Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Matthew Chapter Five and I'll be reading
verses one to twelve. These are the
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beatitudes, Jesus's introduction to the sermon
on the Mount I'll be focusing in on
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verse eight, but I'd like to
read the entire thing. So Matthew Chapter
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Five, beginning in the first verse. This is the word of the Lord
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and, seeing the multitudes, Jesus
went up on a mountain and when he
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when he was seated, his disciples
came to him. Then he opened his
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mouth and taught them, saying blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs
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is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed
are those who mourn, for they shall
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be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
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Blessed are the Merciful, for they
shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the
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pure in heart, for they shall
see God. Blessed are the Peacemakers,
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for they shall be called Sons of
God. Blessed are those who were persecuted
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for Righteousness Sake, for theirs is
the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you,
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when they revile and persecute you and
say all kinds of evil against you
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falsely. For my sake, rejoice
and be exceedingly glad, for great is
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your Ward in Heaven, for so
they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Thus far, this reading of God, it's holy word, the grass
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withers in the flower fades, but
the word of our Lord endears forever.
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Please be seated. Let us pray, Lord, is we come to listen
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to the reading and the preaching of
your word. We pray that you would
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bless us. We pray that you
would bless us as we hear your word,
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that we would hear your voice in
your word to us, your people,
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and we pray, Lord, that
you would give us not only ears
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to hear, but minds to understand. And not only that, Lord,
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we pray that you would give us
hearts to belief. We pray, Lord,
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that, as needed, you would
encourage us, that you would comfort
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us, that you would bind us
up and, as needed, Lord,
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that you would wound us, not
that we might be struck downboard, but
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that by the wounding you might heal
us, that you might draw out the
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infection of sin and unbelief. And
that you would give us healing and the
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wholeness that comes from confessing our sins
to you and from being cause to trust
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you to the very core of our
being. So we pray this morning that
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the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts might be pleasing to
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you, for we ask it in
Jesus most holy name. Amen. There's
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a wind up here, all right. Well, this morning. Does this
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okay? This morning we again turn
our attention to my occasional on again off
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against study of the introduction to Jesus's
greatest recorded sermon, which is this portion
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of the sermon on the Mount,
the beattitudes. This is the introduction to
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the whole of the sermon on the
Mount and it's a wonderful introduction because it
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strikes the themes that Jesus will unpack
during the rest of the sermon, which
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is what sort of people need the
Kingdom of Heaven and what sorts of people
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receive the Kingdom of Heaven. And
as we've surveyed these be attitudes off and
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on, we've noted that what Jesus
is describing for us here are the characteristics
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of those who are happy. If
you recall, I said that the word
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blessed here means happy. It can
even mean supremely happy. There is no
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greater happiness than the blessings that Jesus
is describing, and in these eight pithy
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sayings, these eight blessings are be
attitudes. Jesus is telling us what indeed
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the happiest people in the war world
are like. But, as we've also
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seen, for the most part these
are not the characteristics of the sort of
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people that we would typically think of
as being happy people. Jesus says that
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the happiest people in the world are, first and foremost, spiritual beggars.
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The happy people the head scratcher.
The happy people are the sad. It's
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those who are starving for justice and
can't find it. It's those who defer
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to the needs of other people,
and so on and so forth. But
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see, the irony is that,
though these aren't the characteristics of the sort
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of people that we think of as
being the care of Happy People, nevertheless
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Jesus tells us that they are.
And we're on firm footing when we believe
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that maybe these are the characteristics of
happy people, because, after all,
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Jesus is God, so you would
think he would know right. He made
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us, he knows what makes us
happy, in the same way that perhaps
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gm made your automobile, and so
they know what kind of old will make
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its motor happy. And these counterintuitive
be attitudes here provide us with insight into
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what truly will make you and I
happy. That will make us blessed,
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Happy People, and we all want
that, I know. So what do
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we find here? Well, this
morning we turn our attention to the sixth
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beatitude. He says blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see
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God. Now what he's describing here
is part of what the church fathers described
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when they talked about the beatific vision. The beatific vision, it's the happy
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the blessedness of this beatitude is to
see God, it's to have a blessed
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beatific vision. And so this morning
I'd like us to consider what we can
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learn about this beatific vision in two
parts. But I want us to look
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at the beatitude and reverse order.
So first I'd like us to see they
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shall it, they shall see God, which is the promise that Jesus describes.
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So we'll start with the promise.
