The Virtuous Cycle – Hearing and Doing God’s Word - Self Deception Series 17 – Purity 1106

To see today's work of art, go to mtforchrist.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's work of art comes to us from British artist Sebastian Pether, who painted this moonlit river scene back in 1840. A father of 9 children, Pether's life seems to be that of an overeducated but underpaid artist who who had a fair share of tragedy in his life, losing 3 children to consumption before his death at the relatively young age of 51 due to an inflammatory attack. But although he may not have prospered financially during his life, he has left behind a legacy of artistic beauty consisting of Firelights, Moonlights, and Sunsets. Well, it's Friday, thank you God, and as the sun sets on another work week, And I contemplate that today's artist was the same age as me when he died. I am thankful for the life God has given me and how he has guided me to, to discover how beautiful my life has been despite some expended— extended periods spent in darkness. Just like Pether's painting reveals how soft moonlight can highlight the beauty of a landscape, I have discovered that when you follow the Lord His light will shine even in the darkest hours of your life to reveal the beauty even in the midst of your pain. So I am rejoicing today because I am still alive, have found my freedom in Christ, and will find myself a little freer at the end of the workday because I am on vacation for the next 2 weeks. So praise the Lord for all that he has done and will do. Amen. Amen. As I often recall my journey of faith over the last 13 years, I am continually reminded of the fact that I progressively learned more and more about the Lord from his word and developed the discipline for taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. When I realized that I was a new creation in Christ and there really was no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus It took some renewing of the mind because of God's word, but I came to understand that the things I thought about myself— that I was evil, cold-hearted, no good, bad, and maybe a little insane— weren't true about me anymore. I had finally heard the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and made him my Lord and Savior. And when you do that, you not only receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit you also receive the righteousness of Christ and a sign— and a sound mind to boot. I was made a brand new creation by putting my faith in Jesus, and what was true about me in the past was no longer true about me now. I was no longer dead in my trespasses and sins, and I was no longer a slave to sin. But in order to experience my freedom in Christ, I had to believe it. And live it. And so the process of believing the truth about who I am in Christ and renouncing the lies of the world, the flesh, and the devil began. And it changed the way I thought, the way I felt, and the way I lived. I had spent my life believing the lies of the world, and finally the truth of God was setting me free. And it continues to transform my life and give me peace and joy today. While I know I have been blessed, I also want to stress that I am nothing special. All I did was believe the Lord and follow Him, and I encourage others to do the same by putting your faith in Jesus and starting the process of renouncing the lies you have believed that has left you chained to sin and kept you from the peace that God has for you. And that brings us to our current series on self-deception, where we have decided to investigate some of the ways we deceive ourselves by walking through Step 2, Deception vs. Truth, of the Steps to Freedom in Christ. To see what ways we may have been deceived by the world, ours, and ourselves, and in what ways we have wrongly defended ourselves. So we present the first of the ways to deceive yourself, which is number 1: hearing God's word but not doing what it says. The scripture reference for this point is James 1:22, which says, but don't just listen to God's word, you must do what it says, otherwise you are only fooling yourselves. From the NLT. Or as those familiar with the NKJV know, uh, it says, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. As we move into the section of the Steps to Freedom in Christ that really highlights self-deception, I marvel over how common and accepted this first way we deceive ourselves is. When I lead people through the steps, I refer to this one as the free space on the bingo card in the Steps to Freedom in Christ, because everyone, if they are honest, has to admit that they hear God's word but don't do what it says. While this may seem like a no-brainer, that of course we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, and that none of us always does what God's word says all the time perfectly, the big problem that plagues the body of Christ is just how complacent Christians can be regarding the fact that they hear the word of God and don't do what it says. Although obedience to God's word can be difficult for sure, it doesn't mean that we are to throw our hands in the air and declare that it's impossible and choose to stop trying to grow in our sanctification. While we will never reach sinless perfection, it doesn't mean that we can't make progress becoming more and more like Jesus. Our character. Uh, God has given us the power over sin, but we have to exercise it. God has given us the ability to do good works, pray, and renew our minds with his word, but we have to choose to and actually practice those things. Um, when we believe in the Lord and follow him obediently, we begin the virtuous cycle, which is centered on truth and surrounded with motivation, encouragement, Confirmation in good works. We first believe the truth. That motivates us to do good works like acts of kindness or service or going to church or reading our Bibles or praying. And this confirms to our hearts and minds that, yes, I really am a Christian. And that confirmation encourages us to, to learn more of God's truth. To believe it and stand in it, which in turn motivates us to continue into more good works and to continue this life-giving process of living in the Spirit, which all amounts to hearing God's Word and doing what it says. So hear that Word and do what it says continually and progressively until you realize that you are living in the virtuous cycle that produces the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials. Today's verses are Psalm 119:67-68 from the NASB. And the Psalmist says, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes." Today's verses fall under the 5th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials, and that is number 5: The Psalmist was thankful for affliction, for it taught him to keep God's precepts. Today's verses are actually the first of a trio of verse couplets from Psalm 119 that our reference guide uses to