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Jew and to the Greek, this head knowledge versus heart knowledge is all bunk. What does he mean pure in heart?
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Here heart is used as a metaphor to talk about all you are, the seat of emotions, the seat of your will, the seat of your understanding, the seat of your attitudes, the seat of your motives.
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I can prove it. Listen to these verses, Proverbs 23, 7. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
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Matthew 9, 4. Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? Jesus said. Proverbs 4, 23.
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Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.
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The word here, cardia, is everything that you are, not just well.
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You need to be pure here, but not really up here. No, in every area, at the core. It's like a mission control center.
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That's why Deuteronomy 10, 16 says, so circumcise your heart. True or false?
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God demands truth in the inward parts. Psalm 51. Well, I'll give you the answer true then.
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It's a verse. Man looks on the outside, but the Lord looks upon the heart.
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It's exactly right. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and the outside of the dish, but the inside, they're full of robbery and self -indulgence.
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You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
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So you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
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And it's so easy to do the right thing externally, isn't it? And it's partly easy because I found some of these that were just floating around in my mind.
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We have the Christian yellow pages. You can do all your business with just Christian. We have
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Christian roller skating times. You just roller skate with other Christians. Do they do the hokey pokey in that?
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Christian knitting clubs we could have. Christian online dating. Reducing our
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Christian life and love for the Lord with a bunch of dos and don'ts. That's what the
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Pharisees did. Versus our heart wanting to be pure before God.
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And then, of course, spilling off into doing the right things. Want a bunch of anarchists.
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Listen to what Thomas Watson, the Puritan, said, a Christian's great care should be to keep the heart pure, as one would especially preserve the spring from being poisoned.
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In a duel, a man will chiefly guard and fence his heart. So a wise
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Christian should, above all things, keep his heart pure. Take heed that the love of sin does not get in there, lest it prove more.
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Why do you do what you do? That's the real question. If it's purity of heart, some of the things we do,
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I don't care if you use the Christian yellow pages or not, but it's easy in the church environment to act like a
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Christian, walk like a Christian, talk like a Christian. We go to Sunday school. We go to Sunday night. We go to prayer meeting. If the motives are,
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God, this is a worship for you, then certainly that's good. Let's keep going. It even gets tougher, as it were.
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Question number four. Number one, are you a Christian? Number two, are you morally pure? Number three, are you pure on the inside?
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Number four, are you single -minded when it comes to worshiping God? Do you have tunnel vision saying,
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I worship God? He's my end. He's my all in all. I have blinders on like they put on horses, and I follow and yearn and seek after him.
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Blessed are the pure in heart. Now, typically we think, well, that just means kind of holy and not involved in some kind of spoiling sins.
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But it also means, according to every commentator and every lexicographer, that it means not just free from sin, but on a positive aspect, a single -minded devotion to God.
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I think of Olympic athletes. For four years, and maybe longer, focused with undivided attention, saying,
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I'm going to be absorbed in my goal. It's the exact same thing here. Hate to quote a man who didn't love
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Christianity, but he was right. Soren Kierkegaard said, purity of heart is to will one thing.
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Sinclair Ferguson said, being pure in heart means letting nothing stand in the way of our vision of Christ.
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Dedicated, undivided devotion, single -mindedness. How about this,
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James 4, 8? Purify your hearts, you double -minded. The pure hearts are single -focused when the unpure hearts have double minds.
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Makes me think of John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress, where he wrote about a man named Mr. Facing, both ways.
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Now, we think, scholars think, this comes right from Psalm 24. If you keep your finger on Matthew 5, let's just zip backwards to Psalm 24 and see this psalm where we have the direct allusion of the psalm into Matthew chapter 5.
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Jesus, of course, knew the psalms and loved the psalms. And here, I believe he's pulling right from Psalm 24.
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If we take a look at it, I think it will help us see this single -eyed, sincere, devoted mindset of worshiping
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Christ. Psalm 24, verse 1, the earth is
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Yahweh's and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it.
