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A Higher Standard

You can build honest relationships and grow in practical faith, no matter your past or current struggles.

Keith Cohl takes you through Jesus' lessons on anger, making peace, being pure, marriage, and honesty. He shows how you can find belonging, healing, and growth when you follow God's plan for His family. His stories from the Bible and daily life show how working together, accepting others, and taking personal responsibility can bring hope and real change.

Pursue forgiveness, reject judgment, and live out your faith with authenticity and humility.

Key Insights

  1. Unity and reconciliation matter more than external worship or rituals.
  2. Purity begins in the heart and requires practical boundaries.
  3. Marriage is meant to shape your character and holiness, not just happiness.
  4. The Holy Spirit empowers you for obedience and growth beyond your own strength.

https://springhousemidweek.captivate.fm/episode/the-sermon-of-sermons-part-3

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Gathering Times

  • Sundays, 9:00 AM
  • Sundays, 11:00 AM
  • Thursdays, 6:00 PM

Contact Info

Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167

615-459-3421

CCLI License 2070006

Transcript
Speaker:

Hey, guys. We're heading into Palm Sunday, and then

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right after that, there's going to be Easter, and then

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we have My Goodwin coming. Then we have a

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newcomers luncheon. We just have a lot of things going on

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that I'm excited about. But tonight I'm

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excited because we're going to have the

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opportunity to listen to Keith Cohl tonight. And here's what I know about

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Keith. I know that he is a student of the

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Word. And when you have somebody who loves to read the Word

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and doesn't just skim it, he is

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detailed in what he knows and what he's experienced in the

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Word. If I have a history question about the Word or if

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I had something that I wanted to know about Israel or.

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Because he's been there and he's walked and he's been in all of the places

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and he's researched them, and anybody who sat under his teaching knows this.

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I am just encouraged, number one, by your

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willingness, Keith, to share what the Lord's shown

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you for so long, just a small portion of what the Lord has shown

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you. And I'm so grateful that we have such a

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stellar group of teachers in this house,

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of which Keith Cohl is not the least. So,

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Keith, if you would come and share with us. Would y' all extend your hands?

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Wait till you get close. I'll put my hand on your shoulder, because I can.

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Because he's my best friend's husband. Father God, I

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thank you so much for Keith. And I thank you for the gift and the

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anointing that he carries. I thank you, Lord, for the reservoir

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of knowledge and wisdom that he carries. And I thank

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you, Lord, for the love for the Word that he carries. And I

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pray that that would be imparted to us tonight that we would hunger after

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your word the way that my brother does. Give us teachable hearts

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tonight and cover him, I pray, in Jesus name.

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Amen. Thank you. Well, good

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evening, everybody.

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Got a long set of passage here, 21 through

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37. So what I'd like to do, it went

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away, come back. Oh, there we go.

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I'm going to go ahead and read through it. You all can sit

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down. It's too long to stand up. And as the

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Lord leads, if you want to read along, you can. If not,

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you have heard that it was said of those of old, you shall not murder,

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and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say

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to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.

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Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And who

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says, you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

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So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there,

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remember your brother has something against you. Leave your gift

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there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your

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brother and then come and offer your gift.

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Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with

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him to court. Lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the

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judge to the guard and you be put in prison. Truly, I

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say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penalty.

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You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But

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I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has

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already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.

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For it's better that you lose one of your members than that your

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whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand

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causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better

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that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go

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into hell. It was also said, whoever divorces his

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wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to

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you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the grounds of sexual

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immorality makes her commit adultery. And whoever

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marries a divorced woman commits adultery

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again. You have heard it said to those of old.

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You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord

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what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at

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all. Either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the

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earth, for it is a footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the

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city of the great king. And do not take an

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oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.

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Let me say some. Let what you say be

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simply yes or no. Anything more than this

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comes from evil. Father, I thank you for

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tonight. I thank you for your word, Holy Spirit. You know what

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I prepared. You know what's in my heart to speak. But Lord, even at this

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time, if you decide to take this somewhere completely different,

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I bow your wish. I thank you for your word.

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And I thank you for tonight. In Jesus name.

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All right. Have you ever asked yourself. We're talking about the Sermon on the

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Mount, right? Have you ever asked yourself the question why a mountain?