And second I'd like us to see
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the path to realizing that promise in
our lives, which is blessed are the
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pure in heart. Now I have
to confess something to you all as we
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turn our attention to this beatitude,
and that is this. When I was
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first looking forward to preaching on this
Sixth Beatitude, this is the one I
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was least looking forward to, and
the reason is I wasn't interested in it
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because, honestly, it looked pretty
boring. That's a terrible thing to say,
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but it looked boring. You know, he says blessed are the pure
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in heart, and that just didn't
excite me very much. You know,
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over the years I've heard a lot
about being pure and hard to the point
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that, you know, you think, oh, it's another sermon on purity
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or whatever, and he says for
they shall seem see God, and again
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it being completely honest, it seems
sort of abstract to me, see God.
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And so I imagine, having confessed
that, it may not be too
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much of a stretch to say that, if I wasn't very interested in this
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beatitude, some of you may have
felt that way about it yourselves over the
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years. But here's the thing that
we find over and over and over again
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about scripture. When you begin to
dig into it, you know what you
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discover? As I dug into this
beatitude, I came to the realization that
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this is actually one of the greatest
hopes of the all of the authors of
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Scripture. It's the one of the
greatest hopes of all of God's people down
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through the ages. It is,
in fact, one of the great themes
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of the Gospel itself to see God
in exit is chapter thirty three. After
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Moses had given the ten commandments to
the people, he was meeting with the
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Lord on Mount Sinai and, if
you recall, he asked the Lord to
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show him his glory. Moses wanted
very much to see the God who was
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his deliverer. And then, much
later, if you're reading through the psalms,
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you find that this is also one
of the chief desires of David.
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In the Twenty Fourth Psalm, David
asks he says, what does it take
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to ascend to God's place and stand
in his presence? You see the great
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psalmist also wanted to see God.
You find it again in the Apostle Paul's
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writing. He talks often about seeing
God. See this is one of the
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greatest hopes and desires of God's people
throughout all of scripture. Why is that?
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Why would it seem boring, perhaps
diwssinners such as you and I,
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and yet be one of the great
longings of the authors of Scripture? Well,
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I think the reason is is that
we just don't really understand what Jesus
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is promising to us here. And
as I reflected on it, it seems
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to me that they're at least four
key ass spects to the promise of seeing
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God that should make us long for
it deeply, and one of those is
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that here, when Jesus says that
we will see God, what he's promising
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us is his presence. To See
God is to enjoy his presence. It
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is indeed to be in the actual
presence of God. Now that seems obvious
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enough, you know, especially in
a day and age before television and movies
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and photography and all these sorts of
things, if you were to see someone,
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you definitionally had to be in that
person's presence. But to understand why
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this is such a great hope in
scripture, think about this. Consider how
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you feel, or how it makes
you feel to be in the presence of
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someone you love and whom you know
loves you. Have you ever noticed in
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your life how so often it is
that even before you say a word to
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that person, just the side of
someone you love, the sight of someone
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who loves you, it just swells
your heart with joy. You know,
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like when, after a long wait
at an airport, those doors finally open
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and your friend that you haven't seen
and forever comes walking down that jet way.
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It just brings a smile to your
face like that. Or the classic
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example, I suppose, is the
way your dog responds when you walk in
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the House. My Dogs Jamie has
a little thing on our phone that goes
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dealing when I'm like a block away, because the Google knows everything, and
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our dogs all run out of the
house, right up to the gate and
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they howl. I can sometimes hear
them from the end of the street and
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there are so excited. When your
dog sees you, it is the highlight
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of his day. But these things
don't even hold a candle to the presence
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of the Lord. His presence,
his presence with us, isn't just great,
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it doesn't just make you feel happy. God's presence with us is the
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abolition of loneliness. The abolition of
Loneliness God made you and me to have
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intimacy and closeness with him and with
one another. And the sight of God
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is to have that presence. It's
to have that intimacy, it's to have
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the beginning, the erosion, that
collapse, the abolition of your loneliness.
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But better than that, when we
have the sight of God, we also
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have his acceptance. To see God
doesn't just mean that you get to be
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in his presence. It means that
you are accepted by him. To See
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God means that everything, everything is
all right between you and the creator of
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the universe. Moses asked to see
God, to see his glory, but
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the Lord responded by saying to Moses
that no one can see his face and
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live. And the reason for that
is that God is so holy that he
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has presence is all consuming. No
one, nothing that is unholy or sinful,
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can stand in his presence without being
destroyed. Our Sin, as we
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know, separates us from God's acceptance. And yet in this beatitude, Jesus
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tells us the citizens of his kingdom
can enter into his presence without being destroyed.
