Recovering Capsized Thinking

1 Corinthians 6:9–11

1. Think about where the unrighteous will be
   • Matthew 7:21-23
   • The Creator’s View of Sexual Sin
     • Genesis 1:27
     • Leviticus 18
     • Matthew 5:17
     • Matthew 5:27-30
     • Matthew 19:1-4
     • Romans 1:18-26
2. Think about what you were
   • Ephesians 2:1-3, Colossians 1:13-14, Ephesians 4:22
3. Think about what you are in Christ
   • Washed
   • Sanctified
   • Justified

Putting this into practice

• Automated Transcription
• 0:13
  Good morning, everybody. If you're new to faith Bible Church, we're so thankful that you're here. Maybe you have a son, grandson, daughter, granddaughter, who was in the choir orchestra and you're visiting us today, we're so glad for that. It's such a joy to hear them and sing wasn't the singing really amazing today. Not like, it's not amazing all the time. I don't mean that that way. But so grateful for that. If you're new, what we want you to do is get connected, there's gonna be some people right around you, when you stand up to leave today, there'll be some new people, they're gonna ask you your name, get to know you. Don't leave without checking in at our Information Center. We'd love for you to get connected to what we do at Faith Bible Church. We're we're a loving community, making disciples of Jesus Christ and the summertime things usually look different. There's just a lot of stuff going on in people's homes and picnics. And that's that kind of thing. We'd love to get you connected to some some people so that you can get to know us better. Yesterday, I went down to lunch with Scott Maxwell, who just introduced Finistere ministry to us and I was driving through downtown Spokane, just 20 minutes before the pride parade. And just people were streaming in for that. And it's not lost on me that I'm preaching. First Corinthians six, nine through 11 today. And I, I just I just think like, people are pouring themselves into a false hope. If you're here today, and this is kind of jarring for you what what Christianity really says and thinks, just know that Jesus created you and wants your best. He wants your best. And this is going to be a poignant word to the church, also an offer of the gospel to the unchurched. And we hope that that has an impact on you today, please stand with me for the reading of God's word. One more thing I want to say after I read this, and we pray, how many of you have hung door hangers in the neighborhood in the last eight weeks? How many of you have done that? You're all alive, you're all well, it really wasn't that dangerous, or, or terrible. 70 people showed up last week, so many that that Nathan thought he had doubled the amount of the previous weeks and there were we could have done a lot more last week. Really interesting time. But But here's my point where I'm getting to part of my vision. My vision, just part of my dream for you is that you think of the families behind the doors. There's there's families behind the doors in your neighborhood, that are separated from God and they're lost their families behind those doors. And I want you to see those doors and have compassion and passion that they need to hear this good news that will rescue them and give them eternal hope. So we're gonna pray that this this passage is for believers, but it's really fitting as motivation for gospel, preaching and teaching as well. First Corinthians six nine, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves, nor the greedy nor drunkards, nor revisers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. This is the word of the Lord. Father, thank you for your grace to us, bringing the Gospel to us and many of us here have had the scales removed from our eyes to see the blindness has been healed. The filth has been cleansed, because you have been gracious. And we want to live in the New Kingdom with a holy and loving God. And so we would pray that these verses would have their work to make us more and more into the image of Christ, the Holy One. And we pray as we go through this that we would see the gospel clearly and those who are here. Not embracing the gospel yet would embrace it, as it resulted these verses. And I pray as we all went to lots of us went to doors last week knocked on doors hung door hangers. We pray that you would be doing such a powerful work in the city of Spokane. Those people who were streaming into downtown to celebrate the opposite of your scripture, pride, sort of celebrating humility, that we would be it you would be opening blind eyes to see that you would save all you would save them for yourself and your glory. to Christ's name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. I think it was last summer Nathan Thiry invited me to go kayaking down the Spokane River. My first and only thought was the vision of a kayak in the old Wide World of Sports ads. You know, a tiny little toothpick and a seat that you're stuck in and going down rapids and rolling over. I'm, I'm not athletic, I have no core strength. I have chicken legs, and a big torso. And all I could think of was capsizing and drowning with no ability to get right side up I'm built for a Viking longboat not a kayak Nathan assures me his kayaks are not like that I did look and they look more like canoes that you stick into was still scares me a little bit. But the image of being capsized now that's that's an image for you. The image of being capsized is a good description of the thinking in Corinth. There were so many ways that Corinth was capsized upside down. And Paul, this whole letter is on a rescue mission to turn back up people who are capsized and they're thinking they're upside down in it. And you may be visiting us today, maybe you came because somebody put a door hanger on or talk to you last week. And suddenly you find out that Jesus and his apostles are saying that you're capsized in your thinking and your morals and your virtues. That might be a little jarring. I was sharing the gospel with once with an atheistic Jew, he grew up going to Jewish school Hebrew school, he knew a whole bunch about the Old Testament. And it was an earnest it was a kind it was interesting and friendly and direct conversation. And he says at some point, you really think I'm going to hell. And I said, your Messiah does. Says but you don't have to lead to more conversations about the reliability of the gospel. Before we leave, I want to assure you how you can enter the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God, the place before a person who rules over all eternity with righteousness and holiness, I want to assure you about how you can find that. And the rest of us need to recognize if that is what we have believed in that kind of king, then there is a way to live in his kingdom. capsize thinking comes in two ways. One is simply being naive about the worldliness that you've been living in your whole life. Just the, the culture around you. Some of you, you have trusted Christ, you really believe he's your Savior and that He died for your sin that he rose from the dead and you know where you're going, what he's already like, you know all of that. But there's a lot of your life that you haven't connected the dots, you should know you should know what the worldliness is that you're upholding, but you don't that's, we think that a naive, that's naive, you should know but you don't.
  