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For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who may ascend into the hill of the
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Lord and who may stand in his holy place? The pilgrim would be coming to Jerusalem, walking for miles and miles and miles.
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Three times a year, the males would have to go there for the feast, and you'd walk and you'd walk and you'd walk, and finally, you'd look over the ridge of the hill and you'd see
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Jerusalem and you'd think, happy day, I get to go worship, I get to go stand before God.
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And then the heart being smitten, thinking how unworthy
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I must be. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who's going to stand in his holy place?
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I know I'm sinful, I know God's holy, I'm longing to see this place and now when I enter into the throne room of God, as it were, into the temple area, how could
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I do this? Verse 4 goes on to tell us, do you see the comparison in Matthew 5?
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He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood, or NIV translates it, idol or vanity, and is not sworn deceitfully.
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Clean hands and a pure heart and who has not lifted his soul up to worship something else, to go after this idol or that idol.
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Complete loyalty to the Lord with heart, soul, mind, and strength, thou shall have no other gods before me.
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Look at verse 5, there's the blessing language. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the
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God of his salvation. No distractions, full service and an internal desire just to please
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God, single -minded focus. You could ask yourself, does God have my whole heart?
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Does God have my absolute allegiance? Do I long to worship
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God and he's number one? What gives me the most pleasure? What do you love?
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Do you know hypocrites have double hearts? Psalm 12 says, with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. I want some spiritual
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Caleb's around here, that's what I want to be. Numbers 14, 24, but my servant
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Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed me fully.
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Somebody that follows God with just everything that they've got. No turning back. Did you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
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I have my notes, no religious schizophrenia. We are his slave, he is our master and we with full allegiance just say,
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God, I might not be a missionary, but you have bought me with a price and I'm all yours and I'm going to worship you.
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Single -minded, seek ye first the kingdom of God. It reminds me of Elijah in 1 Kings 18.
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Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the
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Lord is God, follow him. If Baal is God, follow him. And the people did not answer him a word.
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Literally, how long will you hop between two forks? How long will you kind of hop between two twigs?
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These are the two options. You've got to go for a full blast with single -minded devotion or anything less is not right.
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Spiritual fence sitters. Matthew 12, 30, Jesus said, he who is not with me is against me.
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How about this one? This one rocked my world the first time I read it and it still does. 1 Corinthians 16, 22.
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If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. Unless it's this blazing love and affection.
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And you know the thing about it with Israel? They didn't just say, God, you're not God. You didn't take us out from the
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Red Sea and Pharaoh and all that stuff and feed us in the wilderness and the quail and the man and all that. You didn't do all that.
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But we'll just take a little bit of what God does, Yahweh, and a little bit of what Baal does. And by the way, he's good for fertility and crops and everything else.
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And if God doesn't help us and he maybe needs a little help or he doesn't do what we want, then maybe we've got
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Baal. It wasn't just, well, God is not God. It was this synergistic view of God.
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Israel's sin was not totally rejecting God. It was combining this with Baal.
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Matthew 6, 24, though, says, In Christ's words, no one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other.
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One commentary said, It was not good to try to walk the fence worshiping two gods. Apparently the Israelites thought if Yahweh let them down, they could turn to Baal and vice versa.
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Elijah was saying that if there's one God and true God, the others are false and they should not be followed.
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But the true God should be followed wholeheartedly. And they should forget about the impotent imposter.
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The people could not argue with the statement. They said nothing. And I like Augustine when he said,
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If you're a Christian and you want to be pure, you should have a core simplex, C -O -R, a heart without foals.
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That's what Jesus is calling us to. A heart without foals. No backup plans.
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Turn to Colossians chapter 3 and it gives you a little idea of the same thing here in the Pauline Epistle, Colossians chapter 3.
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Pure in heart is not just I live a holy life, but I'm with single -minded devotion trying to please
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God. That's what I live for. It's not my hobby. It's not my job. It's not my wife.
