Latest / Citipointe Church Caboolture / The Good, The Bad, The Beautiful | Ps Jon Eaton

Transcript

The Good, The Bad, The Beautiful | Ps Jon Eaton · Citipointe Church Caboolture

0:02
Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.
0:04
Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to
0:07
take hold of so we hope this message inspires you and build
0:11
your faith that it helps you have more of a God perspective
0:14
for your day. Enjoy SO.
0:18
Last month for those who were here, I preached and I preached
0:21
about how in the Beatitudes that says blessed are the pure and
0:25
half that they shall see God. And the word pure, there's
0:29
Cathros. It means completely, 100% pure.
0:33
And at that point most people think, well, that counts me out.
0:38
But then I explained through John 15 that it's actually
0:42
Jesus. He gives us that kind of purity.
0:44
It's the only way it really is. And because God Jesus gives us
0:50
purity, it means that we get to see God every day in all things.
0:55
So I want to continue from that message.
0:57
I did say that I'd try and continue it, and today is that
1:00
day. All right.
1:02
Now, for those who are in the know, my lovely wife Rachel, she
1:06
is currently away in the US of A Yeah.
1:10
If you've been trying to contact her, good luck.
1:14
I know when she actually has her phone she doesn't answer very
1:17
often and she personally sees this now as an opportunity to
1:21
not answer it at all. True story.
1:24
She even said to me I'm going to leave my phone behind.
1:33
Oh I love that girl. Anyway so she's been away which
1:38
is good. Gave me time to write this
1:40
message. I've actually really been
1:41
struggling with this message. I had a chat to the leadership,
1:44
to team and also to the pre service.
1:47
This message has actually been quite hard for me to write, but
1:52
at least four Times Now, God has given me some beautiful
1:55
confirmation that this is the message for today.
1:58
Now, I didn't even ask for confirmation, but I think he
2:01
just knew. Yeah, John, John needs some help
2:03
with this one because he is kind.
2:08
So I want to give you the context of today's message, and
2:12
it's specifically if you are dealing with condemnation,
2:16
guilt, shame, unworthiness, and I want to bring it back to your
2:21
identity in Christ. OK.
2:25
And I want to give you a bit of an example.
2:27
Oh, actually, if you, because I've got pages of notes, pages
2:30
and pages and pages of notes. If you want to know more, just
2:33
ask me. I'll send it to you.
2:35
But you can also ask our awesome Pastor Henry, who has this
2:40
sheet, this document, and has all the scriptures on it of who
2:43
you are in Christ rather than pages and pages.
2:47
It's all nicely condensed. So ask Pastor Henry for that.
2:50
All right, so let me give you an example of how I see
2:56
condemnation, guilt, shame, impurities in the Kingdom of
2:59
heaven because my wife is away now, bless her beautiful heart.
3:03
She was super generous and she pre made a bunch of meals for
3:07
us. So all I have to do is reheat
3:10
them. Pretty great, but we still do
3:14
have to do a little bit of a top up.
3:17
And I've noticed that the way that I shop compared to the way
3:21
that Rachel shops is very different.
3:25
So when I want apples, I think, oh, I need apples.
3:29
I go to the shop. I go to where they have the
3:31
apple stand. I pick up an apple, put it in
3:34
the bag, pay for it at the checkout, go home, eat the
3:38
apple. Super easy.
3:41
Not so when I go shopping with Rachel, she'll say to me, oh, we
3:46
need apples, go get an apple. So I'll do this.
3:48
Genuinely true. Pick up an apple.
3:51
I show her and she goes, not that one, put it back.
3:58
OK, so I pick up another one, hand it to her, she goes, not
4:03
that one, put it back. So yeah, poor John.
4:08
So now I am convinced in the Garden of Eden, if Adam had
4:14
picked a fruit, he would have given it to Eve and she would
4:18
have said not that one, put it back and we would still be
4:25
living in paradise. For me, an Apple's an apple even
4:37
with its impurities, it's dots, it's dents, it's bruises, it's
4:43
