The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

Well, good evening. Oh come on now, I bring you greeting from the Republic of Texas. It is indeed an honor and a privilege for me to be here on this evening. I, as I said earlier, didn't grow up in church. But beyond that, none of my training was really from a Reform perspective. And I was asked even earlier today, how I came to an understanding of the Reformed faith or a Reformed understanding of biblical truth. And it was really something that I just realized. I never had a professor who was Reformed or even Calvinistic, and never served at a church that was Reformed or even Calvinistic. It was really a matter of reading the scriptures and coming to understand these things, and then just grabbing a hold of some old dead guys. And I realized that there was a consistent pattern that the ones who said things that, at least as far as I was concerned, were of the greatest impact and most lasting impact were people who were writing from the same perspective. And then I found out that it wasn't just these old dead guys. There was some living ones. Like this RC. Sprowl guy, to whom I began to listen and who helped me and ministered to me in a time when I was not anywhere near a Reformed church and anywhere near Reformed training. It was like a cold drink of water to be able to listen to renewing your mind. And some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. And so I'm grateful and humbled to be here, to be standing here this evening, grateful and humbled to be able to sit up on the panel with these gentlemen and watch them cut up. My assignment tonight is to address the topic of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and I'm going to do that from the first paragraph here in Ephesians chapter two, where we see all three of those things interacting with individuals. As we do this, and as I look at this, I'm reminded of a conversation that I had a few weeks ago. I was leading a group in Israel and I met an Israeli guide. He wasn't our guide, but I met an Israeli guide. Our guide was a believer, and though we didn't see things exactly the same way, he. Was a brother in the Lord. This was a secular Jew who really was kind of New Age more than anything else. And as we began to talk, he realized that I understood something about Judaism, understood something about the Old Testament, and he said, you know, there's just something that somebody's just going to have to explain to me, this whole trinity thing. And so we sat there, I don't know, for the next fifteen minutes, just talking about the doctrine of the Trinity, and after a while he just sort of shook his head and smiled real big and told me how much he appreciated it, because he had talked to many Christians and been involved with many Christian groups, and the most he'd ever gotten when he said somebody's gonna have to explain this trinity thing to me, was well, you just got to believe it. And that's kind of where we've come to. And it's unfortunate because not only do we not even try to grasp or understand or explain the doctrine of the Trinity, but we don't even think in trinitarian terms. And because we don't think in trinitarian terms, our faith sort of becomes lopsided. And so will either be those who emphasize one person of the Trinity or another and not understand the interrelated nature of the persons of the Trinity, the oneness of the Godhead, and the beauty of the oneness of the Godhead, and the richness that it brings to our understanding of our faith. Well, as I thought about. This issue of the world, the flesh and the Devil, I realized that just like we tend to be lopsided when it comes to the trinitarian nature of our faith, we also tend to be lopsided in terms of our understanding of these three influences. Some of us view the world as the only problem or the main problem, and as a result of that, we think that our greatest need is to somehow just get away from the world. We have this kind of amish mentality. If we just don't touch the things of the world, if we just don't wear clothes like the world, and drive the cars like the world, and use the appliances of the world, then somehow that will make us safe, and then we are left with the flesh and the devil. Not to mention the fact that just because you use something that's not from the world. Today, how many are realized that the stuff that you use from the world. Yesterday was still from the world. So I won't use a car, but I use a buggy because back in the days of the buggy, that wasn't the world. Then there are others, and we just concentrate on the devil, and everything's the devil Flip Wilson theology. The devil made me do it, okay, And all we do is we look for the devil everywhere, or as we'd say in Texas, look for the devil everwhere that's beyond everywhere. And so it's the devil. It's always the devil. It's the devil that made you do this. It's the devil. It's the devil. It's the devil. And there we are left with the world and the flesh, and then there's others. And we think that the only problem is a flesh and that brings with it its own set of difficulties. But there is a broader problem with a lack of understanding of these three things and how they work together. And the broader problem is this, unless we understand this interplay between the world and the flesh and the devil, we do not understand the sinfulness of our sin. We do not understand the radical nature of our depravity unless we understand that we are hemmed in on every side, that it's not just one issue, but it's everything around us and everything about us. And there are many of us who have lost an understanding of the radical nature of our sinfulness, and as a result, we've lost an understanding of the radical nature of the sinfulness of those around us as well. And so this impacts and affects even our approach to evangelism and our approach to apologetics. If their problem is just the world, then I just need to try to get them away from the world. If the problem