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It's not my kids. It's not anything else. It's not my education. But I'm here to please God. And as I do that, the other things will all fall in line.
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I guess I could ask you, what motivates you? What do you live for? What's your life? You ever seen those bumper stickers on the back of cars?
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I live to... The ones I usually see on bumper stickers say what? I guess you're looking at different cars than I'm looking at.
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I live to shop. I live to golf. Yeah, that might be a good one, too. You don't have one on your car, though.
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All right. Paul's no different than Jesus, who is no different than the psalmist.
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If God made us and God has redeemed us, then shouldn't it be logical and shouldn't it be normal for us to say,
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I will follow you with my entire life. My life, my kids. I don't know about you, but I am banking my eternal destiny and my children's eternal destiny, as it were, everything
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I own, everything I think about, the things that are most precious to me, I am banking on, let's use a biblical word,
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I am trusting that Yahweh is who he says he is and Jesus did what he said he did and Jesus will come back like he said he would come back and I'm banking hell and heaven on the promises of God.
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And if I think that, then certainly it should filter its way into my life. Work's not bad.
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If you don't work, you shouldn't eat. But when work comes alongside of God and you think, here's my little
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Baal God work, my little Baal God career, my little Baal God hobby and here's
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God and this kind of starts making my affection to God kind of slack off, we have the word of God and the love of God to tell us, well, we can't do that.
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Remember, think. That's exactly what Paul says here to the church at Colossae. Look at verses 1 through 4,
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Colossians chapter 3. I would call this almost an amplification in an epistle of what
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Jesus was saying about the single -minded determined worship that we should have for God.
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Verse 1, If then you have been raised up with Christ, we have been raised up with Christ, yes.
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If you've been raised up with Christ, if you were dead in trespasses and sins, then what should you do?
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Keep seeking the things that you used to seek. That just sounds funny.
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Keep seeking the things above. What things are those? Where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
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I find this interesting in Colossians. First two chapters about doctrine, the second two chapters about practice and before he says, here's how to have a good marriage, here's how to take care of your kids, here's how you should act towards your spouse, here's how you should act towards your work, here's how you should act towards other
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Christians, I want your mind, and he says, before any other relationship, social, work relationship, family relationship, before you do anything else, have a proper focus, proper single -minded desire, tunnel vision like, and it's an imperative command, over and over and over, keep seeking heaven and where Christ is.
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Bishop Lightfoot said, cease to concentrate your energies, your thoughts on mundane ordinances and realize your new and heavenly life.
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And we, myself included, we run, we're so busy, have you ever thought of your life, it's just so busy, you can't even really stop and think,
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I mean, hither and thither and back and forth and pell -mell and every place hectic, with a pursuit, with a driving effort, with not just I'm going to try to discover, but I'm going to discover and I'm going to grab it, this kind of word comes with this focus, seeking
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Christ, because if we don't seek Christ, we'll seek something else, education, work, sports, fun, or we'll become idle, listen to what
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J .C. Ryle said, idleness is the devil's best friend, it is the surest way to give him an opportunity of doing us harm, an idle mind is like an open door, and if Satan does not enter in by himself, it'll be certain that he will throw in something to raise bad thoughts in our soul, no created being was ever meant to be idle, this is what
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I call my lazy boy quote, ever seen those lazy boy recliners? I guess not,
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I'm kidding, service and work is appointed portion of every creature of God, the angels in heaven work, they are the
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Lord's ministering servants, ever doing His will, Adam in paradise had work, he was appointed to dress the garden of Eden and to keep it, the redeemed saints in glory will have work, they rest not day and night singing praise and glory to God, and man weak sinful man must have something to do, or his soul will soon get into an unhealthy state, we must have our hands filled and our minds occupied with something, or else our imaginations will soon ferment and breed mischief, doesn't he deserve it, the text says in verse 1, he's sitting at the supreme place of honor, that deserves our habitual constant seeking, it should, that's what
