2 Corinthians 7

[0:00] You may be seated. 2 Corinthians chapter 7. We are leaving the point of the book in which Paul is going to return to his concern and love for the believers at Corinth.

[0:16] He began that in the second chapter, referring to his great concern and love which he had for them, and he was displaying that in his travel history, how he was longing to hear from them, and then he interrupted himself there at the end of the second chapter, and he will return back to it in the fifth verse of the seventh chapter, but there are some verses which precede that that kind of are tied to it as well.

[0:41] The verse that we have before us this morning really fits more accurately with the passages immediately before it, those in the end of chapter 6 and those that are really connected to all of this portion from the end of chapter 2, chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and now into 7, verse 1.

[1:00] And we say that because we say this in light of the fact that Paul has been declaring what he was. We are. We are. He said that Christ has led them victoriously as victors in a parade.

[1:15] Not that they are the victorious one, but that he is. And he has told us at the end of the second chapter, he said, We are a fragrant aroma of Christ unto God.

[1:28] There are statements in Scripture that we need to pay very close attention to. There are those which state emphatically what we are, not what we should be or what we can be or what we ought to be.

[1:40] Jesus says, We are the salt of the earth. We are the light set on a hill. Paul says, We are a fragrant aroma of Christ unto God.

[1:51] That is, He is living as a reflection of Christ before a holy God for the glory of the Father and not for the recognition of man. And now it comes to completion and fulfillment here in this verse.

[2:05] And in this verse, I want you to see, we've been looking at living out our ministry assignment, how we live out our missional calling. God is equipped and empowered each and every one of us. In Christ, we have a reason for existence.

[2:18] In Christ, we have a purpose. In Christ, we have something that we ought to be doing. He has formed and fashioned and knitted us together in a perfect way. He has so composed us and comprised us that we would be utilized for Him as a display of His glory and of His wonder.

[2:35] And He has done such that we would do it in the world in which we live. Paul reminds the people of Athens in his sermon on Mars Hill that God dictates the time and space and even the season in which we live and where we live and where we work.

[2:50] And since He has called us to Himself, He has redeemed us and restored us to a fellowship with the holy God, and He has so dictated where we would live and when we would live, then it is at that day that we have our work and ministry assignment.

[3:03] But all of those things are that which God does. And now we come really to the application of it in one verse, one nutshell of an application, something that is really becoming of us to do.

[3:16] It is our responsibility. And I want you to see this morning the adjustment to our calling. How we ought to be continuously ongoing adjusting to our calling.

[3:29] We have been called in Christ. We have been redeemed and called and formed and fashioned for the work that He has given us.

[3:41] The Bible says that before we knew Him, He had a work ordained for us. He has created us for good works. And we ought to adjust to those good works.

[3:52] And that adjustment at times is unpleasant. That adjustment at times is very tiresome. But it is an adjustment which must be ongoing in our lives. And hopefully we will see it. He says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

[4:12] Here is our adjustment to our calling. The first thing that we notice about this adjustment, it is number one, it is positional. It says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved.

[4:27] Having these promises, beloved. This past weekend, your pastor's wife is always so good. She says, What are you preaching on this week?

[4:37] And it's good because I usually try to have my sermons ready by Thursday at the latest Friday morning. I like to have them ready early so that I can just kind of let them sit there.

[4:48] I kind of like to say I put it in a crock pot and let it slow cook for a little while. I like to brood over the sermon. That's just kind of how I like to do it. This is kind of my habit. I like to have it there kind of just simmering a little bit. And then I don't type my outline until Sunday morning.

[5:00] Many of you notice that. That's why I'm not just locking myself in the office and trying to avoid all you guys. That's when I type my outline because then I can kind of take all the thoughts that's been going on for the last couple of days and put it on paper.

[5:10] That's how I try to do it. But she always catches me off guard. And she says, So what are you doing? It's in the most random times. And any of you men who know that we can't be thinking about a lot of things at one time. We can only think about one thing at one time.

[5:21] So I'm usually like, Oh, give me just a minute. Let me think about what I'm preaching on Sunday. It's always there. It's just there. But this week I was like, Oh, I can't wait. It's that one verse. And I kept, I was telling it to her as we were going down the road.