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  And the second is this. The first one is the Corinthian problem. I'm almost sure of it that they are they're just so marked and stained by their own culture that it's just taking a long time to come out of it. But the second one shows up in other books of the New Testament, where there's a social and cultural pressure So many voices say that Christian morals that Jesus morals and Jesus virtues, and worshipping Jesus is upside down. And the voices are so loud, there are so many streaming to celebrate that there are so many that you get spun upside down if you don't know what's right and wrong, and that leads to a kind of compromise. Paul gives these three verses as their patterns of thinking, but they are foundations to keep your thinking right side up. They're just foundational and keeping your thinking right side up. It's particularly about being like Jesus. So we're a loving community, making disciples of Jesus disciples, a learner, a follower, a person who imitates and to be like Jesus, you're like him and his morals and virtues, concerns and passions. These are foundational. We're gonna look at three patterns. That's the big idea today, three patterns that will recover a heart capsized by unrighteous and selfish cravings. That's the list that you're going to see unrighteous selfish cravings. And sometimes I sometimes, I stiffen back, right, I push back against an overly simplistic think right, do right. Come on, if you think right, and do you'll do right think right do right, think right. Do right. And I sometimes I feel like that's a little over simplistic. Because we're just we're, we're complex people, our thinking and our emotions and our affections and all kinds of things drive us. And so sometimes I just, I push back think right, do right. But I want to tell you, if you're, if you're upside down, if you're capsized, you have to get to your thinking. You have to get to your thinking. Because if you're in a swirl of emotions, because you have family that believes one thing, and others to believe another and you have your own desires and wants and all that stuff streams in all of the pools together, the only way to untangle that mess is to get a hold of your thinking, Paul does this remember thinking? Your mind is the epicenter of that inner man called the heart? The heart is everything is the command center of your life. And your thinking drives it? It can't your thinking can actually change your cravings, and your wants it can do that. So Paul gives this question, it's the third in the series. Do you not know, remember, he asked the question 10 times in the book to people who think they're in the know. And this is the third in this chapter. Do you not know and so Paul is addressing thinking, and it's vital for us. I've been talking to a bunch of young college students post college students who are they're battling the normal desires of being single, especially in a sexually saturated age, both men and women alike. I mean, it's, it's a battle for everybody. And there are circumstances that are really helpful accountability partner, somebody that you confess your sin to somebody who helps dig deep. And then you could turn off this and you can put this guard on and you can, you could keep away from x. And then there are circumstances. But what Paul's giving here for the purpose of fighting sin, being like Jesus enjoying the salvation that you have, these are the foundation stones, like these are the massive stones that have to ground your thinking. When he gives you patterns here, you have to think what Paul is doing is giving three powerful patterns, three powerful foundations to get your thinking back right side up, when it goes upside down, and go upside down. Because you're bitter about a past memory or an abuse, it can go upside down. Because you saw an image that you didn't want to see and you're now thinking about it. You can have that