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Was there a reason? I mean, it's

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easy to say. Maybe it was because it was

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tall place and they could l people could be out in below

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him and could hear him. I don't

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think so. You see, Jesus never did anything

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without a Purpose. Everything he did was

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pointed at something. Matthew,

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in his Gospel, he does a very good

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job of showing a parallel between Jesus and. And

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Moses and the children of Israel.

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He did that. I think Brother Eric last week

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shared Matthew 5:17 with us.

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Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have

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not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. In

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our Western way of thinking, we think of the word fulfill like, okay, I can

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check off that box. I did this, I did that. I did this.

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That's not what Jesus is doing here. There's a.

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There's a Hebrew verb called la chaim, and what

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it means is Jesus came to do

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the law or to redo prophetic history.

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He's going to do it correctly. And I've got to give you

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a little story on how that works out. Rabbi

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might tell a story along the lines of, a man

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ran into his enemy on the street. His enemy's donkey had fallen into

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a pit. He helped his enemy get the donkey out of the

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pit, and thus he fulfilled the law of love your

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neighbor as yourself. He did it. Jesus

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came to do the law and to do it correctly.

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Matthew, there's quite a few parallels. I'm going to put them up on the.

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Up on the overhead. Don't be afraid, because I'm going to

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be going through them pretty quickly. But all the references

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are on those papers that I gave you. And I would

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encourage you of this one thing. What did Paul say about the Bereans?

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They were more nobler than the Thessalonicans because they went

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and checked everything that Paul said. I'm giving you those

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scriptures. Check me. Please. Get in the

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habit. I don't care who's up here, whoever's teaching,

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check against the book. All

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right, let's start. Okay.

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Both Jesus and Moses escaped being murdered as an infant.

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Remember, Pharaoh tried to kill all the firstborn Hebrew children.

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And Herod the Great, the grandfather of the Herod

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that put Jesus, helped put Jesus on the cross. He tried to kill

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all the boys. Two years old and under.

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They both go down to Egypt and return. Now, Moses was born in

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Egypt, but after he killed the Egyptian, he fled

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to the. To the wilderness, to Midian, for 40 years. And God called him

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back. And then God called him out. Jesus

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was. Joseph was told to take Jesus down to Egypt.

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And then at the right time, he said, those who are looking to kill the

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child are gone. Come on back.

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Both enter and arise from a body of water before their time in

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the wilderness, the children of Israel went through the Red Sea, Jesus

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went through the baptism and immediately entered into the wilderness.

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Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, were tempted and

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failed. For 40 years, Jesus

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was in the wilderness, was tempted and resisted 40 days and nights

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without sin in the exact same

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situations that the Israelites failed.

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This brings us to why he was on a mountain.

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Moses biggest moment was

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when he came down from Mount Sinai with the words

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of the law, or as, as the ancient Jews

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to refer to the Torah as the teachings.

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And that's a, that's an important, an important idea, the

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teachings. Because it's so easy. I know when we read through

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the Bible, we get to Leviticus and Deuteronomy and we fast forward

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because, oh, it's just boring. You know, laws, rules and

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regulations. I want you

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to try to look at it a different way. I want you to try to

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look at it a different way. What was God attempting to

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do with the Israelites first when he gave them the

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law? Well, first off, he had a RAGTAG group

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of 12 very dysfunctional families,

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clans that God is going to try to form

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into a nation, into a people. Okay? He's going to try

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to form them. And you have to understand that a

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Jew was not just a nationality and it was not just a

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religion. It was all encompassing. Every bit about

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you was Jewish. Okay?

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But it was supposed to teach them first and foremost how

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they were supposed to relate to God, this

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relationship here, then how they were supposed to relate with each

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other, and then how they were supposed to relate

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to those outside of Israel.

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And it was to give them a sense of identity.

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6 says, for you are a people holy to the Lord your

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God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people of his

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treasured possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the

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earth,

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What does the Lord, what does the Word say about us? What does the Lord

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say about us? Oh, let me, let me, let me back up. I,

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I jumped ahead. I'm struggling to work. I usually

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have my computer and I do the advancing and I have everything right here. So

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now I'm splitting and I'm not good at that. I'm old.