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Paul is calling us to, not just practically but mentally, look at verse 2, set your mind, all one word, on things above, not on the things that are on earth, keep thinking about those things, what do you dream about, what do you think about when you're driving down the road, a large place of one's thoughts,
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Paul says they should be thinking of God, of Christ, what He's done, how about this verse,
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Psalm 73, 25, Whom have I in heaven but thee, and besides thee
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I desire nothing on earth, can you say that, blessed are the pure in heart, that's exactly what
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Jesus is talking about, certainly we stumble and sin but like a compass, you take a compass and you shake it all around, and set it down, that north still goes north, after the shaking, 1
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John 2, 15, it says, do not love the world nor the things in the world, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father's not in him, we think about those things, but they're not our aim, they're not our master, they're not our goal, like David Brainerd, burnt himself out for God at 29 years old, he wrote this poem about the world, and how he didn't care about it anymore,
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Christ was too big for him, farewell vain world, my soul can bid adieu, my
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Savior's taught me to abandon you, your charms may gratify a sensual mind, not please a soul holy for God designed, forbear to entice, cease then my soul to call, to fix through grace my
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God shall be my all, while he thus lets me heavenly glories view, your beauties fade, my heart's no room for you, fixing our eyes on Jesus, that's what it's about, and look at verse 3, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God, how could we have all our practical and mental pursuits for Jesus Christ, well it gives us two reasons here, number one, you're dead, well that's kind of interesting,
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Warren Wiersbe told of two sisters who loved to go to dances and wild parties in the day, they were converted and found new life in Christ, and they got a little
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RSVP, and they sent it back with these words, we regret that we cannot attend because we recently died, that was the old life, we're dead and also we can, we have the protection, our life is hidden with God in Christ, we have the freedom now to do that,
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I love what he says, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God, and then he says in verse 4, he gives more motivation to do the same thing, when
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Christ who is our life is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory, a motivation of seeking
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God and having single minded focus, because we're going to be with God one day, the future manifestation of Christ in glory, and don't you love what he says in verse 4, you fill in the blank, when
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Christ who is our life, what's your life, blank is my life, sports, spouse, wanting to get a spouse, children, what's your life, and Paul says for me
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I've got single minded focus, the day that I met Jesus on the Damascus road, and he blinded me with that light, and I was off to go murder and kill, and make
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Christians blaspheme, and God interrupted me, he arrested me, and since that day I have been able to do nothing, except follow
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Jesus, he's my life, and by the way he's coming back, and I'm going to be revealed with him in glory, this may sound weird to you, but Ecclesiastes confirms it, is it better to go to a wedding, or is it better to go to a funeral, which one do you learn more from,
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I don't like to do weddings that much, because at least when I preach, it's more word centered, but weddings
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I do all the talking, and if anybody messes anything up, it's going to be me, and I'm going to blow their big day, and so there's lots of reasons, why
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I don't want to do weddings, and everybody's there, I think the first wedding, let's see, first wedding
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I ever did, I had so much sweat, I couldn't really read my baptismal papers, because they're just soaking, I introduced
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Dave and Kelly Keller, as Dave and Kelly Kelly, and you just get nervous, there's something about doing a funeral, and you walk over, and you see the body that's laying there, and you think, today's the day, when
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I bury people, I say to myself, I never ever want to be the same, I never want to say to myself,
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I'm just going to live the life I do, and we used to have churches, in New England especially, and guess where they put the cemeteries, in New England churches, right at the church, tell me how your worship, would be affected this way, when you drive up to the church, and there's the cemetery right over there,
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I guess you couldn't drive back in those days, but we'd have to drive through the cemetery, to get to the parking lot, there's mom, there's dad, there's a brother, there's a baby, there's all your friends, and you would realize, we are made to worship
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God, and one day, even this day, could be our very last day, it changes everything, it changes absolutely everything, and what we have done, and we've moved the cemeteries, off to kind of sleeping meadow lane, fontanel forest, trouble happens in our lives, trials happen in our lives, and when there's a funeral,