pattern because somebody just didn't give you what you wanted. And it's like the 50th time and now you're stewing like all those things can happen. How do you correct that? Paul has given us great foundations for this this morning. Let's first look at the context because Paul just characteristically does this in his book, many Corinthians thought it was okay to allow a man in the church to go unchallenged in an immoral relationship with his stepmother. Chapter Five In Chapter Six believers are taking fellow believers to the corrupt civil courts of Corinth. They're trying to solve their disputes and grievances by unrighteous means using unrighteous standards for unrighteous ends. If you look at sixth one, the form of unrighteousness is repeated here. If you look at verse seven and eight, the word suffer wrong and wrong are just the verb forms of unrighteous. So nine, he's continuing the same argument, but he's giving this foundation of how to turn this up, turn this right side up, do you not know? It's a question about those who do wrong is translated and righteous. What he's saying to the Corinthians is you need to take this seriously, if you continue down this road, you're going to demonstrate that you're actually an unbeliever belonging to the kingdom of Satan, rather than a believer who will inherit the kingdom of God. When Watch out. You're going to show what's really under there. What starts as a rebuke for unrighteous lawsuits turns to a masterful recalibration and living a life of holiness and love. So let's dive into these first order of thinking. Think about where the unrighteous will be Paul's context. Don't try to solve your worldly your problems in this world, with worldly people, unrighteous people? He says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? So why are you bringing your civil cases your court cases in front of these people? It should have been obvious from Paul's gospel proclamation whenever he asked, Do you not know? It's asking a rhetorical question that they should know they heard his gospel they heard his teaching, so they should know this? What was that? And I know some of you were here this morning, you're visiting friends brought you like, I don't know why I should know that. Let me just summarize Paul's Gospel in Romans, Romans, chapter one, verse 18, and following, talk about God, the Creator making us and He made us to worship Him. And immediately we rejected the Creator. And we turned to worshipping an idol, ourselves or something else. And if you follow First Corinthians, or follow Romans 118, down to 2324, failing to give thanks, and then turning themselves over to every kind of sexual sin, and all kinds of bad behavior, hateful to parents ends the list. We've all rejected our Creator, we have sinned, all of sin fall short of the glory of God. And the gospel storyline is that despite that happening, God had made an eternal plan to send his Son, Jesus, to pay for those sins. And that's just what the gospel talks about Christ came to die for our sins. And in the picture of it, he paid the penalty. He gives us right standing, he washes us clean. This is what Christ has come to that and the gospel is this good news. If you repent, and leave that idolatry, this way, if you repent, and leave that idolatry, and instead turn to Christ to worship Him, you will be saved. The Gospel story it was comes with a gospel call of repentance and faith. That's what Jesus did when he came. Now why, why would I insert this? Two reasons? Number one, if you don't know Jesus, he's calling you to repent, and believe him to inherit His kingdom. If you do know Jesus, then it should be obvious part of your call to become a follower of him is to leave behind the unrighteousness that's part of the calling you do not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God Do you not know that you're you're trying to solve your this world problems with with people who are under condemnation?
  