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These Happy People Jesus are described as
describing have every cause for their separation
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removed, so that they can enter
into his presence and be accepted by him
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perfectly and joyfully. You See,
those whom he bids come into his presence
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are already at one with him.
They have every cause of his displeasure removed
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from them. They have unity with
God in his loving acceptance of them.
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Now, I imagine that, like
me, some of the best times in
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your life have been with when you
were with someone with whom there was no
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cause of separation from you. Right, you know someone, likely they used
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to call them boon companions back in
the day, did somebody who's a really
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close friends, someone who's a Jonathan
to your David, who was so close
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to you. It's a person who
accepts you and loves you unreservedly because you
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two are at one now. It
probably won't surprise anyone for me to say
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this, but the nearest example I
can think of in my life is when
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my low life smiles at me.
It's her smile for me, far beyond
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just having her present with me,
fills me with joy. When she's sad
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or hurting or something like this,
I feel like I sort of shrivel inside,
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but when she smiles, then I
feel I got a flutter in my
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stomach even thinking of it. Right
here I get this this feeling of being
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accepted and loved and everything is okay
in that moment, and that is what
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Jesus promises. When we see God, hit's his smile for us as his
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own dear children and as his own
dear and accepted children. We also have
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a third promise. It's the promise
of his peace, protection and perfect provision.
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Thought I'd try being a baptist there
for a second. It says peace,
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perfect our protection and perfect provision.
When we see our father, we
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are fearless, we are safe and
strong in his presence, because there is
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nothing left to be afraid of.
In Philippians, chapter four, versus off
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six and seven, Paul says this, be anxious for nothing, but in
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all things, through prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving, let your requests be
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made known to God, and the
peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
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will guard your hearts and minds.
Through Christ Jesus. Paul tells us
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that when we make our requests known
to God, he takes away our anxiety
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and he fills us with a sense
of Thanksgiving and he gives us his peace,
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which is the apostle says, surpasses
understanding, and we have that peace
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and freedom from anxiety because we see
him, and seeing him we are reminded
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that he has everything on her control. When we have this beatific vision,
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we see that we are close to
him as his own dear children. He
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is our father, but he's not
just any father. He's omniscient and he's
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omnipotent. He knows all, he
is all powerful. He knows everything that
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we need before we ask it,
and he is so powerful that he can
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provide it every time we need it. And this experience of his peace and
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protection and perfect provision for us it's
like that of a child's on a scary
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night. You know, the thunder
booms, the lightning flashes, the little
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guy has these horrible dreams and he
cries out. But when daddy runs in
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the room and grabs him and he
says I'm here, Daddy's here, everything
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is okay, then that little guy
knows that he is safe. But no
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matter how wonderful our human fathers may
have been, they were never all powerful,
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but our father in heaven is.
And when you are with him,
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when you have this experience of seeing
him, he assures you of that.
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But perhaps the pinnacle of the beatific
vision is that he allows us to see
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as he sees. When we're close
to the Lord, he draws us into
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such union and fellowship with him that
he actually gives us the grace that we
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begin to look at the world as
he looks at the world. William Hendrickson,
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favorite commentator of mine, in his
commentary, notes this. He says
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when we see God he changes the
way we look at the world. When
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we see God, he changes the
way that we look at the world.
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He allows us to see his world, his creation and even our own lives
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through his eyes. And though you
know this side of glory we see,
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as it were, through a glass
darkly, as St Paul says. Yet
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in glory we will finally have that
ability to see all things clearly as God
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sees. There's a book I really
like. It's called the Sacred Romance.
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I've tried to get victor to read
it but he just keeps putting it off.
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But the author, John Eldridge,
says this. He says this is
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interesting. He says a friend of
mine, as a missionary to Muslims and
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Sonegal he tells me that after conversion, Muslims will often notice flowers for the
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first time. Prior to salvation,
Muslims in that arid country live a very
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utilitarian existence. Things are valued only
for what they can do. Their houses
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are dull and drab. Trees are
only appreciated if they are fruit trees,
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if they have a function. It
is as if the Muslims have lived without
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beauty for their whole lives and now, having their souls released from bondage,
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they are freed into the pleasures of
God's creative heart. That really stuck with
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me when I first read that and
I've thought about it since. See,
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when we catch this vision of God
in our lives, he opens our eyes
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to the glories of his handiwork like
these former Muslims that eldridge describes. Day
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by day, as we walk with
the Lord, we find that he opens
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our eyes to the joy and the
delight that he has for his creation,
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for us and for other people,
and he allows us to participate in his
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joy and delight. It's a joy
and a blessedness in all that God has
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made and a consequent desire to praise
and thank him for his glory and His
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Majesty and His goodness. So,
as a for instance, when you go
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out and you look at one of
our glorious Arizona Sunsets, it won't just
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be to say, well, I
better turn the porch light on because it's
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going to be dark soon. Rather, it's to stand there in utter awe
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that your father in heaven created this
astounding Vista with all of its color and
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majesty, possibly just for your eyes. Have you ever thought I could be
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the only person in all of Tucson
looking at this sunset right now? And
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if you do, you know we
known from scripture. He created that he
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painted it in his mind's eye before
the foundation of the world, just for
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you at that moment. And as
this happens, he'll start to look at
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other people with his eyes. You'll
start to see people in light of Christ
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is see us, Lewis says,
will start to see people as they shall
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be in glory, and that will
change the way that we look at them.