[5:32] I kept telling it to her. This morning I got here. I said, I forgot a word. There's a word because I didn't have my scripture in front of me. There's a word in that text. And that word is beloved. And that word is so important because that word is the positional word.

[5:47] It is the word that dictates why we do these things and how we ought to do these things. It is the word that dictates the reality that these ought to be the desires and the ambitions of us.

[5:58] Because we adjust our lives in a positional manner. He says, Therefore, having these promises beloved. The first thing that you notice in this verse is you need to know what promises you have.

[6:11] Right? Therefore, having these promises. Friend, listen to me. We live in a day in which Bible illiteracy is on the rise. We do not know our scriptures as we ought.

[6:22] We do not understand our scriptures as we should. And unfortunately, we know more about society than we do about the word of God. And we wonder why we see so little commitment and so little giving of oneself.

[6:34] And so much, so little surrender to the things of God than we did in the past. It's because there was a day and time where the word of God was sought after and longed after and desired for.

[6:45] And the word of God was pursued within the home, within the school system, and within every other thing. And Webster's Dictionary. I have a facsimile copy, not an original copy, of the original Webster's Dictionary in my office.

[6:57] The original, I love the fact. The reason I have a copy of the original is because when Webster put out his first dictionary, it was how every word was defined according to scripture, not according to society.

[7:08] And it was utilized in the educational system so that people would know how words were defined according to scripture. And that's how dictionaries are out because the English language, really, was based upon its scriptural impact.

[7:20] And the more we knew of the word of God and the more we understood of the word of God, even those early primers of reading that you would have to go through, though they were not the word of God, they brought forth these stories out of scripture.

[7:32] And it was just something that was innately woven into our very fabric of society. And people would come to this understanding, and it was nothing of them to adjust their lives to that which they knew, because we will not adjust to that which we do not know.

[7:47] Adjustment requires sacrifice. And we will not sacrifice if we do not know these promises. We must be willing to give something up because we are sure that what we gain in Christ is better.

[8:01] And we will not realize that what we gain is better if we do not know what the word of God has taught us. So, the more we understand scripture, the more we understand the word of God, the more we are willing to adjust because we are in this position of having an understanding and having acquired the knowledge and the reality of what God has declared to us.

[8:23] This is not a name it and claim it. I'm not saying you need to open up your word of God and you put your finger on a place and you say, well, I'm going to find the promise there, and I'm going to claim that promise and it's going to be mine. If you come to me and you say, well, pastor, the word of God promises me this, and it says all of these realities.

[8:39] If you open up a portion of scripture, it says that God will feed you, right? That he will, as he feeds the ravens of the air, he will feed you. Well, there's also scriptures that said if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat. So, don't come and claim that God's going to cause food to fall out of heaven if you're not willing to go work, right?

[8:54] You have to bring it all together. It's called taking it in context. We have all of these things in scripture. We're not talking about just pointing one out. We're talking about knowing it in its entirety.

[9:04] Friend, listen to me. If there is one thing that I could never encourage more than anything else, it was know the word of God. Because the greater we know the word of God, the greater position we are to make the adjustments which it dictates to us.

[9:21] I'm so thankful that when I came to Christ, God didn't give me a list, a laundry list, say this is everything I want you to do. Do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. These are the things I'm going to ask you to give up.

[9:33] These are the steps I'm going to ask you to take in faith. These are the matters that are going to be not important to you later in life. These are the way, this is where you're going to be 20 years from now. I would have looked at that list and said, there's no way.

[9:44] I'm not going to do that. But what he did give me is he gave me the full revelation of his word. And he said, read it and understand it. And the more I get in the word, the more I see the promises.

[9:56] Therefore, having these promises. Now, I willingly try to make the adjustments because this is what I know. Know the word of God.

[10:08] It is of utmost importance. Build it as a daily habit. Build it as a routine. Get into the reading of scripture. Some of you have taken me up on that. The very first year that I was ever here, this is my eighth year here, I'm working on eight years here.

[10:22] One of the very first things I ever did was say, you need to be on a consistent daily reading plan. You need to be on a consistent daily reading plan. And I've been riding that horse ever since I've been here. And I'll be riding that horse until God calls me to glory.

[10:32] Because you need to be on a consistent daily reading plan. That is a scriptural discipline which we need to possess. Why? Because if you do not know these promises, you will not do anything else.