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  You must leave your idolatry believed that he alone is God and He alone can save. So the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's verse nine. What does that mean? What does that mean not inherit the kingdom of God? Well, let's say what it does mean to inherit the kingdom of God. When a person trusts Christ as Lord and Savior, profound things happen, and the picture in your mind should be if you're not too familiar with it, it should be what God did with Israel when he rescued them from Egypt and he gave them a promised land. And all over Deuteronomy, those Old Testament books, it talks about the promised land as the inheritance is the place in the presence of God with a new purpose to serve Him, worship Him and dwell with Him forever. The kingdom of God is when God finally establishes over all creation, his perfect loving rule with His Son, Jesus Christ. And all those who are in him get a place in it. It's like Israel got a place a real plot of land with a purpose to serve Him and glorify Him and be a priest to him. That's the picture of what every Christian looks for at Jesus return. The unrighteous will not inherit that they will receive everlasting judgment and the lake of fire, according to Revelation 20. That's their end.
  
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  You live by an entirely new value system with an entirely different hope.
  
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  For the Corinthians, they're trying to solve their problem with unrighteous judges with unrighteous political leaders, lawyers, unrighteous religious leaders, and then he lists out a series of vices. And he's not talking about lapses into sin. I think this is an important, it's not a qualification. It's just an understanding that you you need to have when he says the unrighteous and then he lists out these vices he's talking about people who are characterized by identified by it's almost like their their identity, and moral idolaters men who practice homosexuality. Greedy, drunkard, like all those things, this characterizes that. Paul's not talking about a battle against fleshly, earthly temptations. John is really clear. And first, John, If we say that we have no sin, we lie, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. He's not talking about a sinless existence as Christians, what he's talking about is a person set. And we've said it before when we looked at chapter five, willful, continual and stubborn patterns of sin. Don't you understand that these will not inherit the kingdom of God, because people who are plucked out of the kingdom of darkness and put into the kingdom of God have accompanying that an entirely different internal drive. A different Dr.
  
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  Pol is following his teacher, Jesus. When a person is characterized by growth and God the character than you say that person's growing in Christ's likeness, when a person is characterized by unrighteousness disobedience, he is characterized by his teacher. Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 721, and 23. Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, like I believe it, you're my master, you're my master, You're my God, you're my God. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. mean they said the right things. But the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven to call Jesus Lord with faith, means you recognize that he is that so if you call Jesus Lord, but you do whatever you want, and however long you want it, no matter what he says, That's not faith. That's still faith in something else. But the one who does the will of My Father is in heaven. Verse 22, on that day, many will come to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we not prophesy in your name? We I mean, we did spectacular things, cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name. Then I will declare to them I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. It's not the mighty show. It's not the show of what a person does. It's a heart of genuine faith that produces obedience. Don't you know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Then Paul gives a list of 10 vices, and it's a representative list. If you look at the list, you go, I am not on that list. If you read Philippians chapter After three, for instance, where Paul was the ultra self righteous perfectly lock keeping Pharisee barred from the kingdom of heaven, maybe you're on that list it's a representative list because of the struggles. It's in temptations that coronet like this. All of this is stuff that he's addressing in this letter. So he says neither the sexually immoral, which is just the the title of all kinds of sex and of sex outside of marriage. So just let me remind you, God made sex good. He made it very good read Genesis 3131. After creating Adam and Eve, He said it was very good. So God made sex in marriage. Very good. We're gonna deal with that a chapter seven. I was hoping to deal with it next week on Father's Day. But this little off on my schedule here, he made it very good. But just like everything else, when we turn to worship ourselves and worship an idol, our sin follows suit. nor idolaters nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, covers all of the things God made sex very good inside of the context of marriage. But outside of that, these are simple. It's not a cultural issue. For Paul, it's a created order issue. To create an order issue, he created male and female. One man, one woman for life, it's a created order issue. There are some who say, Well, Paul is just reflecting his cultural values, definitely not the Greek values. Somebody reminded me this morning that 13 of the first 14 Caesars were active homosexuals. So I mean, if if the Caesars doing it, everybody's like, that's it's fine. It's, it was a big deal. There are biblical terms that cover every kind of sexual sin, including the various categories of homosexuality, transgenderism, fornication, drag queens every everything that is now you know, put up as part of Pride Month, the Bible talks about it being sinful. And Jesus confirms it. So I put a sidebar in case this question comes up because it comes up every month of June. There's little sidebar for you to do your own research and follow from creation through the Bible to talk about it. Our culture, however, would still generally agree with the second half of the list, the second five Look at Verse 10, Northeastern or the greeting or drunkards and revitalizing our swindlers. These are those who steal when no one is looking greed is the root of taking what God has not given being discontent and saying somebody else has something I want it and I can't be happy without it. Greed is the driver for thievery and swindling. drunkards, that was the Bible's term for anybody who you who abuses or overuses mind altering substances from alcohol to drugs. You could you could throw in words like anybody, anytime you're doing something that makes you high that makes you stoned that makes you drunk that makes you negated all of that under that class of that. But remember, if you take all of these lists and you approach it like the Sermon on the Mount, what did Jesus say about adultery in the Sermon on the Mount? This is the one I when I read it as a 10 year old I knew I'm going to hell. Because Jesus says, You've heard it said that you should not commit adultery. But I tell you, if you look on a woman with lustful intent, you've committed adultery in your heart. Right? I'm going to hell. I know it. I mean, I do that a lot at 10.
  
