Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / What Are Worldly Desires Titus 2:11–15, Part 3

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What Are Worldly Desires Titus 2:11–15, Part 3 · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: This is part three on Titus two eleven to fifteen.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: We're going to focus on this renunciation here, or this
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: denial be a literal translation. It's the same word that
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Jesus used when he said unless a person deny himself,
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  Speaker 1: and how it relates to living lives that are self controlled,
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  Speaker 1: upright and godly. For the grace of God has appeared,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: bringing salvation for all people. Training us in order that
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: having renounced on godliness and worldly passions or worldly desires,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: we might so this is negative and this is positive. Now, so,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: having denied ourselves this and renounce this, turned away from
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: this ungodliness and worldly desires, positively, we might live self controlled, upright,
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  Speaker 1: godly lives in the present age, that is, until Jesus
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  Speaker 1: comes back, when we will be perfected, no more need
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  Speaker 1: to actively renounce anything. We will be utterly freed from
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  Speaker 1: all such ungodliness and worldly desires. So, Father, teach us
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: now the negative side of the Christian life, what we
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  Speaker 1: must fight and renounce and put down and deny in ourselves,
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  Speaker 1: and the positive pursuits that we should have in order
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  Speaker 1: to be trained by your grace. I pray that in
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  Speaker 1: Jesus' name, Amen, So Let's not forget that we laid
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: out what seven steps to this training, and it included
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Christ gave himself for us to redeem us, to purchase
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  Speaker 1: us our freedom from all lawlessness, and surely redeem us
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  Speaker 1: from ungodliness, redeem us from worldly desires. So this redemption
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  Speaker 1: here is under everything, but we're focusing now. Having stood there,
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  Speaker 1: having known ourselves as purchased, redeemed from lawlessness and impurity,
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  Speaker 1: this grace that redeemed us is now actively training us
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  Speaker 1: in order that three positive things might characterize our lives.
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  Speaker 1: Self controlled the word connotes not only active renunciation of
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  Speaker 1: sexual lust, as it does in some places, but more
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  Speaker 1: generally sober minded, prudent, careful judgment. In other words, we're
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: not acting impulsively anymore from just mere desire. Whatever comes
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  Speaker 1: into our hearts or minds or body, we do it. No,
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  Speaker 1: everything goes through a self controlled, sober, prudent, careful judgment.
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  Speaker 1: That judgment's going to be based on the grace of God,
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  Speaker 1: and that's part of what this training involves. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to be self controlled in that sense. Secondly, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to be upright. That is, translation would be live, justly,
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  Speaker 1: just comportment, behavior towards others, do what's right right in
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  Speaker 1: God's eyes, treat others the way we would like to
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  Speaker 1: be treated. Third, godly, that is reverent, devout God word
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  Speaker 1: in our thinking and in our acting. Now that godly
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  Speaker 1: is clearly the opposite of ungodliness, both in the Greek
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  Speaker 1: and in English, you can see that. And so these
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  Speaker 1: two here, self controlled and upright, are probably expressing what
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: would happen if you get this under control worldly desires.
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  Speaker 1: So the way Paul stays it is that this training
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  Speaker 1: regimen is like this. You go to the gym, to
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  Speaker 1: the exercise institution, and you hire a trainer, You pay
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  Speaker 1: a trainer, and you say to the trainer, my goal
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  Speaker 1: is to live self controlled, upright, and godly. And this trainer,
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  Speaker 1: who's called the Grace of God, that's his name, says,
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  Speaker 1: all right, now, step number one will be two renunciations,
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  Speaker 1: like a trainer might say, what do you eat or
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  Speaker 1: how much sleep do you get? In other words, before
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  Speaker 1: you can start working out and saying these are my goals,
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  Speaker 1: he's going to know something about your lifestyle. And this trainer,
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  Speaker 1: the Grace of God, says two things have to be renounced.
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  Speaker 1: One ungodliness and that would be irreverence. Or today we
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  Speaker 1: might say that this word implies basically secular, a person
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  Speaker 1: who operates indifferent towards God. He's not devout towards God.