[10:46] That's just a settled fact. People say, well, you're crazy. I don't think I would ever do those things. Well, you don't know what I know. I've read it from beginning to end, over and over and over again. There's so much I don't know.

[10:57] But the things that I do know is more than enough to encourage me to make the adjustments I have made. I know in the end he wins. I know in the end he comes back on a white horse. I know in the end I'm wearing white to the biggest battle that's ever fought.

[11:08] I know in the end I won't do a thing. It is the sword of the Lord which proceeds out of his mouth, which is the word of God, which kills the grandest enemy of my soul. I know in the end I get a crown, which I'll cast at his feet.

[11:19] I know in the end that this world will be consumed as of by fire, Peter says. And I know in the end that that which can be shaken will be shaken. And that which cannot be shaken will endure to the end so that we will know that which holds on last.

[11:30] I know that everything that I bring before him will be tested as of by fire. And only those things that which proceed through the fire will remain until the end. I know these promises. Therefore, when I look around, there are things I don't mind giving up because there are adjustments I need to give because it's temporary.

[11:49] Right? But if we don't know the promises, we're not in the position to make any change. But it doesn't stop there. Therefore, having these promises beloved. I also know that every change that I'm being asked to make, every adjustment, every surrender, every sacrificial giving, every walking away from something, walking on towards something else, is because I am in this grand position of being beloved.

[12:15] I looked that word up, by the way. I looked it up in its original language. And I love the fact that that word is agapetos. Now, you should have all of a sudden called on to that because agape is the love of God for God so loved the world.

[12:29] God so agape loved the world. Agape is the active love of God towards mankind. Right? We are told that we ought to agapeo people.

[12:39] We ought to love them in an active manner. If any of you ever come for pre-marriage counseling or if you come to me for marriage counseling, you ever sit down, the very first thing we're going to talk about is different kinds of loves. Right? I've told you this in this setting before and I'll tell it to you again.

[12:52] Too often we work on phileo love. Philadelphia love, we have our brotherly love. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes we will work on, you know, a little bit different level. We have an emotional love or we'll have a physical love and we'll have this euros love and all these other matters.

[13:07] But what we find in scripture is that God has an agape love. That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Why? Because for God so loved the world. That word love doesn't mean he responded to anything good in us.

[13:19] Agape is the active love of God in spite of our inability to reach up to him. It is God loving us so much that he did something. That's how I like to define it.

[13:30] God loved us so much, he did something to restore us to himself. It is a love that does something. It's not a love that says something. It's not a love that shows emotions.

[13:41] It is a love that takes the activity and takes it upon oneself to do something for the other, even though the other doesn't deserve it. The very undeserving sinner, which I was, God so loved me, he agaped me, that he did something for me.

[13:57] Now, beloved is the adjective word of that. It is to be in a position of active love of a heavenly father. It is agapetos. I am one who is actively loved by a heavenly father.

[14:11] And when you look at it that way, it's astounding. Some translations, I don't know what translation of scripture you're reading. They, some of our, a little bit more thought for thought translations have substituted the word, and I'm not here to be, I literally tell you which translation.

[14:28] Okay, I use the New American Standard. I read from just about every other translation there is. Okay, I read from every one of them. I'm not here wagging a finger, telling you you have to be NASB. I'm not saying any of that.

[14:39] But some translations have translated that to dearly loved friends or friends, where Paul is just simply referring to them as friends. I think that does injustice to the Greek because God is reminding them that we are actively loved by a heavenly father.

[14:54] We are in a position of receiving the active love of God. They're not just friends of Paul. There are people who are being actively loved by a holy God.

[15:06] Therefore, they're in a position to make adjustments to their life. When you realize, I mean, when you realize that holy God actively loves you, it changes your position, then now you're willing to give up and to change anything that needs to be changed because he really loves you.

[15:35] In Christ, he actively loves us. He says, therefore, having these promises beloved, there's our position. Number two, it is practical.

[15:47] To make these adjustments, it is first, positional. There's something that we must understand. We must know the word of God and we must know who we are before a holy God. And then secondly, it is practical. It says, let us cleanse ourselves.