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  So maybe you don't use a substance. But maybe you're out of control and you're thinking and another way some other thing gives you the real high and I get it revisers is the word used for all verbal abusers. swindlers is the word for violent abusers. Those who steal by physical threat. Slave takers be in that category of swindlers. So anyone characterized by any pattern of unrepentant sin, He emphasizes it again notice it look at look at the text will not inherit the kingdom of God. Gotta see where unrighteousness is going. And he's really saying to them, you've changed directions. You've changed directions. Don't go back. Don't go back. Second, think about what you were thinking about what you were. So first we think about where the unrighteous will be. You don't want to you don't want to. You don't want to party in their bar. I'm not, I'm not picking the bar, I'm just picking the scene. You want to party in their bar and think like, oh, that's no big deal. No, no, that's, that's, that's where they're going. The opportunity to think about what you were to recover capsize, thinking you have to go back to where you were before Christ save you. He says this very powerful word and such were some of you, as such, for some of you. And the word kind of word here is not simply bet past tense. It's not like saying, using that bar illustration, you are one one time you were drunk in a bar. Or one time you were worshipping an idol. He's using the word that describes a continual state. It was just ongoing. Continually, immoral, idolatrous, homosexual, drunkards, greedy, swindlers, thieves, that's what you were. And you could put anything in that list. And God intervened. Such were some of you and God intervened. And this is something all Christians need to take to heart because Paul makes it a habit of helping Christians remember what God has saved them from, to really take hold of what God has saved them to. All over. St. Paul says this, and you were dead in your trespasses OF YOUR SINS and sins, in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prints of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working the sons of disobedience among them, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body, and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, meaning by nature, and action. The wrath of God is ready to be poured out, ready to be judged, like the rest of mankind. First Corinthians 113. And 14 describes it in a historical way. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son, so out of sin and that kingdom into a new kingdom. That's what you were, this is what you are. In whom, Jesus we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians 422 then tells us how we push forward in life we put off the old self which belongs to the former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. So Paul is saying if if you're actually in Christ, this is not you anymore. This is not you anymore. I got I got saved in college. I worshipped dark beer, you two girls and basketball. I remember getting saved and then hanging out with my unsaved friends at Christmas, you know, because we're all back from Christmas. And one of my friends is Yeah, Dan, you worship you too. Yes, that's true. I do, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I mean, they called me out on my idols. That's what I was. He's also saying one other thing with this. Such were some of you. You can't pull off any version of the self righteous us in them. You can't do that. Because the self righteous house in them is in Paul's list. In Philippians, three, he can't have any sense of superiority. Because you are continually you are continually in that place. And what we're going to see in the next point is that God did something. God did something. God did something. You were capsized, in the river drowning, headed over the waterfall of destruction. And God did something. John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, I was one of the more worldly vise laden teens and 20 Somethings. In the 18th century. Linda has been listening to his his biography through his journals. Therefore, I've been listening to his biographies through his journals. He was an active part of the British slave trade. And his conversion took time That's probably the biggest surprise like it just took a long time for this to kick in. First there was a selfish faith in a storm. He's gonna die. Lord have mercy on me. Kind of like foxhole faith, they call it now. And then there was a self righteous faith. There was a point where he believed certain things about God and about some of his sins, but He had the self righteousness as captain of a slave ship, which was horrific and brutal. He he decided that he would make all of the sailors attend Sunday services in which he would teach while midweek. Key as the captain is doing immoral actions with the slave women captured below. And even after his genuine conversion, because this process was slow for him, it took him time to fully see the wicked and horrible things that slavery and the slave trade was. And as he applied truth like these, he fame finally came to see the evils of it saw that the African slaves were actually people, not subhuman people deserving of the gospel, not slavery. And then, over time, he started championing the abolition movement as a pastor. Slavery slave trading was the worst of these practices. Corinth, in reality was a lot like the story of John Newton. And we know him for Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost. But now I'm found I was blind. But now I see, like, we hear that story. And we think for him, like all of a sudden, all the lights went on. All the lights did go on over time.
  