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  Speaker 1: He's not directing his heart and mind towards God. He's
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  Speaker 1: not God word or reverent. He's basically secular and worldly
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  Speaker 1: in his mindset. That's got a change that has to
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  Speaker 1: be renounced or denied. You say to your old godless self,
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  Speaker 1: you're not in charge Anymorepella, you're not. I deny you,
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  Speaker 1: I renounce you. Then worldly desires, now this one really
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  Speaker 1: needs some attention, because there are good desires and there
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  Speaker 1: are bad desires. Let's take this word at bithumias, which
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  Speaker 1: means desire, sometimes translated passions. It's the same word desire,
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  Speaker 1: and look at two good desires so that we can
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  Speaker 1: see this word is not a problem. Like when it
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  Speaker 1: says worldly desires, you can say, ooh, I got to
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  Speaker 1: avoid all desires in this world. Well, no, you don't.
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  Speaker 1: You mustn't. Here's Philippians one twenty three. I'm hard pressed
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  Speaker 1: between the two. My desire same word exactly. My desire
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  Speaker 1: is to depart and be with Christ. There's nothing wrong
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  Speaker 1: with desire. In fact, desires are absolutely essential. To depart
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  Speaker 1: and be with Christ is the essence of love to Christ.
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  Speaker 1: I want to be with him. It's my want, it's
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  Speaker 1: my passion, it's my longing, it's my desire. Here's another one, first,
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  Speaker 1: the Solonians two seventeen. Since we were torn away from you,
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  Speaker 1: brothers by a short time in person, not in heart,
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  Speaker 1: we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to
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  Speaker 1: see you face to face. There's nothing wrong with that
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  Speaker 1: desire see a Christian face to face. I love you Christian,
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  Speaker 1: fellow Christian, I would love to see you face to face.
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  Speaker 1: So let's not think here that the word desire is
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  Speaker 1: the problem. You have to renounce. Renounce worldly desires. Now
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  Speaker 1: what are they? What characterizes the desires that we must
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  Speaker 1: renounce if we're to live self controlled, upright and godly
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  Speaker 1: lives in the present age. Let me give you three
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  Speaker 1: parallel texts to flesh out more of what the desires
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  Speaker 1: are like that you don't want to have, that you
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  Speaker 1: must get rid of. So here's the first one. I
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  Speaker 1: thought of this one because of this word, this word worldly.
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  Speaker 1: So look at first John two. Do not love the
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: world or the things in the world. If anyone loves
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  Speaker 1: the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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  Speaker 1: So you've got to choose between loving God and loving
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  Speaker 1: the world. Jesus says, you can't serve two masters. For
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  Speaker 1: all that is in the world, this world, you're not
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  Speaker 1: to love and any specific the desires same word, the
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  Speaker 1: desire of the flesh, the desire of the odds, and
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  Speaker 1: the produc of life. This is the different words. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't put the Greek there, But the desires of the
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  Speaker 1: flesh are of the world. They are things in the world.
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  Speaker 1: So we'll come back to that. But there's an example
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  Speaker 1: of the desires you must get rid of. All that
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  Speaker 1: is in the world is not from the Father. There
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: are desires that are not of the Father. They don't
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  Speaker 1: come from the character of the Father. They're going into
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  Speaker 1: a different direction than the Father. They from the world.
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  Speaker 1: So we'll be back to that in just a minute.
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  Speaker 1: Here's a second parallel to worldly desires. Since therefore Christ
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  Speaker 1: suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way
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  Speaker 1: of thinking. For whoever has suffered in the flesh has
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  Speaker 1: ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the time in the flesh no longer for human desires human,
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  Speaker 1: So fir Sean says, the desires that you need to
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  Speaker 1: get rid of are of the world, not of the Father.
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  Speaker 1: And here they're called human desires. And clearly a desire
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  Speaker 1: that is a desire of a person, and thus a
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  Speaker 1: human is not all always bad. Paul said, I desire.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a human, and I desire to see Jesus. I
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  Speaker 1: desired to see fellow Christians. So what does human mean here?