[15:59] Now, Paul just gets to the kind of meat and taters of it, right? Let us cleanse ourselves. He's not saying anything that God's going to do. God proclaims us clean, right?

[16:10] We are instantaneously redeemed. I believe in instantaneous salvation. I believe in progressive sanctification. That is, you're saved in a moment, you're sanctified over a lifetime.

[16:21] That's how it happens. In scripture, in a moment you are saved, you're eternally redeemed. Christ has saved you and sealed you until the day of redemption. Yet, Paul says, but I'm not yet what I should be, but I press on towards that which I will be.

[16:33] That is sanctification. He is continuously molding us and shaping us and all these other things. But we are not to sit here and say, well, God has saved me, therefore he takes me and I'm just going to stay right there in his salvation.

[16:44] Now, Paul says, there's something we must do. There's something we must, some activity we must have. Side note, completely excited about this year's fall retreat. If you have not made plans yet, I want to encourage you to make plans.

[16:55] You see the dates there in your bulletin. Those dates are coming up the last weekend in September, our fall retreat. And the reason I say that here is because over the last couple of years, we've went to knowing who we are with one another.

[17:07] We were connected in Christ. And then last year, we focused on being rooted in Christ. I'll go ahead and tell you, I don't ever let, usually tell you this early. This year, we're going to be looking at the book of James. That is what we're going to do because of who we are in Christ.

[17:20] So this year, we kind of get into the application of this reality. And it's exactly what Paul says here. Let us cleanse ourselves. He's not saying, let us sit here and let God make us clean.

[17:31] He said, there's something we must do. This is practical, right? This is something that is our responsibility. He's not saying that we're going to save ourselves. He says, since we are beloved, recipients of the active love of God, understand your position.

[17:47] Since I am that, now there's something then that I must do. There is a practical application to the reality of salvation. Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement, from all defilement of flesh and spirit.

[18:02] This is something, by the way, that is consistent in scripture. This is something that we do not just run upon one time. Paul's magnum opus, that is his big writing on salvation, being saved by faith alone.

[18:15] Many of you know it. It is the very book that I was reading when I came to Christ. And I understood that salvation was not a work on man, but you were saved by faith alone, through Christ alone. That's the book of Romans.

[18:26] I love the book of Romans. My favorite book of all times as an entirety. It's the most complicated book you can ever preach through. It's one of the most complicated books you can ever read and really study. But it is the very book that I came to Christ while reading.

[18:38] I was just on my own, reading through the book of Romans, at the encouragement of a pastor. Nobody was going through it with me. And all of a sudden, boom, one day I need to hit my knees and say, I'm saved by faith in Christ alone. But that book, by the time we get to the 12th chapter, there at the end of this grand book that tells us we're saved by faith alone, Paul says in Romans chapter 12, that we need to be renewed in our minds, right?

[19:01] The renewing of our minds. Well, let's see if this ties together. How do you renew your mind? You renew your mind through the word of God. So therefore having these promises, you don't sit there and say, well, I'm saved.

[19:13] Now God's just going to mysteriously, supernaturally impart everything to me. No, God says, I've already told you everything you need to know. Therefore, renew your minds by the word of God.

[19:25] Get into it. He's given you the ability to do it. This is what they would say in the old confessions of faith. The normal ways of God to renew your mind would be to get into scripture, to study the scripture, and to let the word of God have its permits in your place.

[19:41] Peter would echo that in first Peter chapter one. I believe first Peter chapter one says this, since we ought to be holy as we ought to be holy, we ought to prepare our minds.

[19:51] So we need to renew our minds. We need to prepare our minds. So now Paul and Peter both are saying the same thing. And then we get into John, first John, first John chapter three. It says, therefore, since we have all of these promises, let us purify ourselves.

[20:06] So what we find in all of the new Testament in particular, we are saved by faith in Christ alone. It is not the works of man, lest any man should boast. But once we understand we are saved, there is a application that we must do, right?

[20:21] We must change the way we think that we must change the way we consume. We must prepare our mind. We must renew our mind. We must purify ourselves. It is very practical. There is something that we need to put our hands to.

[20:33] So we cannot say, well, I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And that's enough. No, the acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that's the start. And since you started there, now you ought to fulfill the rest of scripture unto all godliness.