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  So we need to think about where the unrighteous will be. And we need to think about what we were. Which leads us to the third, we need to think about what we are in Christ. What we were, by implications mean that you are something different. And here we have these actions that that God took. And I wish they translated it, like the original just for the emphasis, because in verse 11, he says, And such were some of you but and there's three ways to do this thing called an adversative. There's a, there's a way to do an and that sort of like, slightly in contrast, and there's a way to do, and in the bigger contrast, and then there's this one Allah, it is but and he does it for each of the verbs, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. And notice, all of these things are things that God did, as we were, in the kingdom, upside down, headed for eternal separation. But God plucked us out and washed us. Now these are really important Bible words for you. Wash, you might understand because you understand being dirty and being clean, but sanctified, maybe not your thing or justified like I don't understand if you're new, there are some some Bible words you need to know. And if you're old, in the faith, these are Bible words you need to know. But you were washed. The Old Testament and the New Testament, understand the spiritual condition of a person, like the physical person, the physical condition of a person who just slipped into the manure, fell into a cesspool of the hogs. And not only are you dirty, but you're stinky. So there's this, this idea of you get that that's the soul of a man or a woman who has sinned against God, there's a defilement of the soul that is unclean and unfit for contact with other people and for contact with a holy God, but you were washed, how are you washed through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the blood that he shed, the hymnody and the language of the Bible describes cleansing through washing by blood. Like you should realize that you know, today I don't go to a blood tank after I've fallen into manure lately. So you're like you Christians are weird. You're washed by blood. didn't work for the football uniforms. When I was playing, you didn't get blood out by blood. The point is, somebody died. Somebody died. Jesus died, so that you could be clean and the defilement would be taken away. The second one is sanctified. You were sanctified again, it's not a common word outside the Bible. But sanctified is, is the idea of being taken from common, vulgar, gross use, and now being fit, changed. It's another word another idea of purified the so that you could be set apart for special use to God, of vessel for God sanctified. A lot of times we'll see the word sanctification if you've been a Christian for any time, you think of this idea of sanctification is my process of becoming more like Jesus I, I still am feeding back old habits and old sin so I'm becoming more like Jesus and the Bible uses that Psalm. But the Bible mostly uses the word sanctification as an action done by God where He takes vile, vulgar, mundane, earthly people and he sets them apart for God's glorious, holy, eternal purposes. Jesus does this sanctifies sets sets us for purpose. How again, are we sanctified by the shedding of Jesus blood the third word is justified. So the first we have the defilement of our soul, the stinkiness the unfitness. Second we have the the gross or immoral purpose that was our life before. And the third has to do with our legal standing. Guilty, guilty of, of treason before God of rebellion against God of insurgents against God guilty, war crimes guilty. And because of the blood of Jesus, taken, because because of his death, because he bore the wrath of God in our place, those who come to Him, Jesus can say, penalty paid, this person is innocent, He's righteous, he's got right standing. I've taken the penalty, I've taken the punishment. So here you have this new person in the kingdom and the kingdom where there is a place for you there is a person for you to dwell with. There is a there is a life of purity and holiness in this kingdom, and especially when it's all finished. All that was done by Jesus. When we celebrate baptism, the first imagery we need to see is the washing, the washing, and the sending to a new life. That's what baptism represents.
  