is just the devil, I just need to get them to be where of the devil. If the problem is just the. Flesh, then I just need to get them to change some habits. But if they're hemmed in on every side, this also affects our understanding of the radical nature of our redemption. We don't have a fulorbed picture of what it means to be saved, what we're saved from whom, and what we're saved by, and so on both ends of that spectrum. It's important for us to grasp these truths. So if you will join me here in Ephesians, chapter two, And let's look there at those first ten verses, and you were dead. To pause there. It's amazing how complicated people make that in order to fit their theological systems. For some people that means sick. For some people that means you were terminally ill, really really really ill. For some it means you were sinking in the ocean and about to drown. But my Bible says you were dead. You were dead, and the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power. Of the air. So there's world. There's a devil, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all lived in the passions of our flesh. There's the third one, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, I like to pause there too, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive. Together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. That's one of those passages you can just read and sit down, but I won't. In order to grasp this, I want to give you a couple of tools that will be helpful. First, I want to help you understand this letter. This letter that's divided in half, divided between the first half where we look at orthodoxy and the second half where we look at orthopraxy. The first half where we look at our calling, and the second half where we look at our conduct. The first half where we look at indicatives, in the second half where we look at imperatives, divided right down the middle. And in order for us to know that this division has occurred. At the end of chapter three we have a doxology, and at the beginning of chapter four we have a there four clause. We've ended one thing and we've begun another. And then this first half of the book, it is filled with these indicatives. It is filled with this picture of what God has done on our behalf through Christ and his person and work. And then when we get into the second half and we get into these imperatives, the indicatives don't just go away. They're still there. And so we have these imperatives. We have things to which we are called, but we are called to them in light of and as a direct result of, that which Christ has accomplished on our behalf, to the Father's glory through the Cross. And so we are called to these things. And our desire to do these things and our ability to do these things is connected inexorably to those indicatives in the first half of the letter. So it is imperative that we grasp and that we understand these indicatives in the first half. And right in the middle of all of these indicatives in the first half we have our paragraph. But before we get back to that, let me show you something about these indicatives in the first three chapters. The first three chapters all have their own sort of crescendo, and they all come to a close with what I like to call the arch indicatives of Ephesians. I believe there are three main indicatives in this first three chapters that are the key to unlocking this book as a whole, and the r as follows. Look with me at the endings of each of these chapters. Look at the end of chapter one, beginning verse twenty two, and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. That first arch indicative is Christ's headship over his body. This letter is replete with references to Christ's headship over his body. And even when we get into the second half, and we have, for example, imperatives related to marriage, the imperative for the husband and the imperative for the wife is rooted and grounded in this idea of Christ's headship over his body that we learned here in the first chapter. At the end of the second half, we have another look there at the end of that beginning of verse nineteen. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ, Jesus himself, being in the cornerstone in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So we have Christ's headship over his body. Now we have unity in Christ's body. The second sort of arch indicative here, And just to give you an example of how crucial it is to understand these indicatives when you understand the imperatives, there's an imperative there in Ephesians chapter five that gives a lot of us fits, and it's in verse thirty. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. I've heard so many explanations what it means to grieve the Holy Spirit, so many. However, the key is found in what we just read. First of all, go back to verse twenty eight. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, according to the end of chapter two, who's building us up as a body, the Holy Spirit. Therefore, grieving the Spirit in this context is speaking corrosive words that tear down members of the body whom the Spirit is building together in unity. Well, understand the imperatives, understand the indicatives. So Christ headship over his body, and then unity in Christ's body. And then there's the third, the last one. Look at chapter three. This one builds to a crescendo, and he ends the first half. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. To him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus, through all generations, forever and ever. Amen, there's the glory that the body gives to its head. So we have Christ's headship over his body, we have unity in Christ's body, and then we have the glory that the body gives to its head. What's the significance of this in light of what we read in this first paragraph in chapter two, here's the significance. What we're supposed to see is Christ's headship over his body. But in chapter two we see that man, apart from Christ, is under the wrong headship. We're under the headship of the Prince of the power of the air. What we're supposed to see is unity in Christ's body, but instead what we see in that first paragraph is that men are enemies of God and means of Christ. We're supposed to see that glory that the body gives to its head, but instead what we see is man, because of his flesh, because of his body, because of his mind, pursuing his own glory and his own appetites as opposed to the glory of God in Christ. We have a problem, and it is significant. Our problem is not that we were simply raised the wrong way. Our problem is not that we haven't seen good enough examples. Our problem is not that we haven't tried hard enough. Our problem is that we are hemmed in on every side, and because of that, our desires are warped. Listen to this from Luther. A man without the spirit of God does not do evil against his will under pressure, as though he were taken by the scruff of the neck and dragged into it, like a thief being dragged off against his will to punishment. But he does it spontaneously and voluntarily. And this willingness of volition is something which he cannot in his own strength eliminate, restrain, or alter. He goes on willing. And desiring to do evil, and if external pressure forces him to act otherwise, nevertheless, his will within remains averse to so doing, and chase under such constraint and opposition. This is who we are. This is the radical nature of our depravity. Let's look at these things in turn. First, the world following the course of this world, and we know that word world is used a number of different ways in the New Testament. It's used a number of different way in Pauline literature. Paul uses it sometimes to refer to the entire created order, the world, the cosmos. Sometimes he uses it to refer to all mankind. At other times he uses it to refer specifically to Jews and gentiles alike. But other times this word is used to refer to that which is against God, to that which is opposed to God. For example, in Romans chapter twelve, verse one, Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world. Do not be pressed into the mold of this world. There is the idea of this world and the world to come, this age and the age to come, the idea of those things that are opposed to God. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he didn't use this world, but he used this idea. What do we pray, our Father in heaven, High will be your name, your kingdom Come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what he calls us to pray. Why does he call us to pray that because this world is opposed to him and opposed to his will. This is important to understand. It's all we know. It's what we're born into. It's like Aristotle's ancient question, does a fish know that he's wet? The answer is not until you take him out of the water. It's what we're born in and it's all we know. So when you are apart from Christ again, it's not just that you have bad habits. You're part of a world. You're part of a system that is opposed to God at every turn. However, it is subtle and that this world doesn't show open opposition to God. That would be too obvious. Instead, there are these subtle adjustments here and there. It's like the air we breathe, It's like the matrix, and it's all we know. Next, there is the idea of the devil. Not only are we in this world, not only are we in this system that is opposed to God, not only are we fully pressed into the mold of this system that is fully opposed to God. But there is also this influence following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. So, first of all, there is this that is set up, this world to which we belong, these lenses over our eyes, this picture of reality that's pained for us, these things that are assumed because they are all we've ever known. And in addition to those things, as if that were not enough, there is actually the devil. There is actually evil spiritual forces. There is actually a demonic world, a demonic realm. And we can get in trouble in two ways. Here there's a ditch on both sides of the road. We can overestimate the influence of the devil, or we can underestimate the influence of the devil. The fact of the matter is the Scripture's clear we were under his influence. So we have this world, this system that is teaching us what to believe and what to think, what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false. And then we have the spiritual reality of the devil himself, this spiritual reality of demonic forces, this spiritual reality that is influencing us, and that is actively working against us, that is actively working to keep us blind, actively working to keep us satisfied with the world and not aware of or desiring anything other than that. Unlest you think you're just innocent in all this among whom we all once lived, and the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. It's two important things here. He brings this full circle when he refers to the rest of mankind. He's making a point there. The point there goes back to the world. And it is not as though the world is just sort of here in pockets here and there. It's the rest of mankind and the people who are not under this influence. Are in the minority. There is a broad gate and there is a narrow gait. But before he says this, he makes reference to our flesh, to our own desires, to our bodies and our minds, and what our bodies and our minds want. So here's why the world and the devil are so powerful, because they give us exactly what we want. That's who we are. We're not individuals who would otherwise pursue God if the devil would just leave us alone. Far from it. Since the fall, with the first Adam as our federal head, we are averse to all good things. Listen to the way the Confessions put it, both Westminster and London from this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled and made opposed to all good and wholly inclined to all evil. To proceed all. Actual transgressions, our