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Why did was God so concerned with the rest of the nations if

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Israel was his chosen nation? This passage out of First

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Kings, the occasion for it was when Solomon was

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dedicating the temple in Jerusalem. And he said this,

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he said, likewise, when a foreigner who is not of your people,

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Israel, comes from a far country for your name's sake,

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for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand,

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and of your outstretched arm when he comes and prays towards

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this house here in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to

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all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the

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peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do

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your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built

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is called by your name.

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People were going to hear the Israelites by how they

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behaved with each other, how they behaved with the world

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out them outside of them, how they related to to

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God was meant to draw

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these nations in, draw them in

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to God. So.

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Mount us first Peter 2. 9 says, and tell me if

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this doesn't sound like Deuteronomy, for you are our chosen race, a

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royal priesthood, a holy nation of people for his possession, own possession,

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that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called

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you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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Acts 1 8. Pastor Wayne talked about it

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quite a bit in the 12. It says that because we

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have received the Holy Spirit, we are witnesses.

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We are witnesses. Who we are is a witness.

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I heard somebody say one time, share the gospel, if necessary, use

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words. Our lives are

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supposed to reach out to people. How they see us, how we re,

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how they, how we react to each other, the love that we share with

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each other, the difference that's between us,

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the fact that we're supposed to be peculiar.

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See, how we act with each other is all part of

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abiding. When something

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is grafted into a vine, it becomes

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one with the entire vine. When we

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get grafted in to Christ, we get

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something that we didn't have before. Surprise. It's a family.

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It's a whole family. And it's very important to God how

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we interact with as believers. Because the rest of the world

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is watching, whether you think they are or not.

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This is the true note of the church. Not miracles,

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not formularies, not numbers, but love. Tertullian,

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who was an early church father, said, the working of such love

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puts a brand upon us. For see, say the heathen, how they

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love one another.

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And of course Jesus said, let your light shine

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before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in

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heaven. That was a long preamble to get to where we're going.

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But I think it's necessary. Let's look at, try

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to look at the what I'm going to say, all these rules and

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regulations. It appears that he's giving to us. And understand

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that this is Jesus expressing the Father's heart. For how

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he wants his kids to behave, what he wants his children

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to be characterized by. As you have heard it said that the

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ancients were told, you shall not commit murder, and whoever commits

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murder shall be liable to the court. Okay, some of you, if

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you're reading in the King James, it says kill. Let's

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dispel that right now. It does not mean kill. It

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means murder. It means to be premeditative.

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If it. If. If it was kill, then

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several things would. Would be out of kilter with the word. One was

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if you accidentally killed someone in ancient Israel, you could

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flee to a city of refuge and be safe from the

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avenger of blood, the person who was going to seek after you to kill

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you. And you would stay there either until the year of jubilee

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or until the current high priest died. If

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the word was kill, why would you protect them?

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So often? I've heard. See, I grew up in a military home. Oh, by the

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way, before I go any further. Hi, mom. My

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mom's watching tonight. She's 93 years old.

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Love you, mom. But I grew up in a

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military home, and my father was plagued for

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most of his life by the fact of the thousands of people that he killed.

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That. That was not what this verse is speaking of.

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And the reason I say that is, if that is so,

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then God is guilty of his own. His own sin.

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Because God was the one that told the Israelites when they took the

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land, destroy every man, woman, child and animal.

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God was the one when the kings would say, should I go up against

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so and so the Philistines or the one of the ites,

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somebody caught it anyway when.

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When God told him to do that. And God said, yes, go up against them.

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He was telling them to go kill them.

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So it's good to kind of

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know a little bit of the. What the culture meant in those

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days. So then we go on. But I say to you

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that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.

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And whoever say to shall say to his brother, raca shall

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be guilty before the supreme court. And whoever shall say, you fool,

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shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Okay,

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here we go. The very first thing. The.

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The first, angry with your brother. Now, some of your

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Bibles may say, without cause or without a cause.

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That phrase was not in most of the ancient

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manuscripts. Most Bible scholars believe it was added

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later. As a side note. It was a marginal note.

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I think it stands to reason, because the Bible does talk about

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the anger of man, does not accomplish the righteousness of God.

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Be Angry and don't sin. You know, Jesus got angry when he.

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When he cleaned out the temple because the word says, his zeal.