[20:48] And you ought to look to the word of God, say, well, something about me needs to change. I need to adapt. And you ought to begin this purification of yourself and cleansing. But it does not limit itself to one thing.

[21:00] We have to be careful here. The old Gnostic teaching in the early church days was that Christ comes and he saves your spirit. And your body is utterly defiled anyway.

[21:10] So don't worry about what you do in the flesh because it's the spirit that really matters. And since he's redeemed your spirit and he's purified your spirit, you can live however you want to in your body and do whatever you want to do because in the end, your spirit is going to go to heaven and be in glory with him.

[21:23] You say, well, that's a weird teaching. Yes, but it's very much lived out today. We call that, well, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, but we look at what's going on outwardly and we say, but are you really? James says it this way.

[21:35] You cannot show me your faith without your works. There's a great book. I haven't, I haven't read the book. All I've read is the title of the book. And it's already one of my favorite books on my shelf back there because it says you're either walking the walk or you're just running your mouth.

[21:48] I love that. I'm going to read it because it's a commentary on the book of James. You're the walking the walk or you're just running your mouth. And somebody said, well, pastor, you can't say that. I didn't. Somebody else did, right? I'm quoting them.

[21:58] I can't remember the author's name, but it's a great title. I love that. Got my attention. It's exactly what the book of James says. You can't say, well, I've accepted Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior.

[22:08] And I'm just going to stop right there. No, that's a great starting point because now there's the application. What do we do? Let us purify and cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit.

[22:19] That is, it does my, it does matter. Not only what's going on inside of us internally, but what we're doing externally, everything that makes us unclean in flesh and in spirit.

[22:29] It absolutely matters what we do in our flesh. And it absolutely matters what we do in our spirit. So it's not just the sins of the flesh was condemn us. It's the things that go on inside of us.

[22:40] It's Jesus said it this way. Whoever hates his brother has already committed murder in his heart. Whoever looks at a woman lust after has already committed adultery, right? All these, it's the internal thought. It's the defilements of the spirit.

[22:52] But it's also those matters that if your hand causes you to stumble, then cut it off because there's the flesh part. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. In fact, my mentor in the faith was a, um, he was the Dean of admission to the little Bible college in Kentucky called Clear Creek Baptist Bible College.

[23:08] And he told me he had a student up there that showed up, international student, this little school in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Kentucky in a coal mining hills in Kentucky. And he was missing a hand.

[23:20] And they asked him, so what happened? He said, well, I read the word of God. He said, if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. He said, so my hand was causing me to stumble. So the man literally cut his hand off. He took the word of God literally.

[23:30] And he said, well, I don't know if that's really what it meant, but I guess, you know what? He found out that man never committed that same sin again. I'm not telling you to go home and cut your hand off. Somebody said, well, pastor, son, but that man took it literally and he did it.

[23:41] He never did it again. He had a visual reminder every time that that sin of the flesh was right there. He said, it was kind of stark, kind of stood out. It was taking a radical approach to the application of the word of God.

[23:55] where it says to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit. Why? Because there's a practical application. He says, let us, nobody can cleanse you for yourself, but this is something we must do ourselves.

[24:11] Number three, not only is it positional and practical, this is not probably the greatest news you'll want to ever hear. It is perpetual. It is something that will be ongoing. It will be going until the day of redemption.

[24:23] Look at what it says. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit. So since we are who we are, let us do this things. And it says, perfecting holiness, perfecting holiness, perfecting means bringing to completion.

[24:40] So bringing to a point of complete holiness. holiness. Well, here's a grand word that we need to understand. We will never be completely holy this side of glory.

[24:53] We will never be fully, totally, totally, holy until that grand day where we are supernaturally, wondrously transformed to be as he is.

[25:06] And we will see him as he is. And we will be holy as he is. We know the reality, right? We cannot perfect holiness. Yet Paul is urging the readers of the church at Corinth.

[25:18] And he's urging us to be in an attitude of perfecting holiness, to live, to bring holiness to its completion. That means it is perpetual. As long as we are physically alive in the flesh, until we have reached that day, we ought to be pursuing these matters.

[25:35] It is something that is ongoing. We cannot do it. We will not be perfect. We're not, we're not going to fool ourselves and say, well, there'll be a day where I'll look up and say, well, I'm completely perfect. That's not going to happen.