sins come from our sin nature. It's who we are, it's what we want, it's what we desire. So don't think of it as though we come into this world and we're innocent and we're really looking for a way to find God and a way to please God. But all of a sudden, this world says no, don't do that, and the devil says, no, don't do that. Actually, no, that's not radical enough, that's not sinful enough. That's not who you were. Here's who you were before you came to Christ. You came with fleshly desires that were against God. You came with desires of your body and your mind that were alienated to God. You came with. Desires that were evil. And the devil and the world did not have to seek you out. You rested in them because they gave you exactly what you wanted. The devil knows your name, and you know his voice. You were convinced that he loved you as much as you loved him. The world was a comfortable place to you. It was all that you wanted. And that is because your very nature craved it. This is why the doctrine of original sin is so important. If we don't understand the doctrine of original sin, then we don't get this. We don't understand that. We don't understand the sinfulness of our sin because somehow we think that we're innocent and our environment just somehow made us go all wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. People who don't believe in original sin. Don't have children, amen, somebody. I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's not a little angel, that's a viper and a diaper. You come into this world, you can barely open your eyes. For months, you can barely hold up your head. You had to hold grab his head. Now you can't sit up, you can't talk, you can't crawl, you can't walk. But you can let everybody know that you're running things. The angry cry happens early. The demanding cry happens early. The stiffening up of the body that happens early. You're so cute, No, that ain't cute. One of the reasons God makes them so small is so that they won't kill you. And one of the reasons he makes them so cute is so that you won't kill them. We are sinners. See, we don't understand this. That's why we have no urgency about sharing the gospel with the nice old lady down the street, because, after all, she's just a nice old lady. We don't get this. That's why we stand up at funerals and say that people who never wanted to be with God on this earth are in a better place, spending eternity with the one that they didn't want to be with here. Because we don't get this, we don't understand this, and because we don't understand this, we don't understand how desperate we are for a radical redemption. Actually, because we don't understand this, we don't think we need to be saved. We actually just think we need to be helped. We don't think we need good news. We think we need good advice. We don't need the Gospel. We just need ten ways to have a happy life, in five ways to reduce stress. Because that's our problem. We don't believe this, And this is why we say we hear preachers all the time. There's a guy down my way down in Houston, smiling Joel. Smiling Joel says, sinners don't need to be told they're sinners. They know they're sin No, they don't, they don't. They don't. They look at the guy on the news who hacks somebody up, and they say, that's a sinner, not me. They don't sin. They make mistakes. You sin, but they don't. They make bad choices, they have bad patches, they have bad habits, but they're not sinners. They're not individuals who pursue their own fleshly desires at the expense of everyone in anything else unless they can be helped in their fleshly desires. They're not sinners who are under the influence of this world, because this world is giving them exactly what they want, which is not God. They're not sinners who are under the influence of the Prince of the Power of the Air, because they love the Prince of the Power of the Air. They're just people. Who sometimes make mistakes. But the Bible says that they're children of wrath, and so were we. If you understand that you're a child of wrath, you understand that you don't need good advice, you need good news, because there is no good news in this This is all bad. There's no hope whatsoever. I'm dead, and I'm under the influence of this world that opposes God, and the Prince of the Power of the Air, who opposes God. And what's worse, my flesh, my body, my mind. They like it and they want it, and they don't want God. And I'm an enemy of God and I deserve God's wrath. By the way, here's a footnote in case you were wondering because so many people miss this one. Love to ask people, you know, even if you know you need to be saved, you know what you need to be saved from God? Amen, you need to be saved from the wrath of God. This holy and righteous and just God. That's why we find verse four. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace. You've been saved Love. There's no room there. There's no room there. There's nothing there. There's nothing God saw in you, just not there that there's nothing in you that rows up above the rest. It's just not there. The answer is, but God, you're dead. I don't care how many times you've heard the illustration. You're sinking, you're drowning. You're about to go down for the last time, and God throws you the life preserver. But you gotta grab it. Dead men don't grab You are a rotting corpse. You were not almost dead. You were not nearly dead. But you're dead, which means that the only hope is the grace of God. But watch what happens. You were dead and now you get life. God made us alive together with Christ. You were dead, but now you're alive together with Christ. This is important. This is the doctrine of regeneration. This is God making us alive. This is God making us born again. And no matter how many times we hear out there in popular evangelicalism that we sort of born ourselves again, you can no more born yourself again than you born yourself the first time. Being born again is an act of God. Being born again