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My zeal for your house. His zeal for the house of God was

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so great. But that anger,

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that word is orgidzo in Greek. And it's

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anger that is not expressed outwardly, but is

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allowed to burn, increase to the point where it can erupt in some

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injurious act, something we might find today. Mass

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shootings, bombings, things like that.

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In Pentecostal circles, you might hear of it referred to as a root of bitterness.

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You're letting this anger fester up inside of you.

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Okay,

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offense. It's an. It's keeping offense. We live in the land

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of the offended. Everybody wants to be offended by

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something. Guess what? You don't have a right to be offended.

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People say, I was offended, so I wanted to defend the Gospel.

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Gospel doesn't need to be defended. Gospel needs to be shared,

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not defended. Jesus doesn't need to be defended. God is

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who he is. We, whether anybody on this planet wants to agree with that

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or not, he is God. Nothing

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changes that. My wife's

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niece's son, our husband, he spoke at a church

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a couple weeks back, and something he said really stuck out. Said,

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you know, when you sin, a lot of times you'll come to God and go,

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God, I'm so sorry I let you down. And s. And God's saying

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they're going to. I don't remember ever leaning on you.

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He doesn't need us. He wants us,

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but he doesn't need us to acknowledge him, for him to be. He exists

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totally outside of us. Okay, the next word,

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raca. It's anger venting itself in

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words. Raca is an ancient term,

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ancient Hebrew term, and it carries with it the connotation of

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spitting on someone, considering someone to

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be so far beneath you and so worthless that you're going to spit on

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them. Now, let's think about

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that today, because something that really hit me when I was thinking about

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this verse, social media,

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we're so quick to post memes that make whoever it is

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that we don't like look bad, especially in the

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political realm. And I've seen many, many, many believers do

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this, and they post a picture of whoever they don't like.

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Now, understand, social media is not in and of itself good or

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evil. It's how it's used. But

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a believer posting a bad picture of

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a political person, trying to make them look like an absolute idiot.

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Raka. And is forbidden.

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The last one, insulting anger,

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called Hatred

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and mortal enmity expressed by the term moros

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or apostate, where such apostasy could not be

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proved. An apostate is the willful, conscious

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abandonment of or renunciation of the Christian faith

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by someone who previously professed it.

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Calling someone apostate when you

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don't know them, don't know it, you can't prove it.

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I don't know any. Anybody my age that was a

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musician or trying to be a musician in the church, especially a drummer.

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I got a lot of that, a lot of, oh,

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well, you know, that just can't be right. That. That just can't be from God

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because it's just loud and we don't want that in the church.

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A couple weeks ago, Pastor Ronnie mentioned Steve Taylor,

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the musical group, the guy, Steve Taylor, and he's got a song out called

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Guilty by Association, and it

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fits this perfectly. Said, turn the radio on Turn

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a down home draw here a burl cream prophet with a

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message for y' all I found a new utensil in

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the devil's toolbox and the heads are going to roll if Jesus

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rocks It's of a worldly design God's music

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should be divine Try buying records like mine

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Avoid temptation Guilty by association

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so often within the church, within churches today especially,

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I've noticed a big increase in the Trend since the 80s.

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We're in there pointing fingers, pointing fingers

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at the heathen, which is wrong.

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We have no business judging them or trying to convict them of their

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sin. That's the Holy Spirit's job. We're supposed to be

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witnesses, but

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we have to be very careful. We don't want to be pointing at other

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churches and saying just because they do something we don't like,

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mean. We could have said that when we had dancers up here, people walking

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here, oh, my gosh, they had dancers up there. What was wrong with

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that? You know? But until you know

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where the people's heart come from. Oh, where I used to go to church

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would. Would absolutely freak about all of this, especially on

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Sunday morning, electric guitars and big

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drums and loud music. And they would say, it's all

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wrong. But I'll tell you what the difference is. I

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know their hearts. I know where they're coming from,

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and I know that they're singing their praises to the

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Lord of Heaven. And it's true. Genuine worship.

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That's Mora. And then

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the word goes on to talk about the. It mentions

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punishments in here. The first one for the

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being angry with your brother. Just the anger. The word is

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Croesus, and it means to be guilty,

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to be placed in front of the tribunal. The tribunal is the

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Council of 23. In

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Judaism, it's called the Sanhedrin Katana, or the Lesser

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Sanhedrin, not to be confused with the full Sanhedrin.