[25:47] We will not be completely holy. Paul himself would say, I'm not yet what I should be, but I press on towards that, which I will be right. He says, I'm pressing in, I'm leaning. And that's what he's urging us. We ought to be pressing and leaning and continuing to move forward.

[26:00] As one Bible commentator said, the impossibility of the event should not cause us to stop from pursuing it. That is simply because we will never be completely holy does not mean we have an excuse to never try.

[26:14] The word of God tells us that we ought to be perfecting holiness each and every day coming closer and closer and closer. And when we fail, we keep pushing on and we keep pushing on and we keep pushing on.

[26:28] Will you ever be there? No. But it is this reality that we have until God calls us home in Christ, that we ought to be pursuing each and every day.

[26:39] We ought to be pressing in each and every day to this perpetual move and this ambition to be holy. Over and over again, we're told in scripture, be holy as I am holy, says the Lord.

[26:51] That is a refrain that is repeated time and time and time again. It does not say be holy as others are holy. It does not say be holy as you can. It says be holy as I am holy, says the Lord.

[27:03] And it is this reality that we ought to be striving. We ought to have as our ambition for that to be perfected, to be completed in us. I fall woefully short, and I'm sure you do as well.

[27:16] Each and every day I look up and I say, wow, I fell way short of the goal and the ambition that I should have had today. But it does not excuse the reality. It does not let me throw my hands up and say, well, it'll never happen.

[27:28] I have this bad habit. Sometimes when things get difficult, I have to walk away from them for a while. I have learned that I can't do that. Hard does not mean impossible. It's something that I try to say around my house.

[27:39] Just because something's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. Sometimes I say it to people that don't want to hear it. Sometimes I say it because people get mad and say, well, I can't do it. I don't like the I can'ts, by the way. Don't tell me you can't.

[27:50] If there's a physical impossibility, then maybe we'll overcome that. But hard does not mean impossible. It just means maybe we have to think of another way. We have to do something different. We have to be, sometimes it gets me in trouble.

[28:01] They tell me around my home that I'm way overconfident, that I say, yeah, I can do that way too easily. And I get into matters that I shouldn't have. But we understand this reality. Just because we fall short and we mess up, and just because we stumble does not mean we have an excuse to throw our hands up and say, well, then forget it.

[28:17] I'm not even going to try. Now, the word of God says we ought to be perfecting holiness. It is perpetual. Each day we get up. And each day we rejoice that the book of Lamentations is true, that his loving kindnesses are new every morning, that this morning his mercy and his loving kindness is new, so that I can try again, and I can try again, and I can try again, and I can try again.

[28:42] Will I ever get there? Yes. Yes. On that day where he makes me as he is, and I see him as he is, and he completely redeems me, and I will be as Christ, and I will see him face to face, and I will be holy as he is, and that will be a glorious day.

[28:56] But until that day, it is my responsibility in Christ to continue striving towards that perfecting holiness. It is a perpetual, ongoing, as long as I'm on this side of glory, reality.

[29:08] So it's positional, practical, perpetual, fourth and finally. It's proportional. He says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

[29:28] That is, our strive towards holiness is in direct proportion to our fear of God. Now, fear means to have a holy reverence and all for.

[29:42] It is to revere him as he closes the sixth chapter as Lord Almighty. He is Elohim, the great God.

[29:54] He is Yahweh, the relational God. He is Almighty. He's the God of hosts. He's the one who has legions and legions and legions of armies around him.

[30:08] He is the one who is above all, beyond all and exceeds all. He is the one who puts his feet upon this world as his footstool. He is Lord Almighty.

[30:20] He is the God who is deserving of our praise and of our reverence and of our holy worship of him. And it is in direct proportion to the fear of God which we have, in which we will strive to make adjustments to ourselves.

[30:35] Because with little fear of God, there will be little adjustment of man. But with a grand fear of God, and I don't mean a shaking in our boots fear of God. I mean a reverence for who he is.

[30:47] I love the imagery that someone has told me once before, that we ought to see God as such a loving father, that we know that we can run up to him and he can embrace us in his welcoming arms. But to balance that, there also ought to be this reality, that we need to understand that the only way we get to run into his arms is because we're covered in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

[31:06] That we are covered from head to toe in the blood of the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. And without the blood of Christ, that God that we want to embrace us would be compelled to strike us down because sin cannot be in his presence.