is a supernatural act. Being born again is something that you don't ask for. You don't have sense enough to ask for. You're dead. God does this, and it's by his grace that he does this, and it's for his glory that he does this. It is because of Christ that he does this, and is my grace alone. We don't like this. Order, are our Catholic friends? Listen to this? The Council of Trent Session six, Canon nine. If anyone says that by faith alone the sinner is justified, so as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, let him be anathema again. Session six, Canon eleven. If anyone says that men are justified either by the imputation of righteousness, of the righteousness of Christ alone, or by the remission of sins alone, to the exclusion of the grace and love that is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and is inherent in them, or even that the grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God, let him be anathema. And finally, if anyone says that the guilt is remitted to every penitent sinner after the grace of justification has been received, and that the debt of eternal punishment is so blotted out that there remains no debt of temporal punishment to be discharged, either in this world or in the next inmpurgatory before the interest to the Kingdom of Heaven can be opened, let him be anathema. They do not preach the same gospel, But that's also what most evangelicals today believe. And we believe it because we do not understand the radical nature of our depravity. We do not understand that we're hemmed in on every side. We do not understand that our nature is averse to God. We do not understand that the world and the devil are partnering with us as we willingly pursue them as opposed to God. We don't get that. We think that somehow we just need a little help from dead to alive, from the course of this world to heavenly places verse six, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This is important throughout Ephesians. In chapter one, verse three, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places Verses twenty and twenty one. He raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority, and power and dominion, and above every that is named. Chapter three, verse ten, So that through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. He's blessed us in the heavenly places. He has seated us in the heavenly places. Christ's rules and reigns in the heavenly places. The Church brings glory and manifests God's glory in the heavenly places. So who among us thinks that Ephesius Chapter six and verse twelve is designed to make us fear the heavenly places. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. It's interesting we're wrestling against spiritual forces that are in the heavenly places. Somebody else is in heavenly places. Christ. That's where he is. That's where he rules and reigns. That's where we are seated with him. That's where the Church brings him glory. Chapter six is not made, or is not written to make us fear the devil, but to give us faith because of the one who rules and reigns in that realm, from dead to alive, from the course of this world to heavenly places, from the Prince of the Power of the Air, to the Prince of Peace. How many times have we read in Christ with Christ. We are in Christ, we are in Him, and He is in us. No longer under the rule of the Prince of the Power of the air, but under the rule of the Prince of Peace, from gratifying our own desires to bringing glory to God. Look at verses eight through ten. For our grace, you've been saved through faith. And as this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Notice that there is a complete reversal of our previous condition. We were dead, Now we were alive in Christ. We were following the pattern of this world. Now we're seated in the heavenly places with Christ. We were under the influence of the Prince of the power of the Air. But now we are in Christ. We were gratifying our desires, the desires of our body, the desires of our minds. And yet now we have been recreated. We are God's workmanship, and there is work that God has for us to do that brings Him glory in the heavenly places. Now we understand the nature of our salvation. It's only when we understand the radical nature of our depravity. You understand the radical nature of your depravity. You understand your need for salvation. You understand the radical nature of your depravity. You understand what has to be the mechanism for your salvation. God's got to do that. You can't do that. You understand the radical nature of your depravity. You understand the magnitude of your salvation. You understand what you've been saved from. And it also gives you a picture of the magnitude and the glory of Christ, who is the one whose person and work has purchased us for God. And you also understand the need for us to preach the gospel. People don't need good advice, they need good news. You didn't need good advice, you needed good news. Yeah, but yeah, but what about the rest of that stuff covers it in the last three chapters. We get this incredibly practical application of the truths in the first three chapters all throughout the second half, and it's so that we understand one thing that in Christ we have all that we need. And yet in chapter six we come back to the infamous spiritual warfare passage. Why don't miss this. I was dead and I was living according to the pattern of this world. I was under the influence of the Prince of the Power of the Air. And I loved it. I loved it because it was right in line with what my flesh desired, with what my body desired, with what my mind desired. It was all I knew. I was completely wrapped up in it. In fact, when I heard about Christianity, one of the responses to Christianity, and this is all of us. How do people respond to Christianity. You hear about Christianity and you chase against the idea of rules. Chase again, you chase against the idea of your fun and your freedom being taken away. Why do you think we do that? Because that's what the world and the Prince of the Power of the Air says to you. The Prince of the Power of the Air says, Hey, your flesh is really satisfied right now. Actually it's not, which is why you got to continue to pursue more and more and more and more and more. But that's a whole another sermon. But your flesh is satisfied right now. You get to go pursue what you want, when you want, the way you want it. That stuff over there, they're telling you can't have that anymore. You don't want that, and your flesh is going, yeah, that's bad. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, he opens our eyes and we see ourselves, and we see the world, and we see the devil. We recognize the fact that we are enemies of God and objects of his wrath, and he saves us, and it is glorious and we're grateful. And this is still all we no, which is why we need those ordinary means of grace, which is why we need the body of Christ. Let me ask you something. The question came earlier, the person who says I'm a Christian, but I don't need the church. Here's what that person is saying. That person is saying, I've lived in this world. My flesh is delighted in this world. I've been under the prince of the power of the air. I loved him, and I believe that he loved me, and it was the only thing that I knew, and I pursued it with every fiber of my being. Now my eyes have been open, and I see this, and I'm saved, and I'm grateful. But I'll be okay, staying right here among the rest of those who are objects of wrath. I don't need to be informed or be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I'll just stay here and continue to be conformed to this pattern and I'll be okay. Or if I don't. Think I'll be okay, I think I can, in and of myself, with a mind that has been completely warped for my entire life, figure out how to be more like Christ, all by myself, right here in the same place where he found me. Folks, As we say, where I come from, a dog won't hunt. This is why we have desperate need of the ordinary means of grace. This is why we need to read the scriptures. You don't know what you don't know. You don't know how messed up you are. You really don't. And I have people who ask me sometimes you. Know that's me. You know, you know you you you know the way you grew up and where you grew up and what you experienced and what you went through and you turned out Okay. You know what. First of all, I'm not okay. Secondly, if you think I am, it's because you're not okay. I am reminded every day. How much I need to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. Every day. You know what I love. I love. Old bent over, slow walking, gray headed, walking with you for a long time. Saints who look at you in their own way and smile and tell you about what they just learned. That just blesses me. I look at a person who's eighty eighty five, ninety years old, and they're still learning. God is still opening up his truth to them. And I look from this side and say, do you realize how much more there is to gain? Which means I'm not there, Because if I'm not careful, I can still be comfortable in the world. If I'm not careful, I can still run and gratify my flesh. If I'm not careful, I still can have an ear tuned to the Prince of the power of the air if I'm not vigilant. So I love those ordinary means of grace, prayer, scriptures, preaching of the Word, the ordinances, the fellowship of the saints, singing those great songs of the faith, and having them ring in my ears and remind me again and again and again of those things that I am so apt to forget. Understanding this radical depravity of ours. Not only gives us a sensitivity toward those who are lost, not only helps us to understand the magnitude of our salvation, but it also reminds us that we are still in desperate need, because the world and the flesh and the devil are still there being mortified. Amen, but still there. We still have this treasure in clay vessels. We still have weaknesses, We still need to be vigilant, and we still need to be wary of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But never afraid. Why because I'm not dead anymore. I'm alive. Not afraid. Why because I have dual citizenship now, not afraid. Why because I belong to the Prince of peace and not to the Prince of the power of the air. I'm not afraid. Why because he's in even my flesh as being redeemed. Not there yet, better today than yesterday, and better tomorrow than today. By God's grace and with his help, let's pray, Father, we confess to you our great need. We confess to you that because of the world and the flesh and the devil that we wore constantly, we confess to you that we still remember the pattern that we still remember the voice, and that we still struggle with the desires. And yet we confess to you that we know that that is not who we are, because we've been made alive together with Christ, because we've been seated with Him in the heavenly places, because our allegiance has changed from the Prince of the power of the heir to the Prince of Peace, and because our bodies are now temples to the Holy Spirit. Grant by your grace, that Christ would be formed in us. Grant by your grace that the work of sanctification would continue in us. Grant by your grace that the desire for the things of God would increase in us. Grant by your grace that our disdain for sin, are disdain for the world, our disdain for the Prince and the power of the air, our disdain for our own sinful, fleshly desires would increase in us, That our sin would be mortified, and that Christ would be glorified, and that as a result we would worship Him, and that as a result we would speak of Him. For how dare we be freed from such an awful condition and leave others to linger therein? This is our prayer, This is the earnest desire of our souls, and we ask it because we believe it's in accordance with the will and the nature and the authority of Jesus, who is the Christ, our Lord, Master, savior, redeemer and friend. Amen.