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This is what he's talking about when
he's saying that the pure and heart
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shall see God. It's all of
this and far, far far are more.
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And he then tells us, in
the preceding part of this be attitude,
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how we can find this beatific vision. And of course, he says
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it comes to the Pure and heart. Now, when Jesus refers to the
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pure and heart, he's referring to
those whose hearts, that is their innermost
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being, their emotion, their will, their thoughts, that the fruit through
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their actions. It's those whose hearts
are utterly pure and without spot. And
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the word that's used here for pure
is a word that has been said to
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describe something that has once been polluted
or corrupted, but which has been so
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thoroughly cleansed and purged to the point
that it's one hundred percent clean. It's
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something that was filthy that is meant
been made blindingly white in its cleanliness.
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And in this beattitude, Jesus says
that that kind of pure, undefiled,
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sinless person, that guy will receive
this beatific vision. Now we all know
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that that sort of purity is impossible. and Jesus then goes on and he'll
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spend the rest of the sermon on
the mountain, large part to show us
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how corrupt and impure our thought,
thoughts and words and deeds and desires are.
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And I suspect that most of us
have been around church long enough to
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know the next thing I'm going to
say. We know what the answer to
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our problem is. Right it's Jesus. Jesus came into the world to take
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away our sinfulness that separates us from
God. He came into the world to
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wash US clean and to usher us
into our father's presence, to make us
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accepted, to give us the promise
of his peace, protection, imperfect provision
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and to give us eyes to see
as God sees. Jesus cleanses us.
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We all know that part of the
Gospel and I think that it's changed our
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lives. But here's the problem,
here's my problem with this. I so
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very often feel like I haven't received
this vision or that, having had it,
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perhaps I've lost this seeing of God. Y'All know what I mean.
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You Do, don't you? You've
lost that first love that John Talks about.
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You look around and you mind that. You look at the world with
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this jaded, cynical I there's no
childlike delight in you. You look at
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other people and you see them in
light of their faults and their sins and
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the things they've said or done,
and you don't see them in light of
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Christ. You feel, you act
as though you have defend for yourself,
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like there is no perfect provision for
you. You don't feel all that accepted
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by God and you wonder where that
sense of his presence went. You know
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what I mean. We see the
hope and the promise of this beatific,
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this blessed vision, and we don't
really know where it's gone. David could
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relate or the sons of Cora in
the forty two psalm. We read this
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as the dear pants for the water
brooks. So pants my soul for you,
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Oh God. My Soul thirsts for
God, for the Living God.
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When shall I come and appear before
you? My tears have been my food
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day and night, while they continually
say to me, where is your God?
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When I remember these things, I
pour out my soul within me,
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for I used to go with the
multitude. I went with them to the
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House of God with the Voice of
joy and praise, with a multitude that
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kept a pilgrim feast. What happened? Well, what has happened is that
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we keep on sitting even after we
come into a relationship with Christ. We
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sin and we lose sight of God, we fall down and we lose the
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joy that David says he used to
experience when he dwelt in God's sight,
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and it is awful when that happens. The Psalm is says that he's wept
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for the loss of that intimacy.
But the sad part is that, unlike
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the Psalm as, so many of
us finally tire of weeping and we lose
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hope of returning with the multitude,
as David says, like we're alone.
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We accept a life, a Christian
life, that is devoid of the joy
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that comes from living in the side
of God, that comes from this beatific
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vision, and we lose hope.
We can even get to the point where
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we lose hope of having hope.
We lose the hope of recovering the joy
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that what we once knew in our
Christian experience, so that it seems like
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those people over there at some super
duper conference have. So here's the question.