[31:20] It ought to be the holiness of God that moves us to make adjustments in our lives. Friend, we have lost in our day and time and reverence for a holy God. We have made God so complacent.

[31:31] We've made him compliable. We've molded him and shaped him to be what we want him to be because we cannot handle him as he is. We cannot take him as he tells us he is. We do not want him as Elohim, the God over all.

[31:44] We do not want him as Jehovah. We do not want him as a relational God who dictates to us what we ought to have. It is not here to belittle who we are, but it is to magnify who he is.

[31:55] Sure, we are the pinnacle of his creation. We are a little lower than the angels, but he still takes notice of us, and that's astounding. He looks upon us with favor in Christ. Sure, but he is Lord God Almighty.

[32:08] He is the one who says he calls every star by name and speaks it into existence. He is holy, holy, holy, the word of God declares to us. He is the one that the great men of Scripture, don't miss it, all fell on their faces in his presence.

[32:22] He is the one that people would beat their chest and say, woe is me, for I'm a dead man. He's the one who came to man and had to compel himself. He compelled himself to clothe himself in humanity because the Shekinah glory would shine without him.

[32:36] On Mount Transfiguration, Christ wasn't reflecting light. He was radiating light. That's a big difference there, by the way. You can reflect the sun or you can radiate the sun. And when Jesus was glowing on the Mount of Transfiguration, he was glowing from within.

[32:50] He was radiating because a little bit of the veil of his humanity was being torn open so that others could see it. What happened? Peter didn't know what to say, right? He started talking and he got interrupted because God told him to be quiet.

[33:01] See, this is a holy God who's above all things. And unless we have a true fear of this God and unless we really have a reverence for him, we won't change a thing about our lives because he loves me just the way I am.

[33:15] Well, friend, he loves you the way you are enough to redeem you so that you don't have to be the way you are. He calls you out of that through his mercy and through his grace and through his compassion so that you can leave that behind.

[33:26] You need to make the adjustments because of who he is, because of who he tells you. He actively loves you enough to empower you. See, the reality of salvation, I'm sorry, I'm getting so excited, the reality of salvation is that he has broken the bonds of slavery and sin upon you.

[33:42] You are compelled to sin from birth. The reason that he saves you is so you don't have to sin anymore. The reason he saves you is so you can be freed from that sin taskmaster. The reason he saves you is so you can do something that you could never do before.

[33:57] He saves you so you can be free. He saves you so that you can walk away. He saves you so that you can adjust your life to his glory. He saves you so you can walk in holiness. He saves you so that you don't have to live the way you used to live in reverence of who he is because he's a holy God.

[34:14] He's a loving father, but he's a holy God and he's a holy God that we want to go before. He's the one we fall on our knees and we say, oh, father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

[34:25] Right. The very first thing we do is we talk about how good his name is. His name is high and lifted up. His name is glorious above all names. His name is the greatest name that has ever been spoken.

[34:36] And he is asking us to adjust our lives to the calling to be his people. And if we won't adjust our lives in proportion to that, then we're trying to adjust our lives in proportion to other people around us.

[34:49] And that's a very low bar. A very low bar. We say, well, I just want everybody around me to think I'm better. That's not the proportion that we adjust our lives to.

[35:01] We do it to who he is. Not to who anyone else is. And he calls us to make adjustments to our calling for his glory.

[35:16] Let's pray. God, I thank you for this day. God, even now I'm reminded as we are in your presence, we don't deserve to be there.

[35:29] But by the glorious shed blood of Christ, we are welcomed. So, oh, Father, as we come before you, we ask that you help us to see ourselves as you see us.

[35:45] Help us to see you as you truly and fully are. Help us to adjust our lives accordingly.

[35:57] And may it be for your glory and your prominence and yours alone. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen.

[36:15] Amen. Thank you.

[37:15] Thank you.

[37:45] Thank you.

[38:15] Thank you.

[38:45] Thank you.

[39:15] Thank you.

[39:45] Thank you.

[40:15] Thank you.

[40:45] Thank you.

[41:15] Thank you.

[41:45] Thank you.

[42:15] Thank you.

[42:45] Thank you.