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So the Sanhedrin Katana, and then the

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second one, the Word is

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Suned, the judgment of the sanhedrin, the

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full 71 judges of the Sanhedrin. That's what Jesus

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faced. So when you call someone worthless, you

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could be taken in front of the Sanhedrin. The last

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one is a really bad one. When you're accusing someone of

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apostasy, it says you're guilty. You could be guilty of

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the fires of hell. Gehennim.

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Gehenna or the Valley of Ben Hinnom.

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The Valley of Ben Hinnom, oftentimes referred to as Gehenna, is a valley

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on the southwest side of Jerusalem. It was a place of idol sacrifice

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to Molech, and later as a garbage or burn pile for

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the city where the fire never extinguished. It was so

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bad, such a horrible place. Milton, in

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the Paradise Lost, wrote this. He said, first Molech,

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horrid king be smeared in blood of human

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sacrifice and parents tears, though for the noise of drums

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and timbrels loud their children's cries unheard

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that pass through the fire to his grim idol.

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That's what he's painting a picture of right there. The Valley

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of Gehenna or Ben Hinnom.

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Once again, not rules and regulations,

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but the Father's heart. Father saying, I don't want

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this mentioned among my kids.

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I pulled you out of that. I made you something,

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something different, and I expect you to be different.

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How much does the Father desire that

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his children live together in unity?

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Matthew 5, 23 and 24. The next verse says, if you are offering your

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gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against

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you. Notice he says, your brother has something against you.

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You're the guilty party. Leave your gift there before the

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altar and go first. Be reconciled to your brother and then

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come and offer your gift. Okay,

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this gets interesting. The word gift in Greek is

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doron. Doron is specifically a

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sacrifice. Now you have to understand what the Hebrew concept

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of sacrifice was. We think of sacrifice as, I gave up

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something for this or I gave up this for that. In

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the Hebrew mindset, doron or a sacrifice

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is how they drew near to God and God drew near to them.

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So what Jesus is saying here is, this is what the Father says.

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If your brother has something against you, it's more important for

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me that you go and reconcile with your brother first and maintain the

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unity. Then come back and bring your sacrifice and we'll draw

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near each other. He places a huge

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importance on how we interact.

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Pastor Kevin last Sunday was talking about

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collateral damage and how we

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have to make restitution. This verse talks about that if

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your brother has something against you, you've done something to hurt someone,

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you need to repair that collateral damage if at all possible.

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Now, there'll be times when you go up to somebody and say, you know, I'm

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really sorry. And they're, I, I don't want to hear it now they've

:

got a problem they're going to need to deal with too. But you need to

:

keep your conscience clear before God. You need to say, I

:

can't live with the fact that I hurt someone. I have to

:

try to make it right. I have to.

:

Ephesians 4, 4, 2 and 3, says with all humility and

:

gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, eager

:

to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

:

Adam Clark, who was a Irish

:

theologian, lived back in the late 1700s,

:

wrote this. He said, evil must be nipped in the Buddha. An

:

unkind thought of any of another may be the

:

foundation of that which leads to actual murder. A

:

Christian, properly speaking, cannot be an enemy to any man,

:

nor is he to consider any man his enemy. For surmises

:

to the prejudice of another can never rest in the bosom of him

:

who has the love of God in his heart, for to him all men are

:

brethren. He sees all men as children of God and members of

:

Christ, or at least as capable of becoming such.

:

If a tender, forgiving spirit was required even in a Jew when he

:

approached God's altar with a bullock or a lamb, how much more

:

necessary is this in a man who professes to be a

:

follower of the Lamb of God?

:

This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples when they see the

:

love you have for one another.

:

It has been said that this passage of scripture is sometimes called the

:

antithesis, the opposite of the law. In other

:

words, that Jesus is doing away with the main law and adding to

:

adding tighter restrictions to it. And to a set

:

to an extent that may be true in

:

Judaism, they do something that called building fences around the Torah.

:

To give you an example of that, when I went to Israel

:

in the hotels we stayed at, there were two elevators side by side,

:

and one was labeled the Shabbat elevator.