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What happened to us and how do
we recover? Where do we find
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the purity of heart that Jesus says
is necessary for us to see God well
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again? What happened is that you
and I have continued to sin since we've
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become Christians. We've sinned little bit, e teeny tiny seat sins, and
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we've sinned great, big, awful, terrible sins. And when we send
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those sins, the Lord removes a
bit of the experience of his presence from
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us. Now he doesn't actually pull
away from us. He will need neither
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abandon US nor forsake us. He's
still there with us. But what he
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does is he removes a bit of
the experience, the feeling of his presence.
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And as he does that, that's
when we lose sight of him.
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Our sin is like a fog that
makes our sight dim and it obscures our
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view of the Lord. It makes
us lose the present awareness and feeling of
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the blessedness of seeing God. And
the Lord does that, he allows us
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to lose sight of him in this
fog in order to get us to the
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point that the psalmist comes to in
Psalm Forty two, the point at which
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we come to thirst for God,
the point that we long for the side
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of him that we used to have, the point that we are desperate to
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experience the blessings of seeing him that
he promises to us. And he does
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that. He does that so that
we will despair of our human efforts.
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It will despair of our sin,
will even despair of our despair, and
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we will turn to him and come
to him all over again like it was
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the first time. And what he
wants from US in order to restore to
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us that sense and experience of the
promise that we've spoken of, is simply
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for us to trust him and come
to him and confess our sins and faults
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to him. Says why, for
instance, that we so often it's a
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little bit of an explanation of why
we have written prayers of confession. It's
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to teach us how to pray,
to pray with those who prayed before us,
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so that we can learn how to
pray. God wants us to confess,
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and when we do that, when
we do come and confess to him,
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then he restores to us that sense
of purity of the heart that we
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need if we're going to see him
clearly again. And if you ever wonder
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why it is, you say to
yourself, it's okay, Austin, I
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know all this. I've heard this
ten million times. Maybe you wonder yourself.
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You say, okay, why do
these preachers keep on and on and
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on and on, not about all
this old stuff? Well, the answer
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is this. You never grow beyond
it. You never grow bere you they
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no matter how wise or smarter educated
you may be, no matter how long
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you've walked with Jesus, you never
ever get be hot, beyond those simple
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Gospel truths. Every day you need
to remind yourself of those simple truths.
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Every day. You need the milk
of the Gospel, like Little Linda needs
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milk so she can grow up to
be strong. One of my professors in
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seminary, Dr Knox Chamblin, he
used to always tell us with this wonderful
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Mississippi accent that he had. Oh, Ladies and gentlemen, the most important
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thing y'all can do is preach the
Gospel to yourselves every day. Preach the
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Gospel to yourself every day. You've
got to remember those simple truths. Jesus,
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for instance, did not come for
the righteous, but the unrighteous.
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Jesus didn't come for people who have
it all together, but for people who
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are all screw it up, for
people who are so screwed up that they
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don't know their right hand from their
left, which is good news for me,
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and I'll tell you this. We
hold onto these simple truths and,
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though it seems too good to be
true that if we confess, it's over.
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If we turn to him, he
draws near to us. Though it
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seems to be too good to be
true, it seems to be too easy,
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the fact is that when you look
around and you see that you cannot
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see, when you find that you've
lost sight of God and you've become sadly
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accustomed to not experiencing God's presence and
his acceptance and his peace, protection and
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perfect provision, when you look around
and you realize that you do not see
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with God's eyes, this is what
I want you to know. That is
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the Holy Spirit and he's speaking to
you and he says come, come and
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confess, turn around and trust me, tell me about it, tell me
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what you've done, and I will
wash you wider than snow. I will
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cleanse you with hiss up, as
scripture says, and you shall be clean.
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I will make your heart as pure
as the driven snow, and you
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will see me, says the Lord. And you know what, though,
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confession is hard and we avoid it
like the plague because we hate to face
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the ugly truth about ourselves. Nevertheless, when we confess our sins, it
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is good, for the more you
confess what you've done, even those little
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arrant thoughts. You're impure motives.
The more you confess, the more you
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will be forced to remind yourself of
his Gospel promises, and the more that
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you remember those promises, the more
you'll see God and that side of him,
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that that beatific vision. It is
in itself transforming, it is cleansing.
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It's like a fire that stokes its
own fire. The more you see
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and experience the Lord, the more
you will want to see and experience the
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Lord and all you lack. Repent
to belief, which literally means turn around
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and trust me and confess. Seek
his cleansing touch, for then you will
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see God and brothers and sisters.
That is good news. Let's pray.