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I just think to myself, God I want to live for you, God I want you to have my whole heart, God I'm not very strong,
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I'm not very intellectual, I'm not very mighty, but you can use people like me, and God I want to be your servant, and I want to preach, and anybody that'll listen,
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I'll preach to, it's not a matter of how large it is, the people, it's just who is out there, that needs to hear the word of God, and God I want to preach for you,
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I want to minister for you, single minded devotion, the pure in heart they shall see
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God, we don't have time to get into that now, but can you imagine, the sight of seeing
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God, is going to be our last motivation, to say God I want to live that life, because I'm going to see you one day,
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I get to see you face to face, we're going to learn about next week, that motivates me,
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I was with my mother when she died, and everyone else left the room, and they shut the curtains, and they said you can just stay here, for as long as you like with your mom, and I just wanted to just be there with her,
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I thought, she's gone, she's in heaven, and I just would look at her, I thought
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I'm just going to hold her hand, until she just gets cold, I just want to be there, I don't want to be kind of weird about it, but she's my mom, and I'm just going to stay here, so I just sat,
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I called Kim, and called Grandma Evie, and I don't know even why
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I did it, but at the very end, probably four hours later, and she was cold, and I thought this is just a shell of a body,
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I went over, and I opened up her eyelids, because I thought, I'm never going to see my mom's eyes again,
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I'm never going to see them again, I'm going to look just one last time, so I just kind of opened her eyelids, just to see, and she always had this kind of vein right here, this kind of little bloody thing, and I just wanted to see the details of her eyes, and I just looked right in her eyes,
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I almost looked around like, I hope nobody's looking at me, because this is such a strange thing, my mom's dead body, and I'm prying her eyes open,
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I'm the pastor, she goes, excuse me, there's nothing in there, they were far away, not even looking through me, they just were these two things, just kind of marbles, and in those last few hours, mom would just kind of lay there, in the morphine haze of everything, you just think, oh, and have to kind of keep her mouth wet, and she would say, now don't unplug the things yet, don't unplug them, say, okay, mom, we're not going to unplug anything yet, and finally at the end, just kind of the morphine groggy, okay, and I love you, and I told my mom to live as Christ, and to die as gain, and then that second that she died, can you imagine those morphine laced eyes, physically gone, and then the pure insight, seeing
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God the next second, it's amazing to me, and here
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I was bawling my head off, and their mom was in the stream, and radiance, and majesty of God, because God had made her pure, and granted her faith in Jesus Christ, and she could see
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God, and we're going to look more next week, about what it means, when you see
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God face to face, let's pray, father, thank you for our day today, thank you that we could worship you, and understand your word more,
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Lord I would pray, that you would give each of us, a reminder today, that today might be the day, today might be the day, that we die and see you face to face, that we'll be in your presence, and as you have told your beloved servant
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John, that gives us, not only a healthy view of life, but it also sanctifies us, because we want to be pure like Christ is, we want to be ready to meet him,
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Lord I don't want to try to manipulate with emotions, but I do want to be able to realize, the greatness of what it might be, to see your face one day, whatever that trial might be, and then glory, but in the meantime
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Lord, we'll need your spirit's grace and power, to work in our lives, so we could live with single -minded devotion, for your son, he deserves it, and Lord we are weak, and we are lacking, so Lord what you command, now we'd ask that you'd enable us to do, that we could have a desire,
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I pray that the church, might be morally pure, that we would have pure doctrine, we'd have pure relationships, that you would keep the membership, and certainly the leadership, far away from adultery and fornication, and the obvious impurities, but Lord help our minds to be pure, when it comes to the world, and with the world system, how the world thinks, and help us
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Lord, to see our wives, our children, our friends, our job, our career, our hobby, all in light of you, you have bought us with a price, and Lord we want to have our resolution firm, to worship you, and to worship you alone, we want to be like Jesus Christ, who loved you father, with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength,