Podcasts about practical guidelines

A new MP3 sermon from Gracious Cross Reformed Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Gifts of the Spirit #10 Practical Guidelines Subtitle: Spiritual Gifts Speaker: Gregg E. Harris Broadcaster: Gracious Cross Reformed Church Event: Sunday Service Date: 1/19/2025 Bible: 1 Corinthians 14:20-40 Length: 55 min.

In this third podcast episode from our Ireland Conference, Christopher Dwyer speaks with Grace Farris. Grace and Chris discuss her book-in-progress, parenthood, and Grace's lecture at the 2024 Ireland conference. Our podcast host, Christopher Dwyer, is a psychology researcher who specializes in the fields of cognition and education, with international expertise in the field of Critical Thinking. He is the author of the book Critical Thinking: Historical Perspectives & Practical Guidelines, published by Cambridge University Press. He authors an ongoing blog for Psychology Today, Thoughts on Thinking. Follow Dr. Dwyer on Twitter, @CogitoErgoDwyer. GMIC would like to thank the 2024... Read More

Cara Bean and Christopher Dwyer discuss Cara’s book here I am, I am me, mental health and art, and Cara's workshop at the conference. Learn more about Cara's work on her website, carabeancomics.com. Our podcast host, Christopher Dwyer, is a psychology researcher, who specializes in the fields of cognition and education, with international expertise in the field of Critical Thinking. He is the author of the book Critical Thinking: Historical Perspectives & Practical Guidelines, published by Cambridge University Press; authors an ongoing blog for Psychology Today, Thoughts on Thinking. Follow Dr. Dwyer on Twitter, @CogitoErgoDwyer We would like to thank... Read More

Hosts Adrian and Renaud dive into the principles and practices of Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA). Whether you're developing your first product or refining an existing design, DFMA provides a roadmap to streamline production, reduce costs, and enhance product quality. Listeners will gain insights into key DFMA principles, real-world examples, and actionable guidelines to integrate DFMA into their product development process. Tune in to learn how to design smarter and manufacture better!   Show Sections 00:00: Introduction 01:02: High-level view of DFMA 02:50: Implementing DFMA in Product Design 07:30: 9 Practical Guidelines for DFMA 18:00: Real-World Applications and Case Studies 30:00: Challenges and Future of DFMA 38:25: Benefits of DFMA in Product Development 40: 17: Conclusion and Next Steps   Related content... Get help from Sofeast to do a DFM review on your product DFM And DFA Explained (Video) Elon Musk Biography: DFM Learnings and more! DFM for PCBA – 40+ Improvements What Common Improvements Can DFM Make To Die Cast Parts? Common Design For Manufacture Improvements On Plastic Injection Molded Parts How good DFM and DFA Help with Production Cost & Quality 7 DFM Tips for Designing New Products To Be Made in China What does Sofeast's 90-point DFM checklist cover?   Get in touch with us Connect with us on LinkedIn Contact us on X @sofeast Prefer Facebook? Check us out on FB Contact us via Sofeast's contact page Subscribe to our YouTube channel

In the second of our Graphic Medicine Conference podcasts, Dr. Christopher Dwyer interviews Catherine Gouge and KC Councilor about their work in communication and graphic medicine, as well as their conference workshop on ReDo Comics. See the Graphic Medicine website for a Drawing Together that shares how to make these comics! Our podcast host, Christopher Dwyer, is a psychology researcher, who specializes in the fields of cognition and education, with international expertise in the field of Critical Thinking. He is the author of the book Critical Thinking: Historical Perspectives & Practical Guidelines, published by Cambridge University Press; authors an ongoing... Read More

Join Angell Deer as he delves into the ancient practice of "Plant and Tree Dieta" in this insightful talk. And join our next plant dieta at https://www.sacredpaths.earth/plant-dieta. Discover how this profound method allows you to connect with the wisdom and essence of plants and trees, offering guidance, healing, and spiritual alignment in a disconnected world. Main Topics Explored: 1. Introduction to Plant and Tree Dieta: Understanding the ancestral roots and significance of plant and tree dietas. The importance of connecting deeply with plant spirits for wisdom in today's world. 2.The Process of a Plant Dieta: Detailed walk-through of the Plant and Tree Dieta methodology. Using extracts, teas, and spiritual practices to connect with plant allies. 3. The Benefits of Plant and Tree Dieta: How dietas can provide guidance, healing, and spiritual support. Building relationships with plant allies that can protect and assist in spiritual work. 4. Global and Local Practices: Emphasizing the capacity to perform dietas with local flora, connecting you to your immediate environment. Encouraging personal growth and transformation through continuous practice. 5. Practical Guidelines and Community Support: Insight into the structure of the dieta program and community engagement. Learning from others' experiences and integrating teachings into daily life. Embark on this journey to deepen your connection with nature and explore the wisdom of plant beings. Perfect for spiritual practitioners, nature enthusiasts, and anyone seeking a profound relationship with the natural world. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode with others who wish to explore plant wisdom.   Tags: plant and tree dieta, Angell Deer, plant wisdom, spiritual journey, nature connection, spiritual alignment, indigenous practices, plant spirits, spiritual teachings, plant extracts, holistic healing, spiritual insights, community support, plant meditation, natural wisdom, spiritual guidance, nature's cycles, personal growth, transformative practice, spiritual ecology Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSOoF-w9d3Y9_-2dXNImjqQ/join

In the first of our Graphic Medicine Conference podcasts, Dr. Christopher Dwyer interviews John Miers. John is a cartoonist, illustrator, academic and teacher. He is lecturer in illustration at Kingston School of Art, a member of the Comics Research Hub at University of the Arts London, and co-organiser of Transitions. John’s website:  https://johnmiers.com/Comics Our podcast host, Christopher Dwyer, is a psychology researcher, who specializes in the fields of cognition and education, with international expertise in the field of Critical Thinking. He is the author of the book Critical Thinking: Historical Perspectives & Practical Guidelines, published by Cambridge University Press; authors... Read More

Is your metabolism speaking to you? If so, you should be listening…  In this episode of the Wellness Revolution podcast, I am joined by Dr. Jade Teta to discuss the revolutionary approach to understanding your metabolism. We discuss following rigid diet plans versus interpreting the body's signals using SHMEC for women in their 40s. We also dive into practical advice on how to work with your metabolism, why the "one-size-fits-all" approach to diet and exercise often fails, and much more.  Dr. Jade Teta is a multifaceted expert in integrative medicine, with a unique blend of scientific knowledge and holistic approaches. With a degree in biochemistry and a background in naturopathic medicine, he specializes in integrative endocrinology, focusing on hormones and metabolism. Dr. Teta's 25-year career as a personal trainer has evolved into creating widely-used video workouts and authoring books on metabolism, fitness, and personal development. His approach combines conventional and alternative methods, emphasizing lifestyle changes and natural approaches before pharmaceutical interventions. Thank you to our sponsors: Join Crush Life Boot Camp: https://products.ambershaw.com/crushlife Solluna: Use code 15AMBER and shop at mysolluna.com     Find more from Dr. Jade Teta: Website:  https://www.jadeteta.com/  Instagram: @jadeteta   Find more from Amber: Instagram: @msambershaw TikTok: @msambershaw Website: ambershaw.com    What We Discuss: 03:48 Understanding Metabolism: The Language of Your Body 08:07 The Goldilocks Zone: Finding Balance in Diet and Exercise 11:52 Practical Guidelines for Couch Potatoes and Over-Exercisers 20:00 Intuitive Eating vs. Tracking: Finding Your Magic Number 25:06 Intuitive Eating vs. Structured Flexibility 28:05 Understanding Weight Loss Expectations 36:29 Navigating Menopause and Hormonal Changes 44:07 Self-Care and Nutrition in Menopause  

"Modesty is not about hiding ourselves, but about revealing our true beauty in a way that uplifts and inspires others." - C.S. Lewis Choosing clothing and accessories with modesty in mind is an effective way to express one's unique sense of style without compromising one's self-respect. The relevance of incorporating modesty into clothing is discussed below.

"Modesty is not about hiding ourselves, but about revealing our true beauty in a way that uplifts and inspires others." - C.S. Lewis Choosing clothing and accessories with modesty in mind is an effective way to express one's unique sense of style without compromising one's self-respect. The relevance of incorporating modesty into clothing is discussed below.

"The only constant in life is change." Have you heard this quote before? While we know the truth of who our God is never changes, it's also very true that life on this earth is full of change and transitions! In our final message of the family series, we'll see some practical guidelines to help us navigate transitions in life and in our family as we move from one season to another, holding on to the unchangeable truth of our God.

Today, we're discussing how to effectively manage the risks associated with AI. Joining us is Dr. Limor Ziv. She is the Founder and CEO of Humane AI, a cutting-edge technology company dedicated to promoting responsible AI practices. With exceptional expertise in AI risk management and ethical deployment, she assists organizations in navigating the complex landscape of AI implementation and regulatory compliance. She's also a respected lecturer at leading tech companies and universities, and a keynote speaker at global conferences. Learn more: https://www.humane-ai.ai/ Want to learn more? Sign up for our online program today and learn how to develop and launch a successful Gen AI product! - https://genai.thinkific.com/courses/A... Gen AI for entrepreneurs and leaders:    • Unlocking the Power of Gen AI: Leader...   Thanks for watching AI and Humans: Invincible innovation Adi Mazor Kario, #1 Product, Design and AI Expert. https://www.invincibleinnovation.com/ Invincible Innovation podcast: https://spoti.fi/3wzdBT1 Invincible Innovation on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xtwPt9 Innovating Through Chaos Book: https://amzn.to/3gAVLbu Adi's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3vuAplA #AI #AIProduct #genAI #valuecreation #startup #Innovation #distruptiveInnovation #entreprenuer #business #leadership #innovation #innovationecosystem #startup #management #invincibleinnovation #openinnovation #cocreation #opportunities

In this episode Rabbi Shalom Rosner discusses the Halachot of Preparing Food on Shabbat. Follow along using Tzurba Volume 19.Tzurba is a revolutionary Halacha sefer guiding the learner through the Halachic process from the Talmudic source through modern day halachic application. Each volume contains clear and concise color-coded sections with a modern English translation alongside the original Hebrew text.The Tzurba Hilchot Shabbat Program is a 2 year cycle in which one can master all of Hilchot Shabbat by learning weekly with Tzurba's signature seforim and style.Tzurba seforim are all available on Amazon worldwide (for those in Israel you can purchase on our website)Have a question for Rabbi Rosner? Want to sponsor a shiur? Contact us at neil@tzurbaolami.com or WhatsAppFollow us on social media for more content:WhatsAppInstagramTwitterYouTubeLearn more about The Lax Family Tzurba M'Rabanan SeriesChapters00:00 Introduction 03:28 Practical Applications of Salting on Shabbat05:29 Halachic Opinions and Debates09:14 Salting Radishes and Eggs on Shabbat18:22 D'rabanan Salting: Radishes and Pickling18:53 Foods Requiring Salting: Rambam's Perspective19:43 Salt Water on Shabbos: Rules and Exceptions22:18 Salting Radishes: Rashi vs. Rambam24:12 Practical Guidelines for Salting on Shabbos28:49 Salting Vegetables: Common Practices and Misconceptions36:02 Concluding Thoughts

PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR ORDER IN YOUR LIFE.  There are numerous self-help guides online and in books that offer ways to improve any and all aspects of one's life. We check in with St. Francis de Sales, who provides some practical ways to help us strengthen our own personal commitment to our faith and to discipleship.   Join the conversation: anycatholicconversation@gmail.com 

Series: N/AService: Radio Program / PodcastType: Radio Program / PodcastSpeaker: E.R. Hall, Jr.

Amateurs, Masters, and Time-Crunched Cyclists benefit from both strength training and endurance training, but struggle to fit both into limited available time.  Can an athlete successfully train for strength and endurance simultaneously? Do the training stimuli interfere with each other enough to matter? And if you train both concurrently, how should you schedule strength and endurance sessions for maximum gains?Topics Covered In This Episode:What does concurrent strength and endurance training mean?Signaling: how strength training signals for hypertrophy and endurance training for mitochondrial developmentmTOR vs. AMPKExplaining the Interference EffectPractical strength and endurance schedules for athletes who:Prioritize cycling performance Prioritize muscle strength and sizeSeek a balance of muscle mass and aerobic endurance developmentShow Links/Resources:Companion article on trainright.comShould Cyclists Ride and Lift Weights on the Same Day? Practical Guidelines for Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training for CyclistsNutrition & the Molecular Response to Strength Training:https://www.gssiweb.org/sports-science-exchange/article/sse-123-nutrition-and-the-molecular-response-to-strength-trainingSignals Mediating Skeletal Muscle Remodeling by Resistance Exercise: PI3 Kinase Independent Action with mTOR1:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21071597/Risks of Concurrent Training by Kolie Moore:https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/risks-of-concurrent-training/Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platformGET FREE TRAINING CONTENTJoin our weekly newsletterCONNECT WITH CTSWebsite: trainright.comInstagram: @cts_trainrightTwitter: @trainrightFacebook: @CTSAthlete

Rev. Angela Keeton Monday November 6, 2023

Dr. Kim Allen joins Dr. Dave Schramm and Dr. Liz Hale to talk about Family Life Coaching.She talks about what it is, what it isn't, and even a few examples and stories of clients she'sworked with. About Kim Allen: Dr. Kimberly Allen is Interim Associate Dean and Director of Academic Programs and Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University, as well as CO creator of the family life coaching Association, and co-owner of Sweet Gestalt LLC. Dr. Ellen has over 20 years experience working with youth and their families. Her research interests include family life coaching, student success, parenting and relationship Education. Dr. Ellen is author of the book “Theory, Research and Practical Guidelines for Family Life Coaching.” Insights: “So really at its core family life coaching is taking what we know in Family Science about what's good in couple relationships, what's good and family relationships and partnering that with the process from coaching psychology.” - Dr. Kimberly Allen “You said the words listening for instead of listening to. You listen for feelings, you're listeningfor strengths, and just trying to see things from their perspective” - Dr. Dave Schramm Invites: Learn more about Family Life Coaching on the FLC Association’s website. Consider reaching out to a Family Life Coach to help you to improve your interpersonalrelationships. Kim Allen’s Links: Organization Website: flcassociation.orgPersonal Website: drkimallen.com   Visit our site for FREE relationship resources and regular giveaways: StrongerMarriage.orgpodcast.strongermarriage.orgFacebook: StrongerMarriage.orgInstagram: @strongermarriagelife Dr. Dave Schramm: https://drdaveschramm.com https://drdavespeaks.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrDaveUSU Facebook Marriage Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/770019130329579 Facebook Parenting Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/542067440314642 Dr. Liz Hale: http://www.drlizhale.com/

In this first episode, Dr Natalie Lancer with Dr. Kimberly Allen, Dr. Margaret Machara and Vielka Gabriel explore how coaches can work with families, sometimes in vulnerable communities, towards a more empowered family life. We learn what the coach's role is in working, with young children, teenagers and the elderly, through the normal challenges of life across the lifespan, through discussing: •    What is family life coaching? •    How is it different to other forms of coaching and interventions? •    How does family life coaching relate to other family science practices? •    How can you become a family life coach? •    What evidence base does family life coaching draw upon? •    When did family life coaching start? •    How is family coaching different from social work? •    Why would a family life work with a family coach? •    What does family life coaching typically look like? •    How have post-pandemic coaching practices impacted family life coaching? •    Where is the profession of family life coaching heading? Family life coaching is a growing field that coaches in the US are pioneering. It celebrates positive approaches to help families increase their confidence in dealing with life's challenges by engaging with families who actively want to direct their own futures. Our guests today are: Kimberly Allen, Ph.D., BCC, CFLE is Interim Associate Dean and Director of Academic Programs and Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University as well as Co-Creator of the Family Life Coaching Association where she trains coaches in this discipline. Dr. Allen has over 20 years' experience working with youth and their families. Her research interests include family life coaching, student success, teaching with technology, parenting, and relationship education. Dr. Allen is author of the book Theory, Research, and Practical Guidelines for Family Life Coaching. Margaret E. Machara, PhD, CFLE is a Professor of Human Sciences at Tennessee State University and co-creator of the Family Life Coaching Association.  She currently oversees the Child Development/Family Studies concentration at TSU and is actively involved in several Family Science professional organisations.  Dr. Machara has worked with diverse groups of children, adults, and families in a variety of settings.  Her areas of expertise are Human Development, Family Relationships, Parenting, Interpersonal Dynamics, Play-Based Learning, Experiential Education, and Outdoor Activity.  Vielka Maria Gabriel has a background in Human Development, specialising in Family Coaching with an emphasis on working with vulnerable communities. Since 2007, she  has served as a life coach and managed the MindSet Life Coaching program at Wake County Health and Human Services, North Carolina.  The 10-week life coaching program assists individuals and families to become self-sufficient by addressing barriers including Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), goal setting, accessing resources to strength and skill building in financial, physical, and mental health.  Your host, Dr Natalie Lancer, is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist, and British Psychological Society (BPS) Registered Supervisor. She is the Chair of the BPS's Division of Coaching Psychology and an accredited member of the Association for Coaching. She is the host of this podcast series and invites you to email any comments to docp-tcppod@bps.org.uk https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/division-coaching-psychology  © British Psychological Society 2023

The gift of prophecy is an amazing thing, but it is often very misunderstood. I wanted to provide the church with the clearest, most holistic teaching on both the role of prophet and the gift of prophecy in Scripture. This is a 7-part series that adds up to about 16 hours.I pray this episode blesses you.Support This Ministry If You Have Been Impacted! Your Support Allows This Ministry To Create More Content & Resources That Equip Others.Find Everything On My Website RIGHT HEREWatch This Episode On Youtube Right HereOrder My Book "Fruitful"Support This MinistryJoin Our Online Church

► Become A Monthly Sponsor: Insha Allah become a contributor and sponsor of Salafy Ink's Podcast. By being a contributor and sponsor, you will help sustain future episodes of beneficial content. You can become a contributor and sponsor of this Podcast with a small monthly donation. You will be rewarded for everyone who benefits from the content of this Podcast. The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Whoever guides someone to good will be rewarded equivalent to him who practices that good.” [Saheeh Muslim] May Allah make your contribution heavy on your scale of good deeds. https://anchor.fm/salafy-ink --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/salafy-ink/support

In this episode we discuss practical guidelines for Biblical interpretation. 

I share with you today some spiritual and practical guidelines that I have used in my life over the years. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/russ-harper/message

This morning (11/19/21), in our "Machshavah Lab" series for women, we continued our quest for practical guidelines on how to cultivate humility. After reviewing the sources and questions from last time, and resolving one apparent contradiction which came up, we delved into the Abravanel's ... interesting strategies for combatting arrogance. Today's session focused on two causes of haughtiness: beauty and physical strength. We certainly found what we were looking for, so much so that the shiur went 30 minutes overtime! God willing, we'll continue the series some time in the near future (but not in the next two weeks).----------מקורות:רמב"ם - משנה תורה, ספר המדע, הלכות דעות ב:א-גאברבנאל - אבות ד:דרש"י - קהלת יב:א-חאבות ג:ארש"י - תלמוד בבלי סוטה דף י עמוד אתלמוד בבלי - נדרים דף ט עמוד בLinks to my three Rambam Bekius shiurim on haughtiness and anger: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3The Stoic Jew Podcast: On Contemptuous Expressions----------This week's Torah content has been sponsored by Shirley, and since she didn't specify a dedicatory message, then I'm going to dedicate this to the entire Sinclair family - Shirley, David, and Ken.----------If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.----------If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail.com. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.com. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.----------YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/rabbischneeweissBlog: https://kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/rmschneeweiss"The Mishlei Podcast": https://mishlei.buzzsprout.com"The Stoic Jew" Podcast: https://thestoicjew.buzzsprout.com"Rambam Bekius" Podcast: https://rambambekius.buzzsprout.com"Machshavah Lab" Podcast: https://machshavahlab.buzzsprout.com"The Tefilah Podcast": https://tefilah.buzzsprout.comGuide to the Torah Content of Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss: https://kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/2021/04/links-to-torah-content-of-rabbi-matt.htmlAmazon Wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/Y72CSP86S24W?ref_=wl_share

This morning (11/12/21), in our "Machshavah Lab" series for women, we began what I hope will be the first shiur in a (non-consecutive) series. Out of all the good middos, anavah (humility) is considered to be the greatest - but is anavah merely a natural result of our learning and our adherence to the Torah, or are there active steps we can take to cultivate it? In this shiur we will proceed on the latter assumption. We will attempt to understand anavah from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint. In this first installment we reviewed the Rambam's approach to gaivah (arrogance) and anavah, as set forth in the Mishneh Torah. We then began our analysis of Pirkei Avos 4:4 with the commentary of the Abravanel. Today's shiur was devoted to setting up the sugya with the facts and questions. Next time we hope to begin answering the questions we raised today.----------This week's Torah content has been sponsored anonymously. May Hashem send a refuah shleimah to Margalit Esther bat Ettel and Noam Binyamin Refael ben Dina Nili.----------מקורות:רמב"ם - משנה תורה, ספר המדע, הלכות דעות ב:א-גאברבנאל - אבות ד:ד----------This week's Torah content has been sponsored anonymously. May Hashem send a refuah shleimah to Margalit Esther bat Ettel and Noam Binyamin Refael ben Dina Nili.----------If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.----------If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail.com. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.com. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.----------YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/rabbischneeweissBlog: https://kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/rmschneeweiss"The Mishlei Podcast": https://mishlei.buzzsprout.com"The Stoic Jew" Podcast: https://thestoicjew.buzzsprout.com"Rambam Bekius" Podcast: https://rambambekius.buzzsprout.com"Machshavah Lab" Podcast: https://machshavahlab.buzzsprout.com"The Tefilah Podcast": https://tefilah.buzzsprout.comGuide to the Torah Content of Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss: https://kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/2021/04/links-to-torah-content-of-rabbi-matt.html

van der Meer et al. provide a valuable conceptual framework with practical guidelines regarding how to build a Sense of Community in online medical pre-clerkship education. Read the accompanying article to this podcast: Practical guidelines to build Sense of Community in online medical education.

Enough is Enough to Captivity of Satan and Welcome to Freedom in Christ Jesus –  Receive Answers to Common Questions on healing, deliverance, and restoration + Practical Guidelines to Ministering Healing, Deliverance, and Restoration + Synthesis of Schizophrenia as revealed by the Holy Spirit to Ida Mae Hammond and how to deal with the spirit part 9

Living Islam: Practical Guidelines for protecting our Islam | Class #2 Islam, Muslim, Prophet Muhammad, Mohammed, sharia, Christianity, Jesus, prophet Jesus, Mufti Menk, Nouman Ali Khan, Islamic reminder, short reminder, digital mimbar, Hamza Yusuf, Yasir Qahdi,

Living Islam: Practical Guidelines for Protecting our Islam in Today's Crises | Class #1

"Episode 1076 / Practical Guidelines" - E.R. Hall, Jr.

By now you have probably read all the news on how Covid-19 is impacting the economy – both globally and locally. Some of you may have already felt the pinch, while the others are bracing for the impact to come, or you might be one of the few businesses that stand to benefit from this crisis. The magnitude and speed of impact will very much be dependent on the industries you are serving plus how strong your business foundation is. We understand the stress you are facing – be it with your business or family. Whichever stage you are, we would like to offer 8 very practical guidelines for you to manage this period of uncertainties.

Episode Summary Positive social relationships affect physical and mental health, and can promote well-being and healthy behavior in both the individual and those within their social network such as friends, family, and children. In the family realm, we know that parenting support programs reduce child maltreatment, neglect, and corporal punishment while also increasing use of positive parenting practices and improving parent confidence.  While this is true for all parents, mothers share the brunt of the family life responsibilities and they are often the gatekeepers of family relationships. Mothers impact home life, school life, work life…you name it. We know that parents, especially moms, are stressed, and when family life suffers, that spills into all realms of life. Science is clear that having more positive than negative interactions improves relationships and improving relationships yields healthier and happier outcomes for family members and the workplace. Family Life Coaching is an evidence-based approach to support family members, including parents and moms. In this podcast, Dr. Allen share more about the impact of stress on families, the importance of supporting families, and how coaching is the way to do it! Guest 1: Kimberly Allen Show Notes Let's talk about conferences Intro to family coaching How 'easy' are pronouns for the new generation The difference between family phycology and business or personal coaching "The Magic Ratio" Christopher talks about his kids and being a 'guard' at home. Resources from Family Life Coaching Association FLCA and all the resources on their site Kim talks about her research and book writing Links Mentioned: Theory, Research, and Practical Guidelines for Family Life Coaching Follow Us: Website: https://www.flcassociation.org/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-allen-a6b89814/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FLCAssociation/ Twitter: @flcassociation

Many of us are seeking to develop our innate capacity for compassion and wisdom in order to live a most happy, peaceful and beneficial life.  The "16 Guidelines" are a simple and robust Tibetan Buddhism-sourced framework for reflecting on the ways we think, act, relate to others and find meaning in life . . . as well as for creating the causes of true happiness and fulfillment. In this broadcast, Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project summarizes each of the 16 guidelines in a manner that is accessible to all.  (Length: 60 minutes) -- Note: This podcast was originally broadcast as an "Elegant Mind" episode on  KAPY Valley Radio 104.9 FM, a community radio station serving the lower Snoqualmie River Valley of western Washington State. It includes commentary as well music composed and performed by Bobby Vega, a renowned SF Bay-area musician.   

Practical Guidelines for Those Who Are Praying for Holy Spirit Baptism (Eight Essential Elements of the Biblical Christian Gospel Series, Element 7, Part Qc)

Practical Guidelines for Those Who Are Praying for Holy Spirit Baptism (Baptized in the Holy Spirit Series, 2017 Edition, Chapter 15C)

Practical Guidelines for Those Who Are Praying for Holy Spirit Baptism (Baptized in the Holy Spirit Series, 2017 Edition, Chapter 15C)

Practical Guidelines for Tithing

https://wisdom-trek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Wisdom-Trek2800.jpg () Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy Welcome to Day 424 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom 15 Practical Guidelines to Live By Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 24 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate you to live a rich and satisfying life this week. Today we will explore 15 Practical Guidelines to Live By. https://wisdom-trek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Monday-motivation3.jpg () We are broadcasting from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The day this episode originally airs will be Labor Day in the United States, which is a day set aside to remember the working class laborer who has been an integral part of the building our country. We will also be heading back to Marietta today for a week. Paula is having a few of her Charlotte area friends up to The Big House for a quilting outing and to watch the fireworks at Marietta's annual Sternwheel Festival. Since Marietta is built on the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, sternwheelers and river traffic have been a big part of the town's heritage. The fireworks display on Saturday night rivals the best displays anywhere. We usually try to make it to the festival when possible. It is great to be able to get together with friends and family and share life together. This is usually fairly easy to do for most of us. What is not as easy is to treat other people well who may not like or who do not treat us well. As I was thinking about this, it brings to mind what the words that Jesus spoke that we refer to as “The Golden Rule,” and it motivated me to list some tips that may help all of us. As we break camp and head out on today's trek let's look at… https://wisdom-trek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Golden-rule.png () 15 Practical Guidelines to Live By As part of Jesus's teaching one principle that is hard for all of us to grasp is to love those who do not love us, and yet as much as humanly possible we should endeavor to do so. In Luke 6:27-31 Jesus said, “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don't try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you.” The last verse, “Do to others as you would like them to do to you,” is considered “The Golden Rule,” and all of us like to think we follow it. But do we follow the verses that precede it? I love the simplicity of the Golden Rule, and a closely related verse that sums up the entire Bible, which is Galatians 5:14, “For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Do to others as you would like them to do to you.Tweet This It's true. The rule of treating others as you would want to be treated in their place will ultimately lead to your own happiness. Let's say that you apply the Golden Rule in all of your interactions with other people, and you help your neighbors, you treat your family with kindness, you go the extra mile for your co-workers, you help a stranger in need, you even help those who have not been kind to you. Now, those actions will undoubtedly be good for the people you help and are kind to…but you'll also notice an interesting result. People will treat you better. Beyond that, though, you will find a growing satisfaction in yourself, a belief in yourself, and knowledge that you love yourself properly and are making an impact on your world as you are creating a living legacy. The truth is, on a day-to-day basis,...

Rabbi Dr. Simcha Raphael, Founding Director of the Da'at Institute (www.daatinstitute.net/) presents his lecture "Jacob’s Deathbed Wisdom – Practical Guidelines for Conscious Living and Dying" before an audience at Temple Kol Ami (www.templekolami.org/) in Scottsdale, AZ. LEARNING MATERIALS: http://bit.ly/1pu8Wi4 DONATE: http://bit.ly/1NmpbsP For more info, please visit: www.facebook.com/valleybeitmidrash/ www.facebook.com/temple.kolami.9 twitter.com/VBMTorah www.facebook.com/RabbiShmulyYanklowitz/

sermon transcript Investment Advice from the Expert A Topical Sermon About Money – Preparing for an Eternal Retirement Amen, amen. Well, a good church will do a lot of things for you - a lot of information, a lot of encouragement, a lot of fellowship, etcetera. This morning, you're going to get, I hope, sound financial planning for your retirement, and by that, I don't mean the retirement that's going to last just perhaps at most two or three decades; I'm talking about your real retirement, the one in eternity. I want to challenge you to store up treasure for eternity, and to be as you've already heard it in my prayer, liberated from the bondage of covetousness and from enslavement to money. Now, as I've thought about my preaching life here at FBC, I don't think I've ever preached a topical sermon on money in almost 17 years. So you all are privileged to hear my first topical sermon on money. Now, you may wonder, why have I not done that? Maybe it was just pride on my part; I didn't want to seem like one of those TV preachers that was, you know, oh, you got to grab your wallet as soon as you come into church, and it's like such a cliché. But the fact of the matter is, the more I've studied and looked at scriptures teaching on this, the more I realize how important and vital this topic is. Advice from Worldly Experts Now, if you are going to gather around yourself today some financial experts from history to help you plan for retirement or help you invest soundly, who would you choose? I love reading about history about our country. I like reading about some of the great figures from the past. So, I've got a couple of guys I have in mind. Like I wouldn't mind getting some financial planning from Andrew Carnegie, who was a Scottish immigrant, came over penniless, and by the end of his life was, I think, the wealthiest man on Earth, and was a meticulous and careful investor. Or how about John D. Rockefeller, we could do that. How he saw a small business opportunity in petroleum and eventually grew to dominate 90% of the petroleum industry in the US, I wonder what that would be worth today, 90%. But he was a multi, multi-multi-millionaire billionaire, and he would be a good advice giver. How about in our day and age, Warren Buffet, if you wanted a worldly financial planning, here's a guy that started very, very small, and now he's worth, just through sound investing, 72 billion dollars. Advice from Scripture Itself – Money and the Condition of the Heart But I would commend someone else to you for retirement planning, how about Jesus Christ? All of those men are just going to give you worldly advice. I want to hear from Jesus, I would commend him to you because I think he's the greatest investment planner that has ever lived, and I think some of the words that we're going to study today are going to bring us wisdom in ways that I think we really need it. Kyle already hinted at this, but there's an incredible amount of teaching on money in the New Testament, and really indeed throughout the Bible. We need to face all of Jesus's teachings on this topic, fully 15% of his recorded words are about money. As a matter of fact, he talked more about money than he did about heaven and hell combined. As you heard, a third of the parables are about money, and the reason that he said so much about money is that it's an incredible indicator of the health of your soul. And what you do with your money is a very, very clear indicator of what's going on in your heart, just as your words are. You know a record of your words out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks, so also out of the fullness of the heart, the wallet spends. And so if we had a full record of your words and a record of how you spend your money or what you do with your money, well we would know the condition of your soul. And so we're really getting right away to the issue of salvation. Has God done a saving work in your life, have you actually been moved from darkness to light? Have you actually been rescued from death and brought over into eternal life? You remember the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector, unscrupulous tax collector who had been defrauding people for many years, and how Jesus invited himself over for dinner, what a great story that is. And he was there, and at some point, the Lord sovereignly moved in grace on Zacchaeus's heart, and "Zacchaeus stood up and said, 'Look, Lord. Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.' Jesus said to him, 'Today, salvation has come to this house. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.'" Now, this is a stunning moment in reference to the topic we're looking at today. Notice that Jesus didn't merely say, "Hey, you know, that's a good idea. I want to commend that kind of initiative." No, it's like, "This is how I know that Salvation has come. That you, you greedy tax collector has been defrauding people for years, is finally set free from that, and been delivered." Or how about the case of the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus? You remember that one? And he comes and says, "Good teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?" He said, "Why do you ask me about what is good? No one is good, but God alone. If you want to eternal life, then keep the commandments." And the man assured Jesus that He had perfectly kept all of God's commands his entire life, including Honor your father and mother. I find that interesting. I would like to have gone and talked to the rich young ruler's parents and see - was he the perfect son? But he was certainly, he kept all of God's commands. And then "Jesus said, 'One thing you lack. If you want to be perfect then sell all your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.'" And you remember how the rich young ruler went away sad, because he had great wealth and he could not give up his money. Money had such a grip on his heart. Now, we do not say in Christian ministry that everyone needs to sell everything they have and give to the poor or they won't go to heaven, but Jesus identified fundamentally a God that was enthroned in that rich young ruler's life. He's able to search with those eyes of blazing fire and know what's going on in people's hearts, and he needed to give it up, and no one can enthrone the true and living God without first dethroning the false gods. And money is one of the great false gods there is in our age. And we need to have that, or is it's just going to say, later in the text we're looking at today, "No one can serve two masters." You cannot serve both God and money. So the basic principle here is there's a powerful relationship, a powerful connection between our true spiritual condition and our attitude and actions concerning money and possessions. Or think about Jesus, the one time he was sitting and watching all of the people giving their money at the offerings and along comes this poor widow who puts in her two little copper coins, and Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this woman has put in more than everyone else. All the others gave out of their abundance, but she gave the all that she had to live on." Now, can you imagine your standard worldly wise financial planner, right at her elbow, she's about to give those two copper coins and doing everything they can to stop her from doing it? It's not wise, they would say. It's foolish for you, but in Jesus's mind, she gave more than anyone else. What that shows me also is that Judgment Day is going to be a day of big surprises, a day in which we'll find out who the true heroes were. And maybe not the upfront people, the people that are the most famous, but this widow and her two copper coins represents the hidden servants of God that God is going to reward more highly than anyone that ever lived. But again, the issue of money. Are We Living Like the Rich Fool? And then the parable about the Rich Fool, and this one really sends chills down our backs, you know this parable that Jesus told in Luke 12, "The ground of a certain rich man produced an abundant harvest... " I love that. You know, what did he do? Nothing, but his ground that he happened to own made him a wealthy man. "He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store all this abundant crop that's come in, this amazing harvest. I know what I'll do, I'll tear down my barns and build bigger barns, and then I will store up all of these things and I'll say to my soul, Soul, you have plenty of things for years to come. Eat, drink and be merry.'" And then this terrible word comes to him from God; "God said to him, 'You fool. This very night, your soul will be required from you,'" now meditate on that word, required. That is a summons from the King, and when that summons come, you cannot refuse. "'Then who will get all that you have stored up for yourself?'" And then Jesus commented on the parable saying, "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself, but has not been rich toward God." The question I want to ask here in our American setting is, how many of us are living essentially like this rich fool? How many of us are building bigger barns to store up the ever-increasing resources that are flowing in, what does it mean for us to build bigger barns, what does that look like? But what does it mean to store up for ourselves things for years to come? And even more importantly, what does it mean to be rich toward God? That's what I want to know from this text that we're looking at today, I want to know what does it mean to be rich toward God. I yearn for the people of First Baptist Church for all of you who hear me, to be rich toward God and so proven to be so on Judgment Day. I want you to invest in eternity. So that brings us to Matthew 6:19-24. The text there says this, "Do not store for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. If your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." So that's the text we're looking at today. Overview of Chapter 6 Unifying theme for the Entire Chapter: Motivation Let's get a little bit of context. This is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus taught one day, Matthew 5-7. In chapter 6, I think a unifying theme of Matthew 6, right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount is motivation. What moves you to do what you do? And so in verses 1-21, he goes through people who give to the needy, but do it in such an ostentatious way that they get rewarded immediately by praise and honor; they announce with trumpets what they're doing. Or those that pray so conspicuously that they get immediately rewarded for what they do because everyone honors their piety, or people that fast in such a dramatic way that everyone honors them, immediately, he's getting right at their motivation, what motivates you toward a life of piety? He's talking about motivation, but then in verses 19-34, what motivates your physical life, is it a desire for wealth and anxiety over basic needs? Are you concerned about food, clothing, and shelter? And you're worrying about it and you think about it all the time. What motivates your life? Christ’s Constant Concern: Help Individual Christian Understand His/Her Heavenly Father Now, in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ's constant concern is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven, what life is like, and specifically our relationship to the king. That we would understand how loving our Heavenly Father is and how able he is to provide for us, he wants us in a right relationship with our Heavenly Father. The General Principle: Be Wise in How You Store Up Treasure (vs. 19-21) Underlying Assumption: You’re going to Be Storing up Treasure Somewhere Now, He zeroes in here on this issue of storing up treasure. Look again at verses 19-21, He first states it negatively, "Do not store up treasures on earth." And then he turns around and does state it positively, "But, do store up treasure in Heaven." The underlying assumption here is you're going to be storing up treasure somewhere. One place or another, you're going to be storing it up. I think it's the same logic at the end of the Sermon on the Mount where he says, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." And then the house gets tested, but it survives. And then, "…everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice, like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand…" But the implication is both are going to be building, you're going to be building something. Every day you build something, the question is, what's the foundation, are you building on the rock? Is what you're building going to survive, or is it going to crash when the judgment comes? Frankly, then the idea here is the same. You're going to be storing up. Everyone stores up. Non-Christians store up, they just store up wrath for the day of Judgment, but we, we are called on to store up wisely. Supporting reasons And isn't it beautiful that Jesus lowers Himself to our level, and instead of just commanding us, He reasons with us why we should store up treasure in heaven. And that is the impermanence of earthly treasure. Verse 19, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." So he's reasoning with us. He said, "You've seen the way it is in this world. You've seen what can happen to material possessions, what can happen to the money and what can happen to the things that money can buy. They're impermanent, you can't count on them. They're going to be taken from you, they're going to be destroyed in some way." So moth and rust represents the inherent weakness of things in this corruptible world, things never look better than the day you bought them. And then they begin to degenerate immediately after that. You know what I'm talking about. It's just not as shiny, it's not as appealing, and so it's susceptible to decay; everything is that way, all the physical things. And then there's the issue of thieves, that's the inherent vulnerability of your possessions, that they can be stolen from you, another human being, an invading army can come in. A clever burglar can come in. A swindler can come. It could be stolen from you. Greatest thief, of course is death, all of us knows that we're giving it all up at death, that we will not have it with us at that point, we came into the world as Job said, naked, and we will leave the world naked. Randy Alcorn, who's written very helpfully on the topic of money, possessions and eternity, has this one slogan that stuck with me for years. "You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead." I mean, if there's one slogan that sums up this whole sermon, that's it. "You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead." How do you do that? By faithfully investing in God's work, by giving to the needs of poor and needy people, either spiritually poor and needy, because they haven't heard of the gospel, or materially poor and needy. Giving the needs of the church, you'll send it ahead. Everything given by faith for the glory of God cheerfully will be waiting for you on Judgment Day and will make you rich for all eternity. That's the principle that we've got here, do not store up for yourselves treasures on Earth, but rather, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, because it's permanent. Moth and rust do not destroy in heaven, there's no decay in heaven, and there are no enemies in Heaven, there are no thieves in Heaven, there are no covetous people in heaven, everyone will be perfectly happy with their own hoard [chuckle] and no one's going to want yours or going to take it from you, they'll be happy you had it. Listen to last week's sermon, you'll understand. They will rejoice that you have the joy of being so wealthy in heaven, and nothing will steal it from you. The Great Issue: The State of Your Heart Well, the great issue here is in verse 21, the state of your heart. What's really going on in your heart? For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What dominates your thinking? What dominates your heart? What do you hope for as you look ahead, what are your hopes based on? What do you yearn for? What makes you happy as you look ahead? Now, here we come to the issue of the basic idea of biblical rewards, both earthly and heavenly. "Do not live for earthly rewards," he said, "Don't set your hope on those kinds of things, don't look to the luxuries that money can buy." The Biblical Doctrine of Rewards, both Earthly and Heavenly Variety of Material Reward Recently, I saw a photo of Rafael Nadal who was playing in the French Open, and he had a watch on it that they, a watch on his wrist that they said was worth three quarters of a million dollars. I thought, Oh my goodness, so I was intrigued. Not ever thinking I'd own such a watch - imagine how that would drive you crazy? How you couldn't sleep at night? Where is it? Is it okay? You know, I mean, well that's worrisome. But then I found out, hey, that's just the beginning. There actually is a watch made by hand, that's the most expensive mechanical watch in the world, expensive because, not because it's diamond-encrusted but because of its intrinsic value. As a time keeper, 2.5 million dollars for a mechanical watch made by a German watchmaker, takes him one full year to make it. And you got to stand in line behind other multi-billionaires of which you'd need to be one to buy a 2.5 million dollar watch. And I'm thinking, isn't it amazing that people live for those kinds of things? But you say, "Well, that's not me." It's like, yeah, but that doesn't mean that materialism doesn't grab your heart, too even though you don't have a 2 million dollar watch. The bottom line is, we need to store up treasure for ourselves in heaven. And people say, is that appropriate? Should I be thinking like that? Should I be thinking about myself? Should I be ambitious for things for myself? Well, the text seems to imply that, yes, absolutely, you should. You should yearn to be rich, but you should just be wise about it, you should yearn to be rich in a way that you'll never lose your wealth. That's what he's talking about. Don't be a fool in yearning to be rich for yourself. Immediate Conclusion for Christian: Living for Rewards is Selfish Jonathan Edwards, when he was 19 years old, made a series of resolutions, and resolution 22 is the kind that just sticks with you as you hear it and understand it. He said this, "Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can with all the power, might, vigor and vehemence, yea, even violence I am capable of. I want to be as happy as I possibly can in the next world." That is the same thing as storing up treasure in heaven, I believe, and he says it's going to take vigor and vehemence and even violence to be maximally happy on the other side of Judgment Day, that's what he's talking about. So if living for rewards is intrinsically selfish not to be avoided, then why does Jesus talk about rewards so much? Why does he say to the persecuted people, "Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven." In Matthew 5:12, why does he talk about loving your enemies in such a way that, if you only love your friends what reward will you get? Everybody does that. Or then as we saw at the beginning of this chapter, in terms of giving to the poor and needy, don't announce it with trumpets, because if you do, other people will praise you and you'll have your reward in full. You want your reward from your heavenly Father who sees what is done in secret and will reward you. And he says it again and again, same thing with your prayer life, he sees what is done in secret and will reward you. He sees what you do with fasting and he will reward you. So if it's wrong to yearn for rewards, then why does he talk about it so much? I think what we fear is that the sense of the rewards is kind of covetous and selfish and self-focused. But the fundamental thing is the Bible teaches again and again, God will most certainly repay. Remember in Hebrews 6:10 says, "God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them." We just want you to keep on doing it and don't get lazy. God's not unjust, that implies that if he does not reward faithful service to his church, he has in some way violated a contract. He has promised to reward us and He will. He most certainly will. But I think the thing is, we are forgetting that he's at the center of every good thing that we do. Everything we do in service to Him is a display of his power at work in our lives, isn't it? Doesn't he say in John 3:21, "Those who live by the truth come into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they did has been done through God." So we come up to the judgment throne and say, Here are the good works that you worked in me, by your Spirit, to God be the glory. Biblical Truth about Judgment Day There's nothing covetous about that or idolatrous, that's just simply taught in Revelation 20:12, that on Judgment Day, "I saw the dead great and small standing before the Great White Throne and books were open… and the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books." So it's definitely going to happen. 1 Corinthians 4:5, "The Lord will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts, and at that time, each will receive his praise from God." The quality of our work is going to be tested. If we build with gold, silver, costly stones, or on the other hand with wood, hay and straw, that day, Judgment Day is going to test our life's works with fire and whatever survives that will be our reward. This is coming. Our righteous acts are in some way woven into a crown of honor that we will be delighted to wear to show our faithful service to the king. Says in 1 Peter 5:4, "When the Chief Shepherd appears, you elders who have served faithfully will receive a crown of glory that will never fade away." Now we know what happens to those crowns in Revelation 4, all the 24 elders just continually casting their crowns down before the throne. And that's their way of saying, This is mine, but I ascribe it to you. But there's nothing I have that I didn't receive. All of it is from you and goes back to you. Now, the ultimate reason why rewards are not, is not idolatrous or covetous is because the center of the reward is relational with God. If you were to say, I am setting my heart fully on something that has nothing to do with God, but it brings me pleasure, I enjoy it, I look forward to it, I want more and more of it. That's the essence of idolatry. But if you say, I'm setting my heart on God, and I want Him to be pleased with me, and I want him to give me honor and praise, and emblems of His pleasure in me, there's nothing idolatrous about that, it's purely relational between us and God. For me, the most important words on rewards is in 1 Corinthians 4:5, which you just heard, but I will say it again. "Wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness, and will expose the motives of men's hearts. Now, listen to this, at that time, each will receive his praise from God." Those three words, that's the essence of the reward we're seeking, we want praise from God, that's not praise for God, we'll be doing plenty of that in Heaven, to God, be the glory for everything. But no, that's God praising us. Or we could use commending us. Or as he says, "My Father will honor the one who serves Me." It's God honoring, God praising, God commending us for faithfully serving Him, it's taught so many places in the Bible. Summary: Essence Of Faith Is Reward, Essence of Reward Is God’s Pleasure There should be no sheepishness about it. We should yearn for that. I want God to be as pleased with me as he possibly can be. I want to find out what pleases my Lord and I want to do it. We want those famous words spoken over us, well done, well done, good and faithful servant, been faithful of a few things, now I'm going to put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your Master. In other words, let me tell you how happy I am with how you lived your life, that's the essence of the reward. It says in Hebrews 11:6, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him." So he is the reward. The Danger of a Lost Reward: Materialism (vs. 22-24) Is this a Warning for Christians? Now, on the other side, we have the danger of a lost reward, and that comes through materialism. Look at verses 22 through 24, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" Now, the question we have to ask as we read the Sermon on the Mount is, is this a warning for Christians? Is this something we need to heed here should we be worried about our souls? Well understand the Sermon on the Mount was given to the disciples who gathered around him and sat down and they'd professed themselves to be followers of Christ. And he from the very beginning said, "Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He's talking to believers. And he is warning us concerning a great danger. Now, I've said before in other sermons, and it stuck with me and it's helpful, there are two great dangers that face every human being, and they're infinitely unequal. The greatest danger that any human being faces is that they will lose their soul on Judgment Day, what would it profit someone to gain the whole world and forfeit their soul, that's the greatest danger any of us faces. The only way to escape that is by simple repentance and faith in Christ, not by what you do with your money. Not by buying your way into Heaven; you cannot use your money to pay for sins, but by knowing that you're a sinner and knowing that you have come to Christ, trusting in Him and Him alone and receiving forgiveness of sins, that removes the greatest single danger there is to any human being. Warning: Wasted Resources, Lost Reward But the second great danger, and this is for Christians, is that you will waste your life. That you will waste yourselves, you'll waste your time and your energy and your money on things that just don't matter, they have no eternal consequence. And so he is warning us here. He's warning us that materialism, a yearning for material things, chokes out the seed, making it unfruitful. The thorns grow up, and they suck water and nutrients from the soil and deprive the good seed of bearing fruit, and they block the good seed from seeing light. And the thing dies. That's a danger, and so we have to be warned about the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. Christ’s Answer: The Single Eye (vs. 22-23) And so He zeroes in on your eyes and he says, "The eye is the lamp of the body." Now, why does he focus on the eyes? He says, If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. "The eye is the lamp of the body." And researchers tell us that we get 70% of our information about the surrounding world from our eyesight. But He's using a metaphor here, He's saying, if you see things as they really are by faith, if you see the world as it really is, if your eye is single. What is it you will be seeking first above anything else, He's going to tell you in a few verses, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness." Your eye is single, you're like an Olympic Archer, and you're zeroed in on the bull's eye, and you know what you're here for, you know what your life is for. And your eye is single. And if your eye is single, your whole body, your whole life will be radiated with the glory of God. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. You're seeing things wrongly. Christ’s Answer: The Single Master (vs. 24) And the core issue here, as we said, is the heart: either you "will hate the one and love the other." Be devoted to the one and despise the other. If you allow materialism to creep into your heart, you'll someday abandon your first love, you won't love Jesus, you won't love His kingdom, you'll start living for money, you'll start living for possessions; that will be your life. God then makes a claim on your entire life, all your resources, all your time, and all your money, and because we love the master, this service is not burdensome to us. Ultimately both God and money force a choice, you can't serve us both, you have to make a decision, we were made to be servants, you're going to serve someone. You can't say, I'm going to serve no one, I'm going to serve myself. Well, you've been deceived. Human beings were created to be servants. You're either going to serve God or you're going to serve Satan. You're either going to serve God, or you're going to serve money or sin. You've got to make a choice. Application: Stewardship of the Heart Christ’s Protection of Your Reward So what application can we take from this? Well, first and foremost, look to your soul. What do your spending habits say about the state of your soul? I think it's right for some of us to be alarmed at this teaching, to be alarmed that I don't want to be the Rich Fool; I don't want to be told by God that I lived my life for money. My whole life, everything was lived for the wrong things. And then he speaks down those terrifying words, "You fool, this very night, your life will be required from you," I don't want to be a fool. So have you been converted? Is there fruit in your life concerning even a reference to your money, how you're spending your money, is there evidence of fruit that you have been converted? Be Warned! Second of all, just if you're already a Christian, you know you're a believer, but you want to grow in this area, how are you investing your money, what are you doing actually with your money? Now, many of us may not consider ourselves wealthy, you need to get out more, dear friends; let me tell you two different ways that you can get out. Go on submission trips. Go to Haiti, go to Africa, go to Asia, meet the Christian brothers and sisters there. Alright, and then just do some reading, 20 centuries of church history. I would have to say I'm addressing right now among the top one percentile of wealthiest Christians that have ever walked the face of the earth. And you may say, well, that can't be true, just do the research, you'll find out what kind of condition our brothers and sisters live in around the world. Now, there's nothing necessarily wrong with being wealthy, we just need to be warned; 1 Timothy 6, warns rich people, we need to be warned how we're investing our money. Just because you have a nice home doesn't mean you're materialistic, but it might mean that you're materialistic. Just because you drive a nice car or you yearn to get a better car, doesn't mean you're covetous or idolatrous, but it might. You can't excuse yourself from the inquiry, look at your heart, is there evidence of materialism there, What do you set your heart on? What are you living for? What gives you hope for the future? And let me just start right here where I think it's reasonable to start, what are your giving patterns here to First Baptist Church? I can tell you with a clear conscience, I have never known anything about any specific member, and their giving patterns at FBC, and I hope I never will, unless they tell me, but don't tell me unless you want to. But I don't know what the book show I don't know what you give. I can look in the eye and say, I don't know. But I believe based on research done in general in churches - and just research out there - there is probably a percentage of you that never give anything at all. And if you never give anything at all, I'm just speaking a word of concern and warning to you, I wonder how it can be that you never give anything at all and you not be idolatrous or covetous, that in some way money has seize your heart. But let's just start there. Is there any pattern of, a possible pattern of, idolatry as shown by what you give to First Baptist Church? You may ask, Well, what guidelines because I want to increase my giving from what it was to something more, and people quickly soon ask about the issue of the tithe. Well should I tithe? Well tithe is an old English word that means a 10th; we don't use it much, but at this point, it's in Christian parlance, just has to a tithes and offering a 10th. Can I start there? Well, I think that's a good, actually a very good, place to start if you were giving zero before then let's start at a tithe. Now, Randy Alcorn, and one of my favorite statements from the book says, “The tithe is the training wheels of Christian giving.” Some of you may know I ride a bike for exercise, I enjoy doing that. How would you feel if you saw me and my bike had training wheels? Well, would you come up and talk to me about that? Would you find that interesting? Would you find it disturbing? How long you've been riding now, Andy? How is that going for you, can I help with that? I'd be willing to run alongside you for a little while and help you. Here's how the logic goes. Every spiritual practice of the old covenant is enhanced and improved in the new covenant, so if they're giving a tithe in the old, it is not appropriate for us to say, free from the law, happy condition, I can give less than they gave in the Old Covenant. That's not the way to go. Instead, it's like, What can God's grace do in my heart to so completely free me from materialism that I give more and more than I've ever given before. So that's the question you have to ask. Do you sacrifice? Do you defer pleasure so you can give. Do you say, Okay, here are some things we like to do, they cost this amount of money, for a time, we're not going to do those things, take that money and we're going to give it to the church or give it to a Christian ministry. That's what we want to do. Practical Guidelines from the Corinthians Is there a pattern of sacrifice in your life? Probably no chapters get as practical on how to give as a Christian than 2 Corinthians 8, 9, I would commend those two chapters, and those two chapters, just give some principles, like give consistently. Actually, in 1 Corinthians 16, it says, "Set aside something in the first day of the week." And some ask, “Do I have to give every week?” I would commend it to you, I'd commend weekly giving to you, just like I'd commend daily prayer, would you be able to cluster all your weeks prayers in one day and say, got it, done. No, it's a daily discipline we take in the word of God daily, I think in the same way giving can and should be a weekly discipline. Now, you may disagree and you can give monthly, that's fine, but there's just a regular pattern of giving and it's a discipline, it's something you just know it's God's money and give by faith as unto the Lord. It says in 2 Corinthians 8:5, "[the Macedonians] didn't give as we expected, but they gave themselves first to God and then to us as the Lord led." So by faith, give yourself to God and say, What do you want me to do? How do you want me to give? Thirdly, give generously and sacrificially, give in such a way that it does in fact pinch the way you live. Again, 2 Corinthians 8, the brothers in Macedonia gave far beyond their ability to give, it was just an amazing display out of their poverty it weld up into generosity. And then fourthly, give cheerfully. Friend, can I just tell you, if you can't give it cheerfully, don't give it. But would you please give? And would you please give cheerfully. There's no point in giving if you don't give cheerfully, what are you saying when you'd be grudging God, this money, well, I guess you need the money God, and then you're so grumpy and irritable about it. Do you honestly realize what's happening, you are entrusting money to God, that he would go do something with it in the kingdom, and he's a very good manager of money, and he is keeping a record of what you have now by faith, generously given, cheerfully. And you'll see it again on the other side of Judgment Day. What's to complain about? Be cheerful, God loves a cheerful giver. Because he is a cheerful giver. Start with the FBC budget. Alright, the budget is the annual. Basically it's - I love what Ryan says - its church's ministry plan in dollars and cents. So what we spend our money on as a church is on ministry things, now some of them are practical, like AC on a Sunday morning, thank God for that. Cost money, but they're just physical things, but then there are other things in terms of outreach and missions that we do. So First Baptist Church's budget over the last five to six years has been essentially flat. What do I mean by that? It hasn't grown. Do you realize that when it doesn't grow and things like air conditioning, electricity do go up, which they go up every year, you're basically then going back to ministry commitments and reducing the giving in those areas. I would say in the Triangle region, Research Triangle Park area, and all this Triangle region, I think the population is going up, I think it is a lot. So that means healthy churches should see more and more people attending and have more and more money to spend on the Lord's work, so I don't want to keep seeing our budget flat year after year after year. Let's challenge ourselves, let's ask the Lord to enable us to make more money and give more money than ever before, let's see how He'll bless our budget, so start with the budget. Then move to other specific funds like this is the Lord's supper. And so we have the Deacon Benevolence Fund, what do we do with the Deacon Benevolence Fund what we give to needy people first and foremost in the church, and then secondly in the community. We recently had a number of difficult situations financially in which people have had needs, and the Deacon Benevolence Fund has been there to meet the needs, that is a very quick way to give to widows and to other needs going on in the church, and we have those needs. So if you're not prepared this morning to give to the Deacon Benevolence Fund. That's fine, I understand. But we have it every time we have the Lord's Supper, you can so plan ahead say, “Oh Lord's Supper is coming up,” Deacon Benevolence Fund and you can give any time to the Deacon Benevolence Fund, doesn't have to be just the Lord's supper. Then there's the issue of missions, you know, every Christmas we give to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering, and we have done very well over the years. We're in the top, I think, hundred churches in the Southern Baptist Convention - not percentage-wise. We're in the top hundred, which is pretty good for a church our size, but understand this, the amount we give $130,000 to Lottie Moon would not support even I think one of our units on the field, so we really are counting on other churches. So I don't think we should strain our shoulders patting ourselves on the back that we give $130,000. I'm grateful for the generosity. But I know that we could give more if we sacrifice more. And then there's the issue of the Great Commission Fund. Many of you know about it. Many of you don't. In a few moments, we're going to commission, some missionary - did you get my text? Okay, thank you. I'm one of them, I forget. We've got to talk about it. So we're going out and Daniel just came back. The Great Commission Fund helps pay for these mission trips. You may not be able to go on a mission trip but you can support others. Now, what happened was the Great Commission Fund started with some incredibly generous one-time gifts, and we've been kind of living off that for a while, but the number is just going down, money out is greater than money in. That's good because it means there are a lot of people wanting to serve, but we need more money. So Walter Lee at our business meetings, our members meetings, has said he's put a challenge in front of the church. Now, a lot of people don't attend members meeting, so I'm taking that because I think it's great - and I'm giving it to you guys now. It's the rule of 20s, you ready for this? If 20% of the membership of FBC gave $20 a week or a month... Let's go with week $20 - maybe I say month - $20 a month for the entire year, it would generate $20,000, that would be a sufficient increase in what the GCF has to give. Right now, the giving tends to cluster on summer trips and all that kind of thing, and then dissipates. Wouldn't it be awesome if just January, February, March, April, May, the GCF is just real high and people are just generously through discipline giving to it. I would commend that to you. Then, beyond FBC, there are so many parachurch ministries and mission agencies like Wycliffe and YOM and Cru, and Campus Outreach, and they're doing all kinds of good works, whatever you want to do, invest in it. If you're interested in the persecuted church, give to the Voice of the Martyrs, if you're interested in famine or disaster relief, give to that. Randy Alcorn gives some good principles and how to research some of these companies and how to give wisely, but just give. Bottom line, dear brothers and sisters, like Paul says in Philippians 4, "Not that I'm looking for the gift, but I'm looking for what may be credited to your account." I want you to be rich on Judgment Day. That's why I preach this sermon. So let's close in prayer and we'll go into the Lord's Supper. Father we thank you for the time we've had to study concerning finances, tithes and offerings and generosity. Lord I pray that you would make us a generous people help each one of us to look and say, Is there a principle of sacrifice in my life financially oh God deliver us from the scourge of materialism and covetousness and idolatry. Help us instead to live for you and to be generous in Jesus name, Amen.

Co-Writing Songs – Practical Guidelines for Collaborative Songwriting Featuring Special Guest: Tammy Vice Singer • Songwriter from Nashville, TN In this session of the Backwoods Recording Studio Podcast Tammy Vice shares her experience and insights co writing songs in Nashville, Tennessee, the co-writing capital of the world . As a successful songwriter and artist. Tammy […] The post Co-Writing Songs in Nashville – The Co-Writing Captial appeared first on Backwoods Recording Studio.

Learn and practice Biblical principles on giving, living and working. Align yourself to receive the fruit of your laborMay this sermon minister to you and enrich your walk of faith in Jesus Christ. We welcome you to make use of the free sermons, Christian books, and daily devotionals available on this website. Watch our online Sunday Church service live stream every Sunday at 10:30am (Indian Time, GMT+5:30). Spirit filled, anointed worship, Word and ministry for healing, miracles and deliverance. YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/allpeopleschurchbangalore WEBSITE: https://apcwo.org/live CHURCH: https://apcwo.org FREE SERMONS: https://apcwo.org/resources/sermons FREE BOOKS: https://apcwo.org/books/english DAILY DEVOTIONALS: https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotional JESUS CHRIST: https://examiningjesus.com BIBLE COLLEGE: https://apcbiblecollege.org E-LEARNING: https://apcbiblecollege.org/elearn COUNSELING: https://chrysalislife.org MUSIC: https://apcmusic.org MINISTERS FELLOWSHIP: https://pamfi.org CHURCH APP: https://apcwo.org/app CHURCHES: https://apcwo.org/ministries/churches

Learn and practice Biblical principles on giving, living and working. Align yourself to receive the fruit of your labor Watch our online Sunday Church service live stream every Sunday at 10:30am (Indian Time, GMT+5:30). Spirit filled, anointed worship, Word and ministry for healing, miracles and deliverance. YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/allpeopleschurchbangalore WEBSITE: https://apcwo.org/live CHURCH: https://apcwo.org FREE SERMONS: https://apcwo.org/resources/sermons FREE BOOKS: https://apcwo.org/books/english DAILY DEVOTIONALS: https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotional JESUS CHRIST: https://examiningjesus.com BIBLE COLLEGE: https://apcbiblecollege.org E-LEARNING: https://apcbiblecollege.org/elearn COUNSELING: https://chrysalislife.org MUSIC: https://apcmusic.org MINISTERS FELLOWSHIP: https://pamfi.org CHURCH APP: https://apcwo.org/app CHURCHES: https://apcwo.org/ministries/churches

Introduction On October 31, 1517, history was changed forever when Martin Luther took the Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle. He saw a problem in the way the medieval Catholic church was addressing salvation. He was incensed by the preaching of a friar named Tetzel who was preaching indulgences and misleading people, concerning what it is that saves our souls from sins. He was moved by it, by zeal for the glory of God and by concern for souls. And so, being an academic, he wanted to debate about it. So he wrote out these Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle and thus began the Reformation. Very important beginning, but I'm interested in how the Ninety-Five Theses themselves begin. The first thesis said this: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when he said ‘repent,’ he willed that the whole life of believers should be one of repentance.” What kind of revivals would come in this church or even in evangelical churches across America if we read and understood the import of those words? That you, as a child of God, should spend your whole life in repentance. Now, the beginning of the Reformation was important, but even more important was the beginning of Jesus' preaching ministry. Jesus began his preaching ministry with the exact same conviction. Matthew 4:17, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” He called on the people of God to repent from their sins. The very thing that John the Baptist had been doing, same message. My yearning today is that this sermon would be a call from almighty God to you, the people of God, to repent. And me too. To repent earnestly, to turn away from sin, hating it as we have never hated it before. Motivated as never before to be conformed to the image of Christ, in purity and holiness. To fight against the influences of the devil and the world, as they call to our indwelling sin to commit acts of sin, to yield to temptation that we would fight as never before, and grow in holiness. I'm calling on you and on me, the Spirit is calling on us to repent from sin. To be serious about sin, to take it seriously and to mortify it, to put it to death. Now last time I began by looking at a parallel passage, Romans 7. In Romans 7, these ideas that are in just seed form here in Colossians 3 are more fully developed. There Paul said, “I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do.” What does that mean? He wants to be holy, he wants to have a good quiet time, he wants to share his faith, he wants to say no to wickedness and ungodliness, he wants to be a Christlike, kind loving person in all circumstances, he wants to put a guard over his mouth, and never say anything that would defile his soul or hurt others. He wants all of this, he has great ambitions for holiness, but he says, “What I want to do, I do not do.” Conversely, what I hate, now that's what I do. I don't understand myself. The very thing I hate, I do. Why? Well he says, as it is, “It is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it.” So we began with this despicable enemy. This vile thing. How do we picture it within us? Sin living in me, in my body. How much do I yearn to have it out? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” There's my hope. This is a hopeful sermon. We will be filled with righteousness if we're in Christ. But right now is a time of hungering and thirsting for that filling. Of yearning for it, and repentance. Therefore, Paul calls on us in verse five, Colossians 3 to warfare. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature,” put it to death. “Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry,” put it to death. “Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips and lying,” put them to death, all of them, and all the others besides. Now the context here in Colossians 3 is the full flowering of what Christ has done for us. We have been made complete in Christ. We have been given gospel completeness. Jesus came. He who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He came and entered the world, he took on a human body. So therefore the physical universe is not evil as the Colossian heretics were teaching. It's not evil, or else Jesus would never have taken it on. He took on a human body. In human flesh, there was the fullness of deity. He suffered on a cross and died that we might have full freedom from sin but the Colossian heretics are saying that's not enough, that's not enough. You've got to have human philosophy. Gotta understand things, a kind of secret wisdom coming from man. You've gotta have that secret philosophy. And you've got to have Jewish legalism, coupled with that asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body. All the Jewish rules and regulations, leading to a harsh treatment of the body. And to kind of lift it up into the spiritual realms, you can have the worship of angels, mysticism, this concoction of heresy, is what was afflicting the Colossian church. Paul says these things lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence, they don't work, they don't sanctify us and they sure don't save us from our sins. Instead, the work of Christ does, and he gives us a different vision of life in Colossians 3:1-17, a vision of a happy, healthy, fruitful Christian life. You wanna be happy, you wanna be healthy, you wanna be fruitful as a Christian, then immerse yourself in the practical wisdom of Colossians 3:1-17. It begins with a heavenly mindset, Colossians 3:1-4, “Set your minds on things above, set your hearts on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” And because of that, put sin to death. Because of where you're going. Because of how glorious it's gonna be, because of the fact there'll be no sin there. You'll be stripped of it forever and how delighted will you be at that time, because of that, because Christ is your life, because he's coming back to judge the earth, because of all of these things that put it to death, put sin to death, that's the context. Vigorous Warfare Against Sin (vs. 5-9) Steely-Eyed Killers of Sin And so I said last time that you're to be a steely-eyed killer of sin, show it no pity, hunt it down and assassinate it, show it no mercy. And John Owen, in his classic On the Mortification, or the killing, of Sin, he said, “You need to be killing sin or sin will be killing you,” it's that simple. And I said last time that happiness and fruitfulness is impossible without warfare. You can't go to heaven on a flowery bed of ease, it's impossible. If you're on a flowery bed of ease right now you are deceived, you need to wake up and you need to fight sin. It's impossible to go to heaven that way, it's through much difficulty that we enter heaven. Understanding the Enemy Outside the Walls And this is part of the difficulty. Part of it is persecution through faithfulness and witness, the part of it is this internal battle that we must fight, a part of our salvation. And so I said we have to understand who we're fighting, we have to understand Satan, how clever he is, how relentless, how powerful, how vicious, and we have to understand the world system that he has crafted. A masterpiece of wickedness crafted to entice us and to lure us constantly, lure us toward sin. The pull, like a magnet, like an overpowering magnetic attraction pulled all the way, away from God, away from holiness, away from purity toward defiling things and wickedness, like a magnetic attraction. Understanding the Body … and the Enemy Within the Walls Well, you don't have to be a physicist, you don't have to be an engineer, to know magnets don't attract wood, they attract iron, they attract something and there's something inside us that is attracted to all that. Isn't that disgusting? There's something in me that likes it, that's attracted to it. So I've likened it to having like chunks of iron or iron filings that I kind of eat and take into myself, and then the pull gets stronger and it's harder to resist, and they come out, like one at a time with a tweezer. And so, it's so important that we not immerse ourselves in evil things, the enemy outside calls to the enemy within and the two of them do business at moments of temptation and we sin, and that's the battle. And therefore we have to understand our body, our body created originally in the image of God, nothing wrong with any biological function, sexual, digestive, any of the functions God created, these things are good. God made them that way, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with the human body, per se. But there's something wrong with the body of sin. There's something wrong with the body of death, and that's what these bodies are called: body of sin, body of death. That's what we have and why? Because of history. First of all, Adam's history. He sinned for us and we got from him a position before God and a nature. We were born with a nature of bent towards sin and as soon as we understand the law, we sin. As soon as we understand it, it happens. You parents know what I'm talking about, you've seen it happen. You were there at that moment, you were there twice because it happened to you when you were a child. And we understand sin, and look at verse 7, Colossians 3:7, “In these sins, sexual immorality, lusts, impurity, evil desires, greed. In these things you used to walk in the life you once lived.” That's how you used to live, you have a history with this. You programmed your body how to sin, you programmed your brain. Understanding Salvation So we have to understand this, we have to understand the body, and I said we also have to understand salvation. If you don't understand salvation, you won't know where mortification or putting sin to death fits in, you'll get it wrong, you'll make a mistake. And so there are three main parts to salvation: Justification, sanctification, glorification. Justification, at that moment by simple faith in Christ, by looking to Jesus crucified for you, His blood shed on the cross for you, trusting in that as your only righteousness. The exchange there: he taking your defilement on himself and suffering under the wrath of God, and him giving to you a gift, an immeasurable gift, an infinite gift of perfect righteousness, that is justification. And if you're a Christian today, that's already happened for you and nothing can reverse it. And God sees you today holy and blameless in Christ, perfect in position, nothing can change that. Nothing can move you from your secure position in justification, but that's not the end of the story now, is it? What you are in position, you need to become in practice, you need to start acting like Jesus more and more and more, and he was perfect. And you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. You must be like Jesus in every area. And the battle is a cooperative effort between the believer and the Holy Spirit. You work together. “If you,” Romans 8:13, “by the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” You have to do it by the Spirit. Cooperation. And in that lies a struggle because some of you aren't cooperating very well. And neither am I from time to time. And this is a call on us to step up and put sin to death. It's our responsibility as justified Christians to be sanctified and to grow. Progressively grow more and more to be like Jesus. Then the third step: glorification. God takes over again. Just as he did in justification, he'll do it again in glorification. And instantaneously, all sin will be removed from you. Completely. And you will end up holy and blameless. Physically, mentally, morally, emotionally, spiritually, your body and your soul, or your heart, will be pure as Christ. And you will dwell in that state forever. That's the whole salvation plan. By the way, we are calling “Come, Oh, Come Emmanuel.” That's what he came to do. And he will not stop until it's done for all of his children. Naming the Battlefields Now, we have to get specific. Last time, we named the battlefield sins of perverted love, lust, sexual immorality. Sins of broken relationships, anger, rage, malice, slander. We talked about those in detail last time. This is what's besetting us. And friends, this is an immensely truncated list. There's far more sins than just these. They're just suggestive of the kind of things we fight. What Is at Stake And what's at stake? Colossians 3:6, “Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming.” The wrath of God. I heard a sermon this past week. Don Whitney preached an incredible sermon, wrote a book on spiritual disciplines, and I heard him preach on hell. Very few of us actually hear sermons, expositions, on hell. And it left me so grateful, so grateful for Jesus that I had been rescued from what I deserved. He focused on one verse, Matthew 25:41, what the judge of all the earth will say to the goats, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” One verse tells you what you need to know about hell. I'm tempted to just preach that sermon because it was so good. Terrifying Warning But hell is real. Hell is terrifying. It's eternal. It's powerful. And Jesus warned us, more than any person in history, Jesus warned us from hell. No other prophet or apostle spoke as much about hell as Jesus did. But Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath. Praise God. Praise God. 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” He is doing it right now through this sermon. He is rescuing you from the coming wrath. And he'll keep on rescuing you until he will finally rescue you on the Day of Judgment from the coming wrath. The rescue is present and the wrath is future. And the rescue is going on right now, and it will continue until the day you die. And then He will finally rescue you, and there'll be no more threat. Forever. That's what's at stake. Practical Guidelines for Killing Sin How do we do it? This is where we get practical. And here I just lean on a brother in Christ who's been dead for centuries. His name is John Owen. And he wrote a book called Mortification of Sin. And you may have noticed, when you came in, these books. God wants you, I think, to have this book and to read it. And so I've made 200 of them available for free. The price is right, okay? They're at the entrance, or I guess, now exits of the sanctuary. Back there, side tables, inside there's 200 of them. There's more than 200 people here. So there's a little psychology going on here. A little competition, alright? But I'll say this. If you want one at the end of this day, and didn't get one, I'll see to it you get one, alright? So I bought 200 of them. They're available. Along with that is a paper I wrote when I was in seminary. Now, I'm not saying this is any great thing, but this is like the CliffsNotes version, okay. To this, it's basically a summary of his arguments. Don't do this instead of this, okay. Do this to help you with this. But you can get all these pages down, and you can skip if you want to all the introductory stuff about Owen, the history and all that, and just go to the summary of what he wrote. And from this, I got what you're about to hear in my sermon. So this is a thin stream of this, and this is a thin extract of this. So I would just urge you to go to this, and be convicted, and to be strengthened. Get it. You're all gonna be out of here quickly, and go grab them. But as I said, if you don't, if you want one and didn't get one, let me know. Call the office. Talk to me. Well, don't talk to me at the end, I won't remember. I won't know what you said to me. But email or whatever, and say, “I wanted to get one, didn't get one.” We'll order some more. But it would be a tragedy for this book to sit in stacks on the table as you guys are walking by it. That makes no sense. Even if you have a copy at home, take another one so you can give it to somebody who might need it. Come to Christ Practical advice. First step. This is where I ended last time. Come to Christ. Come to Christ. You have no business fighting sin if you're not a Christian. You know why? You can't put sin to death because sin's already put you to death. You're dead spiritually. Dead in your transgressions and sins, Ephesians 2, in which you used to live. So you can't fight it. You're already killed. And only Jesus can give you life. Come to Christ. And he will give you life. And part of that life will be mortification. So if you're here today, and you don't know whether you're saved, you have never trusted in Christ, then the rest you can get to by and by, but you come and look to Jesus. Look to him dead on the cross. His blood shed for you. Think, “He is my righteousness. He's my only hope for escape from hell. I must have Christ,” and look to him and then the mortification can begin. Come to Christ. We talked about that last time. Determine to Fight this Vicious Battle Every Day Secondly, to you Christians, determine to fight this vicious battle every day. Make it your business every day to get up and mortify the deeds of the flesh. John Owen put it this way, “There's not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon and it will be whilst we live in this world.” In another place he likened it, as I've said many times, to a wrestling match with a poisonous viper. Imagine you've got this snake by the head and it's hissing and it's strong and all that. And it's a battle to the death. You can't get halfway through and just, “I'm tired,” just put it down and try to walk away. It's not gonna let you go. You don't take a poisonous viper to bed with you. You don't coddle it like a pet. You don't feed it. You kill it. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you. You gotta get up every day and determine to fight this vicious battle. You don't get any days off. Sin's not gonna take any days off. By the way, the day you think you're taking a day off from sin, sin's winning. It's already deceived you. Rely on the Holy Spirit, Not on Fleshly Means Next, rely on the Holy Spirit, not on fleshly means. We already saw in Colossians 2 that harsh treatment of the body and all kinds of stuff lacks any value in restraining sensual indulgence. That will not work. And all of our steps in mortification, all they do is set the stage for the Spirit to kill the sin. He has the power to do it. And so all of these things are somewhat like Elijah in his battle with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. And they're up there and all of the sacrifice, all is ready, but the fire's gotta fall from heaven and so it is with mortification. Get everything ready and the Spirit will put the sin to death when you have done all the things he's commanded you to do. “If you, by the Spirit, put to death the misdeeds of the body.” So the Spirit acts somewhat like a weapon there. If you, by the Spirit, kill. And that's how it works. You must fight by the Holy Spirit. Be Cross-Centered Next, you must be cross-centered. Isaac Watts said, “When I survey the wondrous cross.” Every Sunday I look up at this big wooden cross up here over my head. I just look at it. I remind myself that Jesus died there. I think about it. I think about Jesus bleeding to death. Really that practically, that his blood was falling out of the wounds of his body, he was bleeding to death on the cross. I think about that. And I say to you that Christ's blood shed on the cross has sin-killing power in the minds and hearts of believers. Galatians 6:14, very important verse, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” You come to the cross and the world's allure and temptations and enticements look to be the filthy things they are. It was those things that put Jesus to death. So be cross-centered, be much in meditation on Christ's death on the cross and sin will shrivel as the nasty thing that it is. There's another sense in being cross-centered, and that is that you must crucify sin. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, sin is not going to die while you live, it isn't. Sins can die. But sin is gonna be with you until the Lord glorifies you. And so the image I have is lust up on the cross, slowly bleeding to death, and begging me to take it down off the cross every day. And woe to me if I get those tongs and pull the nails out and let lust down and feed it and give it a break and give it some... So it regains its strength a little, give it a little water and wipe it... That's lust! It wants to kill me. So I have to put it on the cross. I have to crucify it. It's a slow lingering death. Remember how Pilate was surprised that Jesus had died so quickly. It's not a quick death, it's a slow one. So be cross-centered. Understand what Mortification Is Not and What It Is Next, understand what mortification is not and what it is. I've already touched on this briefly, but first of all, it is not to kill any particular sin completely for that cannot be in this life. There are other schools of thought on sanctification that say you can have that sin removed from you like a bad tooth. And so if you could find a pastor who'll do that kind of dental work on you and remove that bad tooth of lust or covetousness or anger or unforgiveness, you could just have all those bad teeth removed one after the other. It's not like that. And the reason you know is, can you imagine, what would you think if you met a man or a woman who said, “You know, I used to struggle with such and such. But I never need to worry about that again.” What would you say to that person? “If any man or woman thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” It's not over yet. So it's not killing one particular sin completely for that cannot be. Nor is it to allow sin to conceal itself and then to appear in a different costume. Oh, sin is tricky! You think you got lust down, but it's popping up in other areas. You don't do that anymore, but you do this instead. That's what it does. Nor is it to develop a quiet, thoughtful, peace-loving nature. Kind of like a monk in meditation. That's not mortification. And nor is it to divert a particularly annoying and troubling sin so that that sin pattern isn't so prevalent anymore. That's not it. Non-Christians can stop drinking, for example. They go to AA, they can stop drinking. They can divert certain things, but that's not mortification. And nor is it to conquer certain sins occasionally. Like, what's your batting average? That's not mortification. How are you doing? Three-quarters of the time, it used to be just two-thirds of the time, I say, no, but now I'm up to three quarters. Well, good brother, keep it going. That's not mortification. Well, what is it? It is a habitual weakening of sin's root as how a victim dies on the cross. Gradually, slowly losing power and influence over your soul. It is a constant fighting and contending against all indwelling sin, on all fronts. It involves both attack and defense. You go out after sin and cut off the things that it feeds on. You make no equipment or provision for providing for the lusts of the flesh. You don't have the equipment of it, it's out. You just go on attack, you go on a commando raid and get rid of things in your life. They're out. And also it's defensive. You're ready, you're ready, you're ready for the attack. Ready. It's coming. You know you're ready and your stand is both offensive and defensive. And it results in consistent success over individual temptations. Now, temptations you can kill. Individual occasions, you can kill. It comes to you, you see it, you know what's going on and you can say, “No! I won't. Not today. I will not do this.” You can do that. Resolve to Fight Sin on All Fronts It is a resolve to fight sin on all fronts. You're not gonna put the white flag up over any sin in your life. You're not gonna surrender, never, on any front. You're gonna fight all sin everywhere that it's found. Now, I say to you the Holy Spirit hasn't shown you everything. You can't handle the truth. It's not possible. Imagine if your eyes were open, you were to see how far you are from Jesus. It's overwhelming. You'd wanna die immediately. But if he has revealed some things to you, you must fight them on all fronts. Sin is evil, it is wicked. And God's work consists in universal obedience not just partial. Some people say, “I know this isn't right, but I'm really working on this right now.” It doesn't work. That's not mortification. Study the Lusts that Are Attacking You Next, study the lusts that are attacking you. Owen does a great job here on when a lust is particularly dangerous. And I can't go into the details but, basically, if it's survived lots of work on your part, lots of conviction, lots of occasion, times of weeping, people praying for you and all that and it's still around, be afraid. Be very afraid, it's a serious lust problem for you, whatever it may be. Serious habit. Take it seriously. Study also what the sin does to defeat you. I think too often, we just quickly confess and - No, no, no, break it down. What happened? You had a conflict with your spouse. You said you didn't wanna do that anymore, but here you did it again. Now, what happened? You walked in, he said this, she said that, this happened. What happened? What were you feeling? What was your motive? Where did pride creep in? Look for pride 'cause it's there. And just try to find out how sin got you. Study it. Don't just go on too quickly. Labor on Your Heart Labor on your heart next. What do I mean by this? Work on yourself to feel what you ought to feel about sin. Seriously, I think we go on too quickly. You've heard of easy believism? I think there's easy confessionalism. “Oh Lord, I confess in Jesus' name, amen. Thank You, Lord. I'm forgiven.” Don't do that. You've gotta slow down. James says, “Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” That is not a heaven verse is it? 'Cause there will be no more mourning in Heaven. That's a here and now verse. Why do you need to change your laughter to mourning? Because of sin. And so when you are convicted of sin take the time to mourn over it. Take the time to feel what the Holy Spirit felt when He was grieved over what you did. We go on too quickly. Labor on your heart and get a constant yearning and breathing after righteousness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” If you don't hunger for it enough, then stimulate your hunger. Say, “Oh God, I yearn to be free in this area. I want it, oh Lord. Please.” And just turn up the knobs on it. It's like, “Woah, we're getting serious.” It is serious. It is very serious. And you just get hungry and thirsty for righteousness and God will give it to you. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Crush Sin Early in the Battle Labor on your heart and crush sin early in the battle. You talk about the camel getting its nose in the tent. Pretty soon you have the whole camel family with you inside the tent. How did that happen? Well, you didn't get it early. You know, you talk about the root of bitterness that can defile a whole community, we didn't get it early, didn't nip it in the root before it had a chance to develop and now broken relationships. There's unforgiveness, there's all kinds of stuff going on. You've gotta get it early. So it is also with lust. Get it early in the battle. I think often of that classic movie, The Longest Day, and it begins with a quote by the German commander of the beaches there in Normandy, General Field Marshal Rommel. And what Rommel said is, “The world will be won or lost on the beaches.” Once the allies get a beachhead established in Normandy, they would break out and sweep across France and the world would be lost. And he said this, “The first 24 hours will be critical for both the allies and us. It will be the longest day.” Well, we've been in the longest day since we were justified. We're still fighting. And I think the principle is true, get it on the beaches before it has a chance to establish a beachhead. You know why? Beause sin doesn't establish boundaries. It doesn't stay put and once it comes into your life it just grows and grows and grows. It doubles and doubles again. It just keeps metastasizing. That's what it does. Deal Thoroughly with Sin in Confession and Repentance Deal thoroughly with sin and confession and repentance. Yes, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and he will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But don't go too quickly. Don't go too quickly. Confess your sin and deal thoroughly with it. Be Filled with the Spirit and All of His Graces And be filled with the Spirit and all of His graces. The best way to not eat illicit food is to be filled with legal and good food, alright? Fill yourselves with the Spirit. Fill yourselves with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Fill yourself with Christ, and sin will lose its power over you. Be filled with the Spirit. Later in this same section we're gonna learn how to do that through the word of God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, but just be filled with Christ. Be Optimistic in Christ And finally, be optimistic. Be optimistic. Romans 16, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Isn't that sweet? There will come a day when all of your lusts and all of your angers and all of your malice and all the filthy language and the lying and all of the complaining and all of that sin will drop away from you forever. And therefore, any effort you make now will be effective through the Spirit. I love what John Owens says, “Christ's blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this and you will die a conqueror; yes, you will through the good providence of God live to see your lust dead at your feet.” A Call to Repentance Now I have given you practical advice on how to kill sin. I'm going to end where I began. I'm gonna call on you to repent. Because I don't sense that I or anyone I know in this church is doing this kind of stuff like they should, taking it seriously, fighting sin at this level. Now you might say, “Well, how would you know?” I don't know for sure, and I praise God for brothers and sisters that are, do it all the more. 'Cause those that are doing it, know they need to do it all the more anyway. But for all of us, let's repent. Let's get serious. Let's look at that list: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, lying. That's just suggestive. Find the other lists and say, “Lord, am I doing these things? And if so, I'm ashamed. These are the very things that put you, Lord Jesus, on the cross. I hate them and I want them to be dead in my life too.” Repent and you will know the forgiveness and the joy and the freedom that comes through Christ.

Introduction Summer of 1986, I was on a mission trip, my first time out of the country. It was the first for many things for me. But I was on a mission trip to Kenya, and we were going around, another student from one of the local universities here and I, and a Kenyan pastor, a man named Moses Chepkwony, a godly man who had six different congregations that he looked after, small congregations in that district of Kenya. And he was going on visitation, going from place to place, seeking to preach the Gospel, to minister to both Christians and non-Christians alike. We came to a house, and there on a blanket, laying out under a tree in the shade, was a 16-year-old girl who was dying of malaria. Now, I've never encountered malaria before. I didn't know that much about it. In order to go to Kenya, I had to take malaria medicine. I didn't know, really, what the disease was like, but she was suffering all the classic symptoms, cyclical fevers and anemia. Her blood was being destroyed by a parasite. That same summer, a little bit curious about what it was, I saw an article in a National Geographic magazine about the body's immune system, and they actually showed a scanning electron microscope photo, an enhanced color picture, of the malaria parasite. It's carried by mosquitoes and it's very devious, a treacherous foe. It somehow finds a way into the liver, and it hides itself in dead liver cells, so that the body's immune system won't destroy it, and then it multiplies. And it spreads throughout the body's blood, and it destroys the blood cells, the red blood cells, popping them like balloons, resulting in all kinds of problems, and for a million people a year, resulting in death. And as I was thinking about the sermon today, my mind went to this disgusting image of a parasite within, an enemy inside your own body. If you could see a picture of it, it would turn your stomach. The enemy I'm speaking of is not the malaria parasite, it's sin. The enemy within. Romans 7:15-17, Paul says this, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I, myself, who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Yuck! “Sin living in me.” That's disgusting. How do you picture it? Some disgusting, vile, green, tiny monster swimming in your bloodstream or something, making you do the things you don't wanna do. “Sin living in me.” Paul went on to say in Romans 7, “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Say Amen! There is a savior, and his name is Jesus, and he's come to rescue us from this inner enemy, this sin that dwells in the members of our body. Now, as we come to Colossians 3, we don't have that kind of graphic language, but it's the same teaching. Colossians 3 and Romans 7 just completely intersect. The enemy there is indwelling sin, sin actually residing in the members of our body. Paul is arguing here that without putting sin to death, without warfare, we cannot be happy, healthy, productive, fruitful Christians. We must go to war. And we must go to war everyday. Now, let's get some context here. Colossians was written because of a heresy that was threatening the Colossian church. The heresy taught that the physical world, the physical creation, the universe, was evil, and that salvation came from recognizing this through some special teaching, and having some special insights, and wisdom, and knowledge, given by emanation spirit beings like angels, of which Christ was one. Christ's death on the cross was not what it appeared to be and is not sufficient for our salvation. We must have human philosophy. We must have Jewish legalism. We must have mysticism, in the form of worship of angels. And we must have asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body, and in this way, we will be saved from sin. Well, that's all false and Paul rectifies it by pure, clean, right doctrine, right teaching. First, on the person of Christ, in Colossians 1, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him, all things were created.” So the creation is good, Jesus made it, and he himself, by his own physical body, and he is deity in bodily form, took our sins on himself, and died on the cross, that we might have eternal life. Salvation does not come by human philosophy. It doesn't come by Jewish legalism. It doesn't come by mysticism, the worship of angels, and it doesn't come by harsh treatment of the body, apart from understanding right doctrine. It doesn't come from any of these things. But what does it come from? What is the Christian life like? Colossians 3 is describing it and it's a beautiful passage of Scripture. Colossians 3:1-17, I just think if you could just memorize 17 verses in the Bible, do these. Well, don't just memorize them, though, do these, okay? Live it, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, a heavenly mindset. The second section of it, is the one we're looking at today, and that is warfare, putting sin to death. The third section talks about living in a new community with people who are new people. You are a new person in Christ, live like it, and that looks like a certain thing in community with one another. It has to do with love, it has to do with compassion and kindness, it has to do with forgiveness, it has to do with the community, where it doesn't matter where you came from racially, ethnically, none of that matters. Barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, none of that matters. What matters is a new creation in Christ, and we're in a new community together, and how sweet is that? And then, finally, the final step is just letting Christ richly dwell in your hearts, letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, letting a piece of Christ dominate your life, letting your heart be overflowing with thankfulness. You wanna be happy, do those 17 verses. Heavenly Mindset (vs. 1-4) But the core of it is this battle, this warfare. And the connection, just in context, last time I preached on Colossians, we talked about setting our hearts on things above, developing a heavenly mindset. What is the connection then? Well, there is a connection to warfare, because there's the word ‘therefore.’ Look at verse 5, Colossians 3:5 says, “Put to death, whatever belongs to your earthly nature." Well, ‘therefore’ causes you to look backward, what we were just talking about. Let's just go back one verse. Verse 4, “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, your sin.” You see the connection? Because Christ is your life, put sin to death. Because someday he's going to appear and judge the world, put sin to death. Because someday you will appear with him in glory and sin will not be there anymore. God has deemed it unworthy of his eternal state. It's evil, it's nasty, it's disgusting. He wants it out. Therefore, it is to be destroyed now, as much as you can. Therefore, because of all of these things, put sin to death, that's the connection. Now, we have a context. Vigorous Warfare Against Sin (vs. 5-9) Steely-Eyed Killers of Sin What is he telling us to do? Well, he's telling us to go to war, friends. That's what he's telling us to do. Verse 5, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” You look, for the most part, like sweet people. You're gonna ask me later about the “for the most part” part, but... I don't always look sweet, but you look sweet, nice people, church people and all that, but you know the scripture's calling on you to become a steely-eyed killer. Nothing less. Or you could picture a medieval executioner, one of these vicious looking guys with big chests, and big arms, and a black hood with narrow slits, and a curved axe. And sin's head is down on the chopping block, and no mercy is shown, none. Or a contract assassin, hunting down your prey, getting that one in the crosshairs, and pulling the trigger, until the person you're seeking is dead. You think, “That's not Christian.” Well, when it comes to another human being, no, but when it comes to sin, when it comes to sin, that's exactly what you're called to do here. Show it no mercy. Or perhaps, you could take the role of Eisenhower, in charge of all of the Allied forces in Europe, and your job is to crush the life out of Nazi Germany, until it is done. Nazi Germany, over. And you're gonna advance on all fronts, until they surrender unconditionally, and there's no mercy gonna be shown. You're not gonna leave some Nazism there, it's going to be eradicated, nothing left. Whatever image helps you, but you're called on to be a steely-eyed killer of sin. We must put it to death, we must kill it. John Owen, his classic “Mortification of Sin” - ‘Mortification’ is just an old word for putting it to death - Has been my guide, as I prepared this sermon. And you oughta read it, what a work. And he's gonna say far more than I can say in the short time we have together, but he said this, very simply: “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” Richard Baxter, similarly, another Puritan, put it this way, “Deal with sin, as it would deal with you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer, and the murderer of the world: deal with it, therefore, as a murderer should be dealt with. Kill it before it kills you; and though it bring you to the grave, as it did Christ, your Head, it shall not be able to keep you there forever.” Amen. Grace wins, resurrection wins. We're gonna be free someday, but that someday isn't here yet. And so we are called on to fight, to put it to death. Happiness and Fruitfulness Impossible without Warfare And so, I say to you, that happiness and fruitfulness is impossible without warfare. “You can't make any progress in the Christian life,” John Owen said, “unless you walk across the bellies of your dead lusts.” You gotta put them to death. You will make no progress without this kind of fight. We are not living in a peaceful country, we're living in a war zone. It doesn't matter what it looks like around you. We are living in a war zone and you are living in a war zone, spiritually, wherever you live on the face of the earth, it does not matter. And so Owen said, “When sin leaves us alone, we may leave sin alone.” Will sin ever leave us alone? Yes. When we're glorified, it will. And then we can forget it. We will move on, but that's not yet, and therefore, we may not leave sin alone. And so Owen said, “The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depend on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.” You wanna be strong, you wanna be healthy, you wanna be happy, and productive, and fruitful in the Christian life? You must go to war against sin. There's no other way, you must. You must fight. Understanding the Enemy Outside the Walls Alright, well, let's understand our enemy. Let's start without the walls. Picture your soul like a walled fortress, just like Bunyan did in “Holy War,” and he imagines the city of man's soul, like one of those medieval fortresses, and so you're standing there on the walls. Let's understand the enemy outside the walls. First of all, there's Satan. He's clever, he's relentless, he's vicious, he's way out of your league and mine. Far more powerful than any of us can imagine. Perhaps, I guess, theoretically, we could say the most powerful created being there is. I don't know that for sure, but quite possible. He's likened to a roaring lion, prowling around, seeking someone to devour. He will show you no mercy, but he's clever. He's compared to an angel of light, masquerading as something enticing and beautiful. He's prideful, he's tricky, he crafts schemes all the time. That's what's outside the walls. That's what he's doing out there. Also outside the wall, so to speak, is the world, the world system. It's his greatest invention. It's an alluring, enticing, entrapping thing that operates on your soul, like gravity does on your body, pulling you, all the time, away from God, constantly. Lust toward sexual pleasure, greed toward material possession, ambition toward powerful positions, and gluttony to feed your carnal appetites. I know, it just been a few days from Thanksgiving, and perhaps you didn't do that. But there's always an enticing to go beyond the boundaries that God has set, gluttony or greed, it's there. Understanding the Body… and the Enemy Within the Walls Well, that's the enemy outside the walls, and fearsome are those enemies, Satan and all of his demonic cohort, and the world system, so clever, so alluring, so enticing. But what I wanna talk to you about today, is the enemy within the walls, the part inside that likes what's outside the walls, would open the gate, let him in. And here we get to the doctrine of the physical body, the Christian's body. And it's confusing, it's not easy to understand what's going on with our bodies, our physical bodies. Now, originally, not like the Colossian heretics, we're gonna say that the body was, originally completely good, very good. Created in the image of God, including the body, nothing inherently evil in the body, and that includes, friends, all of the body's natural functions, whether sexual, or digestive, or any of the functions of the body that God made, they are all good, there's nothing inherently or intrinsically wrong. We know that on many levels, Genesis 1 teaches it to us, but the incarnation teaches it as well. God took on a human body, but a Christian's body is different than Christ's body, there's a key difference, and it has to do with sin. You see, Jesus was protected from original sin, by the virgin birth, and he was protected from habits of sin, by never having sinned. And so, therefore, he didn't train his mind and his body in sin, the way all of us have. He never did. He didn't have indwelling sin. But we do, our bodies have a history of sin. Look at verse 7. After listing sexual immorality, lust, evil desires, greed, and going on to mention malice, and rage, and filthy language, and all of these nasty things, in verse 7, it says, “In these, you too once walked, when you were living in them.” None of us clean, friends. We used to walk in this. It's who we are. You can listen to the music how you like. I don't wanna put my own convictions over any, but when Chris was singing “Lord, Have Mercy,” I hope there was something stirring inside you, that said, “Oh, I need your mercy. I need your mercy, oh, God. I'm a sinner. I need your covering grace everyday. I'm not fit for Heaven as I am. Intrinsically, I have sinned.” Oh, did you sense that need for mercy? And thanks be to God, it's available in Christ. How sweet is that? “But it's right,” says James, “To grieve, and mourn, and wail, and change your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom, and face your sin, and confess, and humble yourselves under God's mighty hand, and let him lift you up in due time.” In these, we once walked, when we used to live like that. And in that, sin was at work in our bodies, it's very bodily. In Romans 7, listen, Romans 7:5, “For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.” Romans 6:19 says, “You used to offer the parts or the members of your body in slavery to impurity, and to ever-increasing wickedness.” Your body was involved. Now, sin, trained through years of habit, has taken root in your body. Again, Romans 7:23, “I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner, the law of sin at work within my members.” The same word is over in Colossians 3, “The members of the body.” Now, what are these? Wouldn't it be nice, in one sense, if all the sin were collected in “the right hand,” as Jesus said? If your right hand causes you to sin, we could just cut it off and throw it away. But it's not, it's primarily in the brain. Let's be honest. It's in the way we think, but it's also connected to the bodily drives, what the body wants, whether sexual desire, or desire for comfort and ease, or desire for food or drink. The things the body craves, the brain takes and sins with it, out of habit. And thus, does Paul call this body, a “body of sin” and a “body of death.” Roman 6:6, “We know that our old self was crucified with him.” We're no longer the old person. That person died. It's better than the witness protection program. We're in a whole new identity now. God upholds you. We are a new man, a new woman. That person's dead. We don't need to crucify the old man, the old woman. That person's dead. But we take along, from the history, a body of sin that has to be progressively done away with. That's what Romans 6:6 says, “We know that the old self was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, rendered null over time, that we should no longer be slaves to sin,” or again, Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” So you have a body of sin, body of death, that's what you have. Say, “Oh, get me out of the body.” Well, if you're out of the body, you are what? Somebody tell me. You're dead, that's right. Absent from the body, present with the Lord, that means your life here is over. So while you live, you're living in a body of sin/body of death. You are. And in that body, you will serve the Lord. And therein lies the difficulty. We are Christ's hands, we are his feet, we are his mouth, we are here to serve him. We have to use the body to do it. And therefore Paul says, “I beat my body,” 1 Corinthians 9, “and make it my slave, lest after I've preached to others, I myself might not be disqualified for the prize,” 1 Corinthians 9:27. Understanding Salvation So we have to understand the need for constant vigilance. And oh, do we have to understand our salvation. Salvation comes to us in stages, it comes to us in parts. I've said it before, I'll say it again, it starts with justification. By simple faith in Christ, you, as a sinner, look to Jesus, whose blood was shed on the cross for sinners. You look to him and you say, “He is my righteousness. I am united with him by faith. He died the death I deserved to die and his righteousness is mine.” That's justification. The judge, by simple faith, God the judge, looks on you as holy and pure as Jesus, positionally, the moment you come to Christ. He sees you as pure, positionally. And if you die, you go to Heaven, because of Christ's perfect righteousness, but you didn't die and go to Heaven now, did you? It was years ago, when you were justified, and from that point to this, you've been in the process of sanctification, and that's a whole different thing. That was a single moment, a single instant, you received the indwelling Spirit, you received the gift of justification, a single instant. But there's been many hours and years, even, since then, progressively growing in godliness and Christ-like in sanctification. And in the end, there is glorification, another instant, or really, two instances: An instant of death and the instant of the general resurrection. The soul perfected at the instant of death, the body perfected at the resurrection. In the end, we are as perfect as Jesus. By the power of God, made like him. And how sweet is that? But that's in the future. Now, we are in the process of sanctification, and the essence of it is warfare, friends. It is warfare, every moment of your life here on earth. It couldn't be more serious. And that's where we are. So we understand our salvation. We understand Romans 8:1 says, “There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” and then Romans 8:13, Paul says, “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” There's no condemnation for the Christian who is at war by the Spirit, against the deeds of the flesh. That's the person for whom there's no condemnation. Understanding Our Universal Duty to Kill Sin I say to you, every single day, if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit gets you up out of bed, dresses you, and sends you to battle, sends you to war. That's what he's doing. And frankly, if he's not doing that, you are dead in your transgressions and sins, you are not saved. This is what it means to be a child of God. He leads you into war. He leads you into war with indwelling sin. Therefore, we have a universal duty to kill sin. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature," not 60% of what belongs to it, and not 60% of the Christians. This is a universal command from Christ, through the Apostle Paul, to all Christians. No Christian is exempt. No sin pattern is exempt. There's no Christian who's arrived and said, “I don't need to be mortified anymore. I have arrived. I'm perfect.” No one's like that. While you live, you're at war. And there's no sin pattern, that God's ever gonna wave the white flag over, and say, “Look, I'm gonna just give you a pass on that one. You just keep doing that. I don't like it, but you just keep doing it.” He will not do that. You know why he will not do that? Because sin, first of all, is evil, and second of all, it doesn't ever stay put. It doesn't just stay there, it just keeps multiplying, and growing, and growing. He will never do that. And so, therefore, John Owen put it this way, “The choicest believers, who are assuredly free from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.” So even if you're the most mature, I think the more mature you are, the more you recognize how much you need to fight this battle, that's what it is. Naming the Battlefields Now, let's name the battlefields. Paul gets quite specific here, doesn't he? This is where Paul, as they say, begins to meddle. He gets involved, he starts to tell us what we must not do, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” Studying the Enemy’s Tactics and Objective We have to study the enemy's tactics, the key elements. A key element in the American Civil War is how much one general would know the tendencies of the other general, and be able to take advantage of it. Sixth century BC, a Chinese military expert, Sun Tzu, wrote a book called “The Art of War,” and this is what he said, “If you know both yourself and your enemy, you'll come out of 100 battles with 100 victories.” That sounds good to me, doesn't it sound to you? Know yourself and your enemy, you're gonna win every time. Well, I'm not sure that's true on the battlefield, but I think it's important that we know ourselves and we know our enemy. Now, what is Satan gonna try to do? What has he used to try to trip us up? Well, first of all, sin always aims at the utmost in any one category. It always wants to take you right to the end, that's what sin wants. It just doesn't tell you that, initially. Therefore, it's deceitful, it's tricky. It doesn't come and say, “I want to ruin your world. I wanna destroy and take away from you everything you value, that's what I wanna do.” It doesn't do that. John Owen said, “Sin always aims at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, if allowed to have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism. ... It is like the grave, that is never satisfied. And herein lies no small share of the deceitfulness of sin.” It doesn't tell you what it's aiming at; it's aiming at your ruin. It wants to ruin your soul. It wants to discredit the gospel. It wants to make you fruitless. It wants to put you on the sideline. It wants to do all of that and more, that's what sin wants to do. Am I wrong to personify sin? No, Paul does it, “Sin living in me.” “Sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me and put me to death.” It's a living active thing. Sins of Perverted Love And so, we listen, there are two different categories here, in Colossians: Sins of perverted love and sins of broken relationships. That's what I call it. You can give it a different title. But the first just has to do with the fact that our hearts were built to love, to yearn, to desire. And that's good, but this is perverted love, this is out of boundaries love. You're loving in ways that it's not love. And so he starts with sexual immorality. The Greek word is ‘porneia,’ ‘sexual sin,’ from which we get, of course, the word ‘pornography.’ We're specifically commanded to flee this. In 1 Corinthians 6:18, it says, “Flee from porneia, flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” This is such a weak spot for us human beings. It really is. We should not underestimate. We should notice that he begins here with sex. He starts here. 1453, the city of Constantinople fell, finally, to the Muslims. It was the last vestige holding out of the Eastern Roman Empire. It held out for centuries, almost a thousand years beyond the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the fall of Rome, almost a thousand years. And why? Well, it was strong, very strong. It had triple walls to defend it. They used Greek fire, all kinds of things. They were able to defend one attack after another, until gunpowder was invented. And the Ottoman Turks hired a guy to make a huge cannon that fired 800 pound balls a mile in distance. It was so unwieldy, it could only fire three times a day. But there were other cannons that could fire more rapidly, and they concentrated on a section of the wall, and just beat on it, beat on it, beat on it, beat on it, until they opened up a breach. And that's where they focused their attack, on the breach in the wall. It just so happens, that as they're focusing their attack there, someone in Constantinople left open a gate over on the other side, and they come flooding in through the gate. The image is the same. You see, sex, marital relations, as we would think about it properly, is a breach in the wall of our souls. It's a weak spot, and therefore, Satan focuses so much of his activity and his effort there. But it didn't start with the actions of porneia, that's not it. He goes back a step to impurity. It's called uncleanness, evil thoughts and intentions of a defiled mind. You get the picture of a dirty pipe, clean water running through is fouled at the end, dirty things. A step back from that is passion or lust, a sense of heat, of emotions getting stirred up. It's so tragic, when you hear the man say, after committing adultery with his secretary, “I don't know what happened. It just took over, like a freight train,” and all that. What a fool. What did you think? Can a man scoop fire into his lap and hope not to get burned? It's not possible. But that's heat, it's a sense of heat. Hosea 7, it says, verse 4 and following, “They are all adulterers, burning like an oven, whose fire the baker need not stir, from the kneading of the dough 'til it rises. Their passion smolders all night. In the morning, it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven.” It's like heat, it's passion. And evil desire. God created us to yearn to want things. Well, this is perverse desire, wanting something you ought not to want. It's a good gift to want. It's bad to apply it to the evil things that evil desire applies it to. And then, ultimately, greed/idolatry. Greed, which is idolatry, there's a root, taking the created thing and putting it above your relationship with the Creator. Saying in effect, “I wanted that more than I wanted Jesus.” How could we be idolaters? But that's what greed is, it's not just money, it's anything, even in the area of sexual immorality. Remember what Nathan said to David? “This is what the Lord says to you: ‘I gave you all of this, I gave you a Kingdom. I gave you everything. If it had been too little, I would've given you more. Why did you want more? Why did you want what wasn't given to you? She was Uriah's wife. She wasn't yours.’” It's greed, wanting something, but he put value on her more than on God. That's sins of perverted love. Sins of Broken Relationships And then there's sins of broken relationships. “Now, you must rid yourselves,” it says, “Of all such things as these: Anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” It's amazing how three of them just have to do with anger: Anger, rage, and malice. We're just angry. We're commanded to put them aside like a dirty shirt. Oh, wouldn't it be sweet, if it were that easy? Just take it off, and throw it away, and never see it again. But you have to put it off constantly. How many times do you get angry a day? Think about it. How many times of the times you get angry, is your central core motive, “The glory of God! The coming Kingdom of Christ! Tears flow down my eyes, because God's law is violated.” That's not what it is. You've been violated in some way. Someone crept in your space, took your cookie. You had your designs on it. That was yours, and someone came, and took it. That's why you get angry. And anger is to rage - I was talking to my kids about this - Anger is to rage, as a nudge is to a shove. How many people are sitting in prison, do you think, today, never having intended to kill the person they killed? They just don't know how it got out of hand. They did want to hurt; they didn't want to kill. It just went beyond what they thought. And then there's malice, as Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural, “With malice toward none.” What that means is, “I will never forgive them for what they did, never. I cannot forgive them.” It's a settled, cold, long-term rage, because of sin that's been done to you. And then there's filthy language, foul speech. There's lying. The Bible's just about a manual on lying. Cain was the first, “Am I my brother's keeper? I don't know where he is.” He said, “It's not my day to watch him.” He knew exactly where he was. And it goes right on through there. Abraham's lie. Sarah lied about laughing, remember? “Oh, yes, but you did laugh.” End of discussion. When the judge says you laughed, you laughed. “No, I didn't laugh.” Abraham lied about her being his sister. Isaac did the same thing. Jacob lied. “Who are you?” “I am your son, Esau.” What a lie. Joseph's brothers lied, “Check this out. Is this your son's coat? It's covered with blood. Could it be a wild animal has eaten him?” What a lie. And we're not even out of the Book of Genesis yet. There's 65 more books of human lies. God cannot lie. But we almost can't help but lie, it seems. Sins of broken relationships. What Is at Stake Terrifying Warning Now, what's at stake? By the way, that's not a complete list. I hope you know that. The Bible has a lot more to say about sin than just these. These are suggestive, but this is who we are, friends. But what's at stake? Well, “Because of these,” verse 6, “The wrath of God is coming.” It's a terrifying warning. Wrath is God's passionate reaction to sin. He's not like Plato's god, a dispassionate thinking machine who doesn't care. He actually cares greatly and wrath is his passionate reaction to sin. And God's wrath is reasonable. “Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming.” It's coming on those who disobey. Now, Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone came down. There's the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, that's a picture of God's wrath. Greatest of all in the Old Testament was Noah's flood. Every living thing that breathed air in its nostrils died, except those that were on the ark, terrible picture of God's wrath. Depicted Clearly in the Book of Revelation But none of those compare to the wrath that is yet to come on the Earth. Read about it in the Book of Revelation, when seven seals are broken, and seven trumpets sound, and seven bowls are poured out on the earth, and the earth is left a smoldering ruin. There's nothing left, and the sea is turned to blood, and there's no drinking water, and everything, by the billions, die. But that is nothing compared to the final expression of God's wrath, which is eternity in hell. Revelation 20, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged, according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it. And death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them. And each person was judged, according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. And if anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” And it's described also in Revelation 14:10-11, “He, too, will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur, in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night.” Christ’s Death Only Shelter from the Wrath of God It is real, friends. Jesus came to save us from it. And I fear that some people are, like during the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, going out, and digging a hole six feet into the ground, and covering it with corrugated tin, and putting some cans of food and some water in there for the coming nuclear attack. It will not survive. Everyone in there will be incinerated. There is only one refuge from the coming wrath and that is the blood of Jesus Christ. He is our lightning rod, he drank the cup of God's wrath, and if we stand under his shadow, we will be protected from the wrath of God. Have you trusted in Him? Have you come to Christ? It says in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” By the way, note the verb tense, you Christians, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” Do you still need to be rescued from it? Yes. You need to be rescued right now, from the coming wrath. We need to be continually saved, by Jesus, continually protected and kept in the faith from indwelling sin. “He rescues us from the coming wrath.” Thanks be to God. Practical Guidelines for Killing Sin Now, how do we fight sin? You have 12 steps there and I'm not gonna go through them. I don't know what to do with this list. God will speak to me over this next week. I may preach it to you next week, but I do wanna begin this way. Come to Christ I do wanna begin this way: You can't fight sin if you're dead already. If you are dead in your transgressions and sins, this battle is not for you, because you can't fight it. Come to Christ. Don't just come to church, come to Christ. Trust in him. You cannot survive judgment day, you cannot fight sin. If you try to fight sin without Jesus, everything you do will be repugnant to God. He will look on it as a selfish, prideful display of your own morality and it will be wretched to him. But if you humble yourself and say, “I need Jesus. I need a Savior. Lord, you came to save sinners like me. I do these things. I lust. I've committed immorality. I've looked at internet pornography. I've lied. I've been angry, selfishly angry, and more besides, I must have Jesus.” Then he'll save you. Trust in him. Determine to Fight this Vicious Battle Every Day Now, if you're a Christian, there's a lot of things you can do and I wanna talk about that. I'd said, “I'm gonna preach this in 30 minutes,” it's impossible. It can't be done. At least get this out of this sermon: You must fight sin. You can just read the list and say... Use your imagination... “What would the pastor have said about that cross-centered fighting and all that?” We'll talk about that next week. I didn't wanna do it, but I'm gonna do it. You need to know how to fight sin, but get this outta this: You must get up from the Lord's table that we're about to go to and you must go off into warfare. Not against your spouse… No, on behalf of your spouse, fight your sin, so that you become the sweet, loving husband or wife they thought they were getting on that wonderful day. Fight sin, and you will be joyful, and fruitful, and you will see what God will do through you. God willing, we'll talk about it next week. You can't fit 40 pounds of stuff in a 10-pound bag, I've learned that. But listen, we're going to a time now of the Lord's Supper. What I want you to do is, I want you to prepare your hearts. Has the Lord spoken to you today? Are you convicted? Do you need to come to the cross again? Can you bow before Him, and like Chris was singing so powerfully, say, “Lord, have mercy on me. Because of these things that I've done, your wrath is coming. Thankfully, you've created a space for me, that I can be protected from what I've done, but God, I did it. Please forgive me.” Can you bow before him? And don't leave anything undone. While you're waiting to receive the Lord's Supper, confess, so that you don't take the elements unworthily, and eat and drink judgment on yourself. I may say to you, if God brought you here today, and you're not a Christian, and you've never trusted in him, don't take the Lord's Supper. It's for Christians who have testified to their faith by baptism, so don't take the Lord's Supper. As I've said before, be prepared that you can take it next time. Come to faith in Christ, trust in him, be baptized, then you take the Lord's Supper. But if you are a Christian, I ask you to make use of this time, as the elements are being passed out, to confess your sin and be ready to receive.