:

Now, Shabbat is their

:

Sabbath. It starts at sundown Friday and

:

goes to sundown Saturday. Why would they have a

:

special elevator? Well, here's what, how the, how the Shabbat elevator

:

functioned. At sundown, whatever time the computer said that was,

:

the elevator would stop, the doors would open, you would walk in,

:

the doors would close. It goes up to the next floor, stops,

:

opens the doors, waits, closes the doors, goes

:

up and up and up and up, and then down and down

:

and down and down. Because

:

the laws say you're not supposed to kindle a fire on the Sabbath.

:

When you push a button, contacts make up in the back and

:

there's a spark. So they have said, because

:

we're not supposed to make a fire. If I don't allow you to push a

:

button and it makes a fire, I'm keeping you from

:

breaking the law. But what I really think Jesus is doing is

:

he's giving us the intent of the law. Moses, when he

:

spoke on Mount Sinai and gave the law, he gave the word that God

:

had given him. But Jesus is the

:

lawgiver. He's the one who wrote the laws,

:

and he knows exactly what he was driving at.

:

All right, here we go.

:

Lust.

:

You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you

:

that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has committed

:

adultery with her already in his heart. And here comes the hard

:

verses. And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and

:

throw it from you. For it is better for you that one of the parts

:

of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into

:

hell. And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it

:

from you. For it is better for you to let one of your parts of

:

your body perish than for your whole body to go into hell.

:

Okay, let's start right at the top. Jesus is

:

not telling us to go cutting off body parts.

:

Okay, that's not what he meant. If that's what he meant, then

:

we would be a church full of one eyed, one handed snake handlers.

:

Okay? And this is

:

from someone by the name of John Gill. For no man

:

is obliged to mutilate any part of his body to prevent sin

:

on account of the commission of it. There is

:

nowhere required, and if done, would be sinful. And the sense

:

is that persons should make a covenant with their eyes, as Job did.

:

That's job 31 1. I have made a covenant

:

with my eyes. How then could I gaze at a virgin? Or some. Some

:

translations say at a maid. We'll get back to

:

that in a minute. And turn them away from beholding Such

:

objects, which may tend to excite impure thoughts and desires,

:

deny themselves the gratification of the sense of seeing or

:

feeding the eyes with such sights as are graceful to the flesh

:

and with indignation and contempt, reject and avoid

:

all opportunities and occasions of sinning which the eye may be

:

the instrument of. We live in a world where

:

we are bombarded with overtly

:

sexual images. You can't watch

:

TV and not see it. You have to

:

be very careful what movies you go see.

:

You know, there's so many things out there.

:

A guy I used to play music with, Kevin, he wrote a

:

song and part of it said it's like

:

soft porn in a Glamour magazine, you

:

know, he was referring to, you know, they got the little, little magazines

:

there as you go through the checkout line in the grocery store

:

and sometimes you'll go over there. Oh, oh, that's going to take a lot of

:

scripture to wash that one out, you know. But

:

what I do at home is if we're watching something

:

and a commercial comes on because it's not going to be in what we're watching.

:

But if a commercial comes on and it's questionable,

:

my wife knows this is what I do

:

until it's over. And a lot of times you go, it's okay, you can look

:

back again or she'll tell me, not yet, not

:

yet, not yet. Be

:

careful. Little lies. What you see, what you let into your eye

:

gates. There's an old, there's an old saying, guy go,

:

garbage in, garbage out. Okay?

:

What you allow in your eyes. I've heard a lot of guys say, well, I

:

can go watch an R rated movie where there's nudity and it doesn't bother me.

:

You're a liar or you're fooling yourself.

:

It's just the way it is. It's just the way. It's the

:

way God made us. There's an attract natural attraction between men and women,

:

otherwise none of us would exist. Okay?

:

We need to avoid, as the scripture says, the very appearance of evil.

:

That's who we're supposed to be. James

:

1:14 and 15 says, but each person is tempted when he is lured

:

and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when

:

it is conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown

:

brings forth death.

:

Everything starts with a thought, A thought entertained.

:

I can't stop the thoughts that fly into my brain from

:

the enemy. I mean, I can pull down that helmet of salvation

:

and hope those things cover my ears so I don't hear them. But I'M going

:

to hear stuff, but it's what I entertain and I'm

:

not supposed to entertain it. I'm not supposed to, you know, I can't,

:

I can't help it if, you know, a pretty lady walks

:

by in the grocery store.