illustrate this point. But instead of sharing them all at once, we will present them individually and see what the Lord leads us, leads us to reflect or meditate on over the next 3 days. Today's verses testify that hard times, affliction, can really convict our hearts of how we have gone astray. And create an opportunity to see how the Lord is good and to produce a desire to repent and learn from him. I love Pastor Bob Costello, and I love his testimony of when he first came to Christ. His wife, his wife was a Christian, but Bob was still on the fence and pretty worldly. But because he loved his wife and he agreed in principle that faith was a good thing, He begrudgingly agreed to go to a Christian retreat. At the retreat, Bob was directed to go into a room and to pray to God and to make a list of all the good things and all the bad things he had done in life. Bob was able to make a long list of bad things he did in his life, but when it came time to do the good list, he couldn't think of anything he did past the age of 13 that was particularly good. Bob had had a hard life growing up in the streets of the Bronx and had learned to fight to survive and to get what he wanted. But in that room, he, he recalled how he didn't— he hadn't always been like that. When he was young, he was a quote-unquote good kid. And as he struggled to think of anything good in his life, he lamented in his heart over how he had become such a bum. Saddened by the loss of his innocence and the state of his life, Bob asked for the Lord's forgiveness, surrendered to the Lordship of Christ, and asked God to help him to be good again. The Lord's presence filled that room, and Bob was overcome by the joy of his salvation. And although Bob had secretly planned to cut out early on that retreat before going into that room, afterwards he stayed until told everyone about how he met God. When Bob went back to work on Monday, his co-workers speculated that Bob must have had a wild weekend since he had given up working the overtime that had been available. But God repeated his confession of faith and told those who asked how he had met God. Later in the afternoon, one of his work buddies came up to Bob and asked him how he was feeling. Bob reported that he was doing great. To which his friend said, "Oh good, because there's a rumor going around the shop that you had a mental breakdown." To which Bob explained how he had come to faith and that everyone should have what happened to him happen to them. So yes, an honest examination of our lives of affliction can show us that God is good and lead us to surrender to him. And experience the life he has for us, and to continually seek to learn his wisdom. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and we are currently sharing from chapter 16, The Spirit Working Faith., and today's question is, what is saving faith? So if you want to read the short section that we share today from A.W. Pink on what he thinks, or well, what he has to say about saving faith, uh, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. As always, we encourage a life of Christian discipleship because it's, it's, it's really a no-brainer to, to hear the word of God and to actually do what it says. But, uh, often we don't believe that, or we, we think that's impossible. But with God, all things are possible. And we know that, um, when you take a step towards God, he takes two steps towards you. And, um, you know, a lifestyle of Christian discipleship just leads to growth of the fruit of the Spirit as we, uh, the Lord encourages us, to keep following him into the life that he has for us, a life that, uh, is defined by peace and joy and love. And so we, we encourage that. And if you don't know what your freedom in Christ even means, or who you are in Christ, we, we invite you to check out our discipleship classes that can help you with that. Um, we, back in 2021, we taught 3 classes: Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker and Freedom in Christ. And they're all available on our podcast, our YouTube channel. They're all based on the word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson, and they were life transformative for me. So I pass those along to you. And, uh, we also encourage a life of Bible study. Um, you have to know the truth and to hear it and to, uh, to perform it. So we encourage regular daily Bible study, um, and we, we encourage it on the podcast by giving our offering of a Bible study where we meet with Arthur and Susanna Zinkati once a week for a little program we call Bible Study with the Zinkatis. It's a topical Bible study where we just sort of discuss the things of God and how to follow him. So if you need a Bible study, we invite you to check ours out. Well, it is Friday, and I'm looking forward to the end of the workday, although it's going to be a hot one. And the state of my lawn here down at River House will have me begrudgingly come down here to do some manual labor before my vacation can really begin. I can't have peace with the lawn the way it is. It's— and, and I just know after 2 weeks it's going to be even worse. So yeah, You gotta do what you gotta do in life, even if it means you gotta postpone some pleasure. Um, but I'll feel better knowing the lawn's been done and I can, I can depart for 2 weeks without having to worry about it. So we got a day of work ahead of us and some lawn work. Um, although I did contemplate calling a lawn service, but I don't want to go there. I'll never mow a lawn again if I ever do that. Um, but, uh, But maybe you like mowing the lawn. Me, it's a chore. I don't mind it, but I like it when it's done more than I like it before I have to do it and while I'm doing it. Anyway, uh, let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do for us. We thank you for the house you provided for us down by the river with the lawn that grows continually. Um, Lord, we just want to be good stewards of what you've given us, and the lawn is just one thing. And the rest is our life. So we, we ask you for, for your help today, um, because we need it. And we ask you to go before us to show us the things you want us to see. And we need your help and strength to perform everything that's before us today and help us lead, lead us into what you would have us do. Uh, Lord, we also pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message. We pray for you to come alongside them and their prayer requests. Because life can be hard and full of affliction, and sometimes we need to know that you're with us. And so we just pray for you to come into their lives and reveal yourself to them in a new way. And of course, Lord, we just, uh, we just ask for your help in general, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, and we don't often know what that is or how to do it. So we just pray for you to help us best represent your kingdom today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.