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  Did you know if you came to Christ and Christ said Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, away from your sin away from your idolatry that is exhausting you and killing you and sending you to help you come to me. You are washed, you were sanctified, you are justified by the blood of Jesus Christ, you're new, you're new in him. One more thing, it's worth the time. You can't miss it. All of this is done by the sovereign grace of the Trinity. Jesus, the spirit in the Father. All of this was done by the authority of when you see in the name of Jesus. It is by the authority. Matthew 2818, All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me in the name of Jesus, by the authority of Jesus by the power of Jesus. This is this is done your wash, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by His power in his authority. He has the right to do it. He has the power to do it. And by the Spirit. That same spirit, that's the spirit of Jesus prophesied, saying, I will cleanse you and make you clean. I will take out the heart, stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh that same promise was fulfilled. All by the Holy Spirit. So Jesus dies on a cross and He sends His Holy Spirit to transform to help us believe and transform us. And he then he talks about by the Spirit of our God, so God the Father sending the Spirit, God the Son, sending the spirit. And notice, there's that familial personal pronoun, our God, God, the Father, our father. He has done this in sovereign grace.
  
  45:41
  We add those three up, there are three components. There's multiple components more than this. But when you add those up, it's called conversion. And x 11. When Jews heard about Gentiles becoming believers, they said, then to the Gentiles also, God is granted repentance that leads to life. God has done a work there. There are conversions. They heard about converted believers. That's an utter and total change. God the sovereign mover, moved in his people's hearts, to help them see their sin, confess it, repent of it, believe on Him. So this says is a warning. If you are habitually stubbornly willfully pursuing these kinds of sins, it's very difficult for me or you to say that you're in the kingdom of God, no matter what you say you believe about Jesus. There's a warning. And there's also motivation. Want to tell you these foundation stones are absolutely critical to conquer lust, addictions of Vengeful Spirit, bitterness, greed, fear of the future fear of anything. Imminent immorality, anger. These are absolutely foundational. You have to return your thinking, when the when the inner person is swirling, battling cultural pressure, internal sinful pressure, you've got to get a hold of your thinking and you have to say, Where did this kind of sin lead the unbeliever to hell?
  
  47:37
  That's an electric fence. Stay back. I was that. Not that anymore. And God did this work. So if God did this work, then it is by His power, that he will give me the grace to fight sin. And when
  
  48:08
  I heard from John Newton illustrates that central motive of Christ and in His work. It's a hymn we don't sing a lot it's been retuned by Bob Coughlin called the look. Here's the here's the words. I saw one hanging on a tree in agony and blood, who fixed his loving eyes on me. As near his cross, I stood in never till my dying breath, will I forget that look. It seemed to charge me with his death. Though not a word, he spoke. My conscience felt and own the guilt and plunged me in despair, I saw my sins, his blood had spilt and helped to nail him there. But with a second look, he said, I freely all forgive, this blood is for your ransom paid, I died, that you might live
  
  49:34
  the massive stone of the gospel of Jesus Christ is your driving strength to live holy and worship truly. And get the gospel to anybody who doesn't have it. It is the massive stone to stand on, not something to take for granted. And it's the weight of sin pushes down weight of cultural pressure, point of hopelessness or loss. The strength of stand is based on this it keeps us upright. Father, thank You for this gospel truth that helps us do battle in a world of rebels, and insurgents, and immoral Oh, we have been plucked out of that. We have been taken out of the torrent of that stream. We have been set right toward a new kingdom and eternal Kingdom and now strengthen us to pursue it. Christ's name

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at TMS Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, gardening, brick oven cooking.

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