:

I can't stop. If I just kind of walk in, I go, oh, there's. Look

:

away, don't allow. I don't want to allow

:

that thought to fester in my head. I love

:

my wife too much. We've been married 46, almost 46

:

years.

:

Thank you. As Pastor Kevin spoke on the last day of the conference.

:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of

:

your mind. The Greek is

:

susque batisto. It's to conform to

:

the same patterns. We're not supposed to allow the world

:

to dictate how we react, how we do things.

:

God has a standard that's up here. I'm going to talk about that again here

:

in just a couple minutes. But God has a standard up here. The world standard

:

has been constantly sliding. And heaven help us,

:

I've seen so many in the church of God who have allowed their

:

standard to slip. God's standard

:

never changes. And we'll get into that here in just,

:

just a couple minutes. A couple last of these laws that,

:

that's going to.

:

The world that now is. This present state of things is as much

:

opposed to the spirit of genuine Christianity as the world then was.

:

Pride, luxury, vanity, extravagance in dress and

:

riotous living prevail now as they did then and are as

:

unworthy of a Christian's pursuit as they are injurious to his

:

soul and hateful in the sight of God.

:

That was written back in the

:

early 1800s. How much worse are we off now?

:

There's been a lot of talk with this current situation

:

in Iran about end times prophecy and

:

how, you know, the end, the end could be near and it could be, I

:

don't know. I'm not going to pretend to put a timeline

:

on it, but

:

how should that affect us if the end is indeed near?

:

One of the things we need to be doing is we need to be doing

:

self checks. God, is there anything in me that you find

:

offensive and help me to change it? Help me to,

:

help me to, to be transformed by the

:

renewing of my mind even quicker so that I can help with the world

:

around me. Okay, now

:

he talks about pride, luxury, vanity, extravagance,

:

and sometimes people will try to. Try to use that to speak against

:

people who have you know, position, money,

:

all these things. I tell you what, I've known several

:

couples who the Lord has blessed them greatly because

:

of their faithfulness in the area of finances and business.

:

And they are some of the most generous people I've ever met in my life.

:

All right, now I'm going to start getting on

:

stepping on some toes here because we're going to start talking about divorce.

:

5, 31:32 it was also said,

:

whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of

:

divorce. But I say to you that anyone who

:

divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit

:

adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits

:

adultery. I want to touch back on something Pastor Barbee said during

:

the words of the Rabbi. If it's a

:

situation where there's abuse, walk run

:

this no in no way says that God wants you to stay

:

in a in a physical or verbally

:

abusive situation.

:

Notice he doesn't say on there when he says it's also

:

said it doesn't say by them of old because

:

this certificate of divorce was not

:

in the law. It was a

:

allowance made by Moses.

:

7, 9 says they

:

there's the Pharisees. They were trying once again to trap Jesus

:

into saying something wrong. They said to him, why then did

:

Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send

:

her away? Jesus, he said to them, because of

:

your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your

:

wives. But from the beginning it was not so. And I say to

:

you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another,

:

commits adultery, where this is all coming

:

from? There was something happening in the first century

:

Judaism. There were two big schools of thought, the school

:

of Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai.

:

Rabbi Shammai held to what

:

1 says that when a man hath taken a wife and

:

married her and it came to pass that she find no favor in

:

his eyes because he found hath found some

:

uncleanness in her. That word uncleanness

:

is erva,

:

which is something indecent or repulsive.

:

She's done some indecent act. It means it

:

also carries with it the idea of exposing themselves.

:

He had found some uncleanness in her. Then let him write her a bill of

:

divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house.

:

Rabbi Akiva in 50 to 135 CE

:

if wrote this, I mean this is how far they had taken.

:

They had stretched this law. Uncleanness is One thing,

:

if any man saw a woman handsomer than his own wife, he might put

:

his wife away. Because as is said in the law, if she.

:

If she finds not favor in his eyes, it got

:

so bad, if they didn't like the way she prepared his

:

supper, they could write a letter of divorce. And Jesus

:

is railing against that

:

getting short on time. But

:

part of being conformed to this world in the idea of marriage is we

:

listen to Hallmark.