sermon transcript Introduction Please, if you would, take your Bibles and open to Psalm 119. This is our third and at least for the time being, final look at this Psalm. This is a long Psalm, and there is so much in here that I probably could have kept preaching on it for another several months. What I would like you to do is study it for yourself. I have one simple goal this morning, and that's to inspire and to induce you to study the scriptures for yourself. I can't compete with you. I don't desire to. I have half an hour of your time. I don't desire to compete with the things that God can do in your life, if you just give yourself to diligence study of Scripture every single day, that you would get up a little bit earlier, maybe even a lot earlier and open the Scripture for yourself. This will probably be my most practical sermon to you. I believe in establishing practice with theology, everything that the Scripture commands us to do, there's a theology behind it, a reason for it, but I'm going to just speak to your Bible study habits from an expert, and who could be more expert than a writer of a Psalm, like Psalm 119. This was a man who clearly saturated his mind in Scripture, and I want to learn from him how he studied the Bible, and that's our desire. The answer to my question is, there is one more expert, and that is the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inspired the Scripture. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, He lives within you. One of the functions the Spirit has in your life is to illuminate, to open up the Scripture so that it's not a closed book for you anymore, so the text of Scripture just leap off the page and makes sense to you in a way they hadn't made sense before. That's a beautiful thing when it happens. Powerful, and that's my desire. I want to whet your appetite. I want to talk to you about the habits of your heart. Robert Bellah, a sociologist wrote a book called Habits of the Heart. It was a best seller, I think in the ‘80s, a sociological analysis of the United States. I have no interest in following the lines of his argumentation, but I found the title of his book intriguing, and that's all I did, I just lifted that title and I want to know, what are the habits of your heart? How are you with Scripture? What do you do with the Bible? How do you handle it? The fact is, when I began my sermon this morning, I asked you to open your Bibles to Psalm 119, many of you did that, and for those of you that are holding a Bible in your hand, I also want to help you to understand just what a gift that is. For three quarters of the life of the church, most commonly lay people could not do what you're doing right now, namely to hold the Bible in your hands and to be able to look down and to read it and to understand it. Some of you have seen this book which I really enjoy, The Life Millennium, pictures and illustrations and stories of the 100 most important events and people of the past 1,000 years. For those of you that looked at this, do you remember what number one was? The number one most significant event in the past thousand years to the editors of “Life Magazine” was the printing of the Gutenberg Bible. I'm trying to think what would motivate editors of “Life” to think this way. I think it's probably true, although there are other things that God has done that are just as mighty, and so there we could have an interesting debate, but this is very significant. They think it's significant because it's the beginning of the Modern Age, the expansion of the Information Age that is just pouring over us now like a deluge. In the “USA Today” newspaper, it was talking about the fact that if all the information just being poured out now by various means, internet, satellite, television, all this, were consolidated to paper and put on floppy disks, how long will it be? Before floppy disks had gone the way of all flesh, but if they're all consigned to floppy disks and you stack them up, it would be 2 million miles high, one year of information. Are you keeping up with all that folks? Are you doing your reading? Are you studying? What a deluge of information. It could be that that's what they have in mind. They trace it back to when this printer, Johannes Gutenberg in 1455, invented a new system of movable type. He was not the first, the Koreans and Chinese had movable type, but he developed some techniques that were so advanced and so clear-thinking that, in effect in the West, printing wasn't changed again until the middle of the 19th century, not substantially. So for four centuries, he charted the course for how printing was to be done. You would not have had a Bible five centuries ago. You would not have been able to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119 and look down at it, because you couldn't have afforded a Bible. The Bible was written by hand, by scribes, by monks who would spend years and years on one copy of Scripture, therefore, the only person who would have a Bible would be somebody who could afford to pay for that labor. That would be a king, a prince, potentate, a noble, but not you and me. We would not have available to us a copy of the Scripture, furthermore, if you wanted to read the Bible, you'd go into a local church, for example, a parish church in England, you would find the Bible chained to a podium, and it'll be a huge ponderous book. You would flip to the pages and you look down and guess what, you couldn't read, you're illiterate, but even if you could, I wonder if you'd be able to understand it. That leads me to the third most significant event according to “Life”, number two is Columbus discovers the New World. Number three is Luther, Knox, Martin Luther. The contribution that Luther made to this is that when you look down at Psalm 119, it's not written in Latin. How many of you can read Latin? Luther believed that every common person should have a copy of the Scripture in his or her own language, and said the simple plowman or the maid with a copy of Scripture is more powerful than all the ecumenical councils without it. That's what he taught. Because of these two great events, you have the ability to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119 and look down. My question is not so much, did you turn in your Bibles just now when I ask you to do it? Have you done it this week? That's what I'm asking. Did you turn in your Bible sometime this week? I'm not trying to do anything except just to motivate you and encourage you to do that. Jesus said, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." How long will it take you to absorb all of this? It’s a long journey. George Müller felt it was going to take a long time. George Müller, he, of the 2,000 orphans that he cared for daily, recorded 30-50,000 answers to specific prayer in his life. He kept a prayer journal, 30-50,000 specific answers to prayer. He said some of them that same day, many of them that same hour. You think surely a man like George Müller just kind of walks with Jesus, doesn't need the scriptures. He said the will of God has absolutely nothing to do with impressions on the mind, but everything to do with the word of God. All of his prayers came from text of Scripture that he would pray back to God, promises of God. He read through the Bible 200 times in his lifetime. You may not think much of that, not a great accomplishment. How many of you have read through the Bible in one year? If you have, you realize you've got to keep a strong pace, you've got to keep going, three or four pages a day in my Bible, three or four pages a day. Then you're through once in one year, he read it over 200 times, that would be that he read through the Bible three or four times a year. So that'd be about 14-16 pages of reading of Scripture every day, just saturated his mind in Scripture, and here we are talking about him 100 some odd years later, the spiritual legacy was immense. What is our spiritual legacy going to be? I really think it's directly connected to how faithful you are to open the Bible and read. I really don't think we'll have much to offer of eternal benefit if we don't. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you." Do his words abide in you? That's what I want to talk to you about today. I want to give you specific practical hints on how to study the Bible, how to make the Bible's words live inside your heart in your life, and I'm getting them from Psalm 119. I'm not going to read through the whole Psalm, but I want to just read the first three verses to remind you what the purpose of the Psalm is. "Blessed are they whose ways are blameless who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong, they walk in his ways." Isn't that beautiful? Psalm 119 is given to bless you, it's given to be a blessing. It's only begun to bless my life, I've learned so much from studying this Psalm, there's so much in here, and now we're going to get really practical and see what the Psalmist says about how to study the word. He's the expert, and we're going to learn from him. How to study the Bible: Bring the proper attitude to your study Let's start with attitude. What attitude do we carry to our daily study of the Bible? What is our way of thinking? When I was trained as a missionary, I was given something called an entry posture diagram. What this means is that as you come into every cross-cultural interaction on the mission field, your entry posture makes the whole difference, it has to do with an attitude. If you come into that cross-cultural setting with an attitude of suspicion, fear, mistrust, and then they set before you, a meal that they've labored over for six hours, but it smells strange to you, will you eat it? They can see, they look in the face, they can tell, and so the attitude you bring to that meal makes all the difference in the eating of the meal, so it is with the study of Scripture. What does Psalm 119 teach us about our entry posture or attitude as we come? The first thing it says is that we need to have a seeking and a yearning heart when we come to Scripture, there needs to be a hunger. I find the more I study Scripture the hungrier I get. It's when I get away from God and away from Scripture, I get not so hungry, I'm satisfied. This world starts to feel more comfortable to me, like this is my place, this is my world, but we need to bring a hunger to Scripture. We need to come and say, "Teach me, oh God, I'm hungry, I want something." Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied." So there's a seeking and a yearning with all your heart. Look at verse 30, "I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws." You see the determination, the hunger, the mindset. Verse 45 says, "I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts." Verse 58, "I have sought your face with all my heart, be gracious to me according to your promise." I'm hungry for you. I want you. Verse 94, "Save me, for I am yours; I have sought out your precepts." Do you come to your Bible study time with a hungering-seeking heart? That's your entry posture. That's your attitude. We tend to be half-hearted creatures, don't we? Half-hearted, but we are to be whole-hearted in our study of the Word of God. The second entry posture or attitude that we should carry is one of awe, fear and trembling. We are about to hear the word of the living eternal God, He's going to speak to me now. He's going to say something to me. The same Word that created the universe, the same powerful God who's made all of these things is going to say something to me now. That's a fearful thing, isn't it? God is going to talk to me. aA a matter of fact, the Israelites, when they were around the mountain, said, "Moses, Please tell God to stop talking because if He keeps talking we will die." God agreed, saying, “ That's a good thing. I'll speak through prophets from now on." That's exactly what it says. “What they've said is good, from now on, I will raise up a prophet like you to speak.” Who is the final word? Jesus Christ, but we can't handle God speaking directly, so He speaks through the written word and the indwelling spirit, but He's speaking nonetheless. So we come with a measure of awe. Now we have different ways of esteeming people, even in churches, we have different ways of esteeming, who is of high esteem and who is not so much. Who does God esteem though? That matters, doesn't it? “This is the one I esteem,” [Isaiah 66:2], "he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at my word." That's the one God esteems. Is that you? Are you humble, contrite in spirit and trembling at God's word? Look at Psalm 119:120, "My flesh trembles in fear of you, I stand in awe of your laws." Isn't that incredible? Verse 161, this is in a context of persecution, "Rulers persecute me without cause, but my heart tremble at your word." Do you see that? “I’m not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of the rulers, I'm afraid of your Word.” "Do not fear" said Jesus, “the one who kills the body, and after that can do nothing to you.I'll tell you who to fear, fear the one who after the destruction of body can throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” The psalmist does tremble at God as Moses did. So when you come to the Scripture, come with a hungry yearning heart and come with a trembling heart, you're going to hear from God today. Thirdly, come with an obedient heart. Verse 34, "Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart." In other words, I'm coming with an attitude that I'm going to hear something I'm going to need to do, something's going to come to me and I'm going to have to obey it, and I want to obey it. Verse 145, "I call with all my heart, answer me, O Lord, and I will obey your decrees." Spurgeon says, "If you come to Scripture holding on to darling sins... " isn't that strange? “Darling sins”, “you will learn nothing from Scripture.” If you come with a disobedient heart, if there's something you're holding on to and you already know God hates it and wants it out of your life, and you have made no effort to put that sin to death, death actually, you've made a truce. The two of you have made a covenant together, you're going to continue on together, then don't expect to hear anything from God when you open the Scripture. You've got to come willing to get rid of any and every sin in your life. I'm not talking about sinless perfection. We all stumble in many ways, said James, I'm not talking about that. “If anyone says he doesn't sin, he's a liar,” [1 John], that's not what I'm talking about. It’s your attitude toward the sin. We don't marry sin, there are no darling sins, every one of them, every last one of them must be put to death, and so we come with an obedient heart. Fourthly, we come with an expectant heart, we come expecting to get something. If you come to a wealthy king or potentate and you know that he's lavish and generous, and you come into his presence, don't you expect that there may be something for you too. God is generous, his resources are limitless, his wisdom cannot be measured. We should come expecting to get something. Look at Verse 131, "I opened my mouth and pant, longing for your commands." I'm expecting to get something out of this time, this isn't going to be dry as dust, I'm looking forward to my Bible time, I'm expecting something out of this. Fifth, be thankful. Verse 62 is a challenge. "At midnight, I rise to give you thanks for the Bible." My paraphrase for your righteous laws. Have any of you have done that this week? I haven't, truth be told, get up and set your alarm at midnight and get up and say, "God, thank you for the Bible." But that's what he does, he's just so thankful for the Scripture, he's just thankful we have a book like this, the Word of God written. Summary, what is your entry posture? As you enter your time with God and his Word, do so with a whole heart, a hungry heart, a yearning heart, one which trembles with awe at the thought of hearing God speak, ready to obey anything He tells you to do no matter how difficult, one that's fully expects to hear him speak and one that is thankful in advance for what you're going to hear. That's your entry posture, attitude. 6 Practical Guidelines about how to study the Bible What about actions and habits? Is there any practical advice in Psalm 119 about how to study the Bible? Yes, I think so. First of all, it's just the issue of habit. Verse 56 says, "This has been my practice." The implication is habit. "I obey your precepts." I've made a habit of this, some people have studied human nature. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've seen similar things happen in my life that if you do something of a daily nature, every day for a month, it becomes a habit, good or bad. I'd like to harness that and use it for good. Why not do a 30-day experiment? For 30 days, do such and such with the Word, memorize a verse a day, something like that. For 30 days, meditate on something. For the 30 days, extend or double or triple your ordinary length of time in reading Scripture. Secondly, in terms of action, prayer for instruction and insight from God. We've already talked about that, but it's so important, I want all of you to see yourselves as spiritual beggars before the Scripture. “Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” If God doesn’t give, you won't get it. I don't care if you read it the rest of your life, you’ll never get it. Repetition does not ensure understanding. Did you hear what I just said? Repetition does not ensure understanding. You can be sitting in church all your life and never get it. A prophecy of Isaiah, "Be ever hearing, but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” God gives understanding. Ask him for it. The psalmist does it so many times, I can't even count them. Verse 18, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” Pray that every time you open Scripture, "Open my eyes that I might understand or see wonderful things from your law." Verse 34, "Give me understanding and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart." I could read one after the other. Recently I heard a speaker, Jim Elliff, and he was talking about a boy that he knew who was slightly retarded, but he loved the Bible, he just loved to read. He'd read a line of Scripture and he'd stop and get a strange look on his face and he'd scrunch his eyes up and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" He'd wait a minute, and then he'd read it out loud again and get that same look and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" Then he'd read it out loud again and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" Pause, and then his look would change, he said, "Oh, that's what that means, Lord." I'm too intelligent, I don't need to do that. That's just pride. You do need to do it. You'll never understand if you don't humbly come to God and ask him for it. Are you a spiritual beggar before the Scripture? Our God is generous with wisdom, very generous, especially over Scripture. Thirdly, reading and recounting. “With my lips, I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.” You read it and then you speak God's words after him. You read and speak what He says again. What could be more blessed than having your mouth say words that God's mouth has already said. Like father, like son or daughter, He's like us, we want to imitate him, and the words He spoke, and we want to recount. Number four, meditation. Again, there are many scriptures on this. Verse 15, "I meditate on your precepts, and consider your ways." Verse 23, "The rulers sit together and slander me, your servant will meditate on your decrees." I don't care what kind of earthly forces are arrayed against me, I just want to meditate on Scripture. What is meditation? We need to be really careful about this. People are really into meditation these days. A lot of it's coming from the East, the oriental type of disaffected or disconnected meditation, where you're trying to get away from linear thought, getting away from kind of projecting yourself out and all this. This is damaging and dangerous. When I'm thinking about meditation, I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking of a historical grammatical kind of meditation. What do I mean by that? I mean, historical. What has God done in the past as revealed in Scripture. How has he revealed himself? What kind of God is he? Thinking about the history of Scripture, what God has done. Also grammatical like that boy, just going over it line by line and saying, "What does this mean?" and then looking at verbs and adjectives and connected phrases like "therefore" and "so that" so that we follow a train of thought. That's what meditation is. It's like a cow carefully chewing it over slowly word by word, thinking about it. You can't hurry it. You've got to go through it and understand. And then memorization. Memorization is very important. I really think meditation and memorization go very beautifully together. Some of you say, "Pastor, I know you talk so much about memorization." I actually don't think I talk about it as much a Scripture does. How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word, Verse 11, "Your word, I have stored up or hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. If you abide in me and my words abide in you." What is that but memorization? I don't know what else it could be. How do Christ’s words abide in us if we don't memorize them? They're printed on our hearts and our minds. Realize if the whole Gutenberg thing is true, you would not have had copies of your Scripture, and so if you wanted to meditate day and night, what would you have had to do? Have it memorized, unless you are king in ancient Judaism or a priest, other than that, you had to have it memorized. Now, you may say, "I can't memorize." My missions professor told me a story about a man who determined that he was going to memorize John 3:16. I’ve asked a number of people,"Do you memorize Scripture?" "Yep, I know John 3:16." That's good, it's a start. It's better than not knowing John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not on perish but have eternal life." This man worked every day for two and a half months and could not recite that verse without help from the Scripture, and he said, “What is the matter with him? I mean, that's a pretty simple word.” The missions professor said to me, "The amazing thing about him was not that he was that dense, it was that he didn't give up." Think about it, if you were trying to do something like that and after two and half months couldn't do it, do you think you'd have given up by then? I think I would have. He didn't give up. Finally, on the third month, he could do it. Then over the next seven years, God opened his mind to memorize almost 2000 Verses of Scripture. God gave him a gift. You're saying can God can control my mind like that. Yes, he did it negatively to Nebuchadnezzar, he turned his mind into that of an animal. He can do the reverse thing with you, He can turn your mind into that of a Scripture memorizer. I've written a booklet on an approach to extended memorization of Scripture. This is available to anybody free of cost. This is just an approach... It's a humble title “An Approach to the Extended Memorization of Scripture.” This is just something I have found useful to me. Sixthly, all hours of the day. Just listen to these verses. Verse 55, "In the night, I remember your name, O Lord, and I keep your law." Verse 62, "At midnight, I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws." Verse 147, "I rise before dawn and cry for help. I put my hope in your word." Verse 147-148, "My eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promises. I rise before dawn, my eyes stay open through the watches of the night." Verse164, "Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws." The monks used to divide their days into segments, and they set them aside for prayer and meditation on Scripture. "Oh, we're too busy,” you say; then you're too busy. Daniel was the prime minister of the Babylonian kingdom. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God as he had done before[Daniel 6]. Your Response & Commitment to studying the Bible The third category, responses and commitments. We've looked at the entry posture, your attitude, we've looked at specific habits, practical habits. Thirdly, what about your response and commitment? Number one, searching your heart in your life by the Word. This is something that you must do. Look at Verse 26, "I recounted my ways, and you answered me. Teach me your decrees." What does it mean to recount your ways? What it means is you take the Scripture and lay it out, and you take your life and lay it out and compare the two. What do you think is going to happen when you do that? You're going to start seeing sin, and as you lay these things out, the sin starts to bubble to the surface and you start to say, "I don't want to do that anymore, I hate my sin, I want to turn away from it." Look at Verse 59. "I have considered my ways and I've turned my steps to your statutes." I've considered my ways and I've turned now to your statutes; that's repentance, and the Scripture produces it in us. As we read, we say, "Oh, I'm not faithful here, I need to change." Look at 168. "I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you." “All my ways are known to you, you know it all, Lord.” Then the final verse of the Psalm 119:176, "I have strayed like a lost sheep, seek your servant for I have not forgotten your commands.” “Come and get me, Lord, I'm drifting, I'm wandering. Come and get me, bring me back." Scripture keeps you safe. Do you see it? Keeps you safe. The second most important prayer you can pray is to pray for illumination, "Teach me, Lord," and pray that you may obey. Verse 5, “Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees.” Verse 10, "I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. Keep me from deceitful ways," Verse 29, "Be gracious to me through your law," Verse 35, "Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight." One after the other. The psalmist says, "I see what I need to do. I see clearly the obedience I must give, now work it in me." Work in me. Hebrews 13:21, “Work in me what is pleasing to you, O God." I think that's our responsibility to obey. Right? Well, it is, but God enables us to obey, it is not for a man to direct his steps[Proverbs]. Oh, that's humbling, but it's true. You try to turn over a new leaf, make a resolution. It will not work. But with the power of God, the resolution works. Thirdly, determine choosing. This is where the will kicks in. Verse 30, "I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws.” Verse 112, "My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.” You choose to do what God wants you to do. Number four, promises and vows. Make promises to God and keep them. The psalmist makes all kinds of promises and vows to the Lord, and not just this psalmist, but other psalmists as well. Scripture interprets Scripture. Look at Verse 57, "You are my portion, O Lord, I have promised to obey your words." And Verse 106, "I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow your righteous laws.” Those are two resolutions. Do you make resolutions? New Years. That's too long. Make them every month. Every month, come to Scripture and say, "Alright, Lord, what do you want me to do this month? How can I grow this month? And with your help, by the power of the Spirit, I'm going to do these things." Then when you fail to keep your resolutions, confess it to God, it helps you realize how much you need a Savior. Come and make those resolutions again and be determined to follow him. Fifth and finally, worship and rejoicing. Finish by worshipping the God who has spoken to you. Do you realize that all of this is about producing spiritual worshippers, that's you and me? That's what this whole thing is about. That's what church is about, that's what the gospel is for; to promote eternal spiritual worship in you and me of God himself. The Word accomplishes that, that's the purpose of the Word, to produce worship in us eternally. Verse 48, “I lift your hands to my command, to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.” Verse 108, "Accept O Lord, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws." More than anything, remember, every command of God is good. I don't fear any word from God because He's good and his commands are good. Verse 68, "You are good, and you do what is good, teach me your decrees." Praise him and worship him for who He is and for what He's done. The Scripture is given that you may know God, that you may have life and have it abundantly. “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Please, please be diligent with Scripture this week. God has given you commands, read the Scriptures, obey them. Someday, you will stand before God and you will give an account for what you've just heard. You will not be able to say, "No one told me how to study the Bible." Study the Bible this week. Don't let Satan snatch the seed off that hardened path, but let it sink in to soften soil where it produces good fruit. Will you close with me in prayer? Heavenly Father, we thank you from our hearts for your goodness in giving us this Word. Thank you for Psalm 119 and its beauty and its perfection, Oh, Holy Spirit, moving us to study your Word that we may be faithful to do what's written there in. Father, for those that do not know you, oh Lord, I pray that today would be the day of salvation, that they would come to Christ, who is the living and eternal Word, and that they might have eternal life. And then, oh Lord, they will have a hunger and a thirst for your written word. For those of us who are already Christians, increase our hunger and thirst for your Word. And for those here who are dead toward your Word, who have no interest in Scripture, who are struggling with that, oh God, revive, renew them or convert them that they might know you. Through the blood of Christ, Oh God, make us hungry and thirsty for your Word, we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.