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  Speaker 1: Here's the third example among the sons of disobedience. We
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  Speaker 1: all once lived in the desires of our flesh, carrying
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  Speaker 1: out the desires of the body and the mind, and
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  Speaker 1: whereby nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
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  Speaker 1: Flesh now probably elucidates what human meant back here merely human,
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  Speaker 1: human minus the Holy Spirit, human minus God, human minus Christ,
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  Speaker 1: human minus any kind of faith submission to God, just
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  Speaker 1: the flesh. In Paul, the flesh usually means our human nature,
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  Speaker 1: both immaterial and material, that is god less. One more
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  Speaker 1: Phesians four twenty two. Put off your old self, which
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  Speaker 1: belongs to your former manner of life, former manner of life,
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  Speaker 1: and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Desires that lie. They
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  Speaker 1: tell you that if you go in this direction, you'll
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  Speaker 1: get the most happiness, when in fact God is over here. Now,
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  Speaker 1: how can we then define worldly desires that we must
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  Speaker 1: renounce in order to be self controlled, upright and godly?
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  Speaker 1: And I would describe it like this on the basis
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  Speaker 1: of those parallels. One, I would say these worldly desires
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  Speaker 1: compete with our desire for God. They compete. Or another
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  Speaker 1: way to say it might be if these die, if
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  Speaker 1: these desires are in the ascendancy, your desires for God
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  Speaker 1: are diminishing. That's what I mean by compete. A worldly
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  Speaker 1: desire is the desire that, when it is rising in
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  Speaker 1: your life, the desire for God is going down. That's
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  Speaker 1: a good measure of whether they are deceitful worldly desires.
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  Speaker 1: Here's another way to say it. Worldly desires are desires
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  Speaker 1: that are not sweetened by a desire for God. Nowtherreds.
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  Speaker 1: If you have a desire for something on the earth, food, friends, sex, books,
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  Speaker 1: you name it, anything on this earth that God made
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  Speaker 1: that in itself is good. If you have a desire
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  Speaker 1: for that and you try to stir in desire for God,
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  Speaker 1: and it does not sweeten that desire, improve that desire.
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  Speaker 1: Something's wrong with that desire, at least something wrong with
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  Speaker 1: the way you're experiencing it, because no good desire should
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  Speaker 1: be in any way diminished by stirring in a desire
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  Speaker 1: for God alongside it, in it, after it. Here's another
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  Speaker 1: way to say it. We should try to get rid
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  Speaker 1: of desires that do not increase our desire for God.
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  Speaker 1: The n is made less by a desire for God,
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  Speaker 1: but they should increase. If God is added, then they
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  Speaker 1: should go up, which is almost the same as saying
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  Speaker 1: are they sweetened by a desire for God? And the
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  Speaker 1: last thing I would say, and it relates directly to
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  Speaker 1: this idea of deceitful desires, is that a true and
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  Speaker 1: good and godly desire, rather than a worldly desire, is
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  Speaker 1: a desire that accords with truth, the true value of something. So,
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  Speaker 1: if this is something here and you are desiring it,
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  Speaker 1: if in fact this is not desirable in God's reckoning,
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  Speaker 1: this is a bad desire. You shouldn't be desiring what
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  Speaker 1: is not truly desirable or worthy. So summing up, the
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  Speaker 1: goal as you go to your trainer is to say, trainer,
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  Speaker 1: grace of God purchased by the redemption of Christ's giving
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  Speaker 1: himself from me. Dear grace of God, grant me to
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  Speaker 1: live self controlled, upright, godly lives. O Grace of God
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  Speaker 1: empower me for those three, and the trainer says, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: I will now Step Number one is let's do some
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  Speaker 1: renouncing here as we move into the regimen of our
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  Speaker 1: spiritual life. And the renouncing is be done with all secularism,
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  Speaker 1: that is, all godlessness. Get rid of ungodliness and lack
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  Speaker 1: of devotion and lack of reverence, become a God word person.
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  Speaker 1: And secondly, be done with desires that deceive you and
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  Speaker 1: trick you into thinking that things are desirable, which in
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  Speaker 1: fact are not desirable because they do not intensify your
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  Speaker 1: desire for God.