:

Hallmark tells us that, you

:

know, if our needs just aren't being met, this. This person

:

just. He's not really my soulmate. I'm going to tell

:

you something. That idea of soulmate is a lie straight out of the pit of

:

hell. Because a soulmate is someone that supposedly is

:

fulfilling all of your needs. There is only one who can fulfill

:

all your needs. And his name is Jesus Christ. Actually, his name

:

is Jesus. His title is Christ. I

:

prefer what Paul does sometimes. Christ. Jesus

:

Christ was his title. The anointed one.

:

Yeshua Chamashiach. Jesus the

:

Messiah.

:

So Jesus is saying, that's

:

not the way I want things to go. That's not the way it's supposed

:

to be.

:

Marriage. My wife and I taught a class on

:

marriage several years back, and it's called Sacred Marriage.

:

And one of the things that the author said, and I can't remember his name

:

now to save my life, was, what if

:

God made marriage not to make us happy, but to make us holy?

:

Marriage is less like unicorns and rainbows and

:

hearts and flowers and more like being stuck with someone in a

:

rock tumbler. It is. You get two

:

completely dissimilar people with all their rough edges that we overlook

:

when we're dating. We overlook all that stuff and then we're put

:

together and we smooth each other off.

:

I've learned so much from my wife and she's still having to teach me stuff.

:

I actually picked my socks up off the floor now.

:

All right, really quickly. Oaths. Taking an oath in

:

Hebrew, that would be chay adonai. You've probably read it. If you

:

read anything in the Old Testament, and you should read the Old Testament,

:

it's the big thick part of the book and it's really important.

:

Chai adonai means as the Lord liveth.

:

Old Testament's complete with as the Lord liveth. If I don't do

:

such and such by this time tomorrow, may the Lord do more. Do

:

that and more. To me,

:

There was a. Another Yeshua.

:

Yeshua Ben Sira. He lived about 100 years before Jesus says, do not let

:

Your mouth form the habit of swearing. Swearing by swearing. An oath,

:

not foul language or becoming too familiar with the Holy Name.

:

Because one who swears continually by the Holy Name will not remain

:

free from sin. Someone who often swears heaps up

:

obligations. If one neglects a sworn obligation, the sin

:

is doubly great. Okay.

:

I have been in many situations where people have said, yes, I'll be there

:

on such and such a day to help do this. They don't show up.

:

And then I find out the reason they didn't show up was, oh, my buddy

:

called me and wanted me to go to a movie with him. Let your

:

yes be yes, and, you know, be no and live up to what you say.

:

All right? We're called to live a high standard.

:

1st Peter 1:16. Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am

:

holy. Casting down

:

imaginations in every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge

:

of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,

:

every thought to all. Order, if possible, so far

:

as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. And

:

he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and

:

take up his cross daily and follow me. Pretty

:

tall order. But the nice thing about it is you're not in this

:

alone.

:

13. For it is God who works in you both to will and

:

to work for his good pleasure. God is the one

:

that's going to help you out, the Holy Spirit. And I am sure of this,

:

that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in

:

the day of Christ Jesus. Another one that's not up here. I know in whom

:

I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which

:

I've entrusted to him against that day.

:

I'll leave you with this from Watchman Nee. The greatness of

:

his demands upon us only shows how confident he is that

:

the resources he has put within us are fully enough to meet

:

them. Those resources are the Holy Spirit of God. Acts

:

1:8, that we have received. We

:

have the Holy Spirit of God living within us. And he is

:

the One who is at will within us. He's the one we have

:

to listen to. We have to deny ourselves.

:

Like the Word said, deny yourself daily. Take up your

:

cross. That's not a cross of salvation, folks. That's a cross of

:

obedience. There was only one cross of salvation that belonged to

:

Jesus. It's nobody else's, no one else's.

:

So hopefully you got something out

:

of that. Let me just close us in prayer real quick.

:

Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for

:

who you are, who you call us to be, what you expect of us,

:

and the help that you've given us to meet those obligations.

:

Lord, we know that we seek to please you. We seek to live according to

:

what your word says, not to earn your favor, but because we have your

:

favor. Not to earn your love, but because we already have your love.

:

There's no greater love than Jesus hanging on the cross for us.

:

So I thank you Father, and ask you go with each person here and

:

just let these words ruminate over the week

:

and let Holy Spirit let your word bring about the fruit you would have it

:

bring about. In Jesus name, Amen.

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