just an apple. And I don't mind cutting off the
4:47
impurities. I just cut them off, you know,
4:51
still get to eat it. And I've also noticed that even
4:54
apples with dots, dents, and bruises, you can still use it
4:58
for things like apple pie, apple juice, and the seeds inside it
5:05
still have potential despite its external impurities, because an
5:12
apple does not change its identity because of those.
5:17
And you were like that apple. In fact, anyone who accepts the
5:23
saving grace of Jesus, redeemed by his blood has become the
5:27
righteousness of Christ. It says the righteousness of God
5:31
actually in Christ. That's Second Corinthians 521
5:34
for the note takers. Think of that God is the most
5:37
righteous, the most righteous, the most pure.
5:42
And then he says in the second Corinthians, you are the
5:46
righteousness of God in Christ and you think really what?
5:51
Because it happens to anyone called by his name.
5:55
And that's what I brought up a little bit last time I preached
5:59
in John 15, three, because Jesus is talking about how he's the
6:03
one who prunes like he's the one who cuts the dents off the dots
6:06
and the bruises. He's the one that trims it.
6:09
And then he says to the to the disciples, you have been made
6:13
pure by my word. So it has to be a gift from God.
6:18
Purity has to be a gift from God.
6:23
Now, sometimes having dots, dents and bruises do need
6:28
additional care. That's why we have counselling,
6:31
psychological help. But sometimes that's not enough
6:37
because we need Jesus who does the sanctification.
6:40
So cutting off dense dots, bruises, we call that
6:44
sanctification. It's just cutting off the
6:46
things, the impurities, removing them.
6:49
And sometimes we do need a little bit of help for that.
6:51
Friends, family, church, brothers and sisters,
6:54
professional help. And our part of this whole
6:59
sanctification process is called taking up your cross daily.
7:05
It's going, you know, something. Yeah.
7:07
I want to continue this journey. And sometimes getting the dots
7:11
dense bruises cut off is painful.
7:15
But that's why Jesus said it's taking up your cross.
7:19
He didn't say it's picking daisies.
7:25
But it is God. He's the one who makes you pure.
7:28
He's the one who makes you righteous.
7:30
He brings wholeness. So I am convinced, genuinely
7:35
convinced, because I have things I'm working on.
7:40
There are things that I have issues with and struggles, but I
7:43
am absolutely convinced that when God picks you, dots, dance,
7:49
bruises and awe. Unlike my wife, He won't say,
7:55
not that one put him back. In fact, I think he says I'm
8:02
going to make juice out of this one.
8:04
Or pie. And here's a plan for the seeds
8:09
that are in your life. So the title of this message is
8:15
the good, the bad, the beautiful.
8:20
Yeah. So let's start with the good,
8:22
the Bibles. The world needs to get this.
8:26
The Bible is not a book of condemnation, actually.
8:31
It's actually a book of hope. It might surprise you if you
8:38
carry guilt and condemnation in your life, that the Bible is a
8:43
book of hope because when you read it, you read it through
8:45
those tainted glasses. And I'm even more sure that if
8:50
you carry guilt, shame, condemnation, unworthiness in
8:53
your life, this is this, that you often push that onto others.
8:59
So can I be brutal for a moment? Is that OK?
9:01
Yeah. You see, condemnation is when
9:04
you know that your sin in your life, the sin in your life,
9:08
should be punished. That's what condemnation is.
9:12
It's like when you know that the sin in other people's lives
9:15
should also be punished, and you live with that.
9:20
They deserve a good slap. And whereas conviction, which is
9:26
vastly different, is knowing still that sin should be
9:31
punished in yourself and that sin should be punished in
9:34
others. But it's always in the framework
9:38
of hope and life. Always.
9:41
It's not just in the framework of punishment.
9:43
Full stop. Now actually there's an Egyptian
9:47
God, lowercase G called Mahat actually.
9:55
And the Israelites would have been aware when they were living
9:58
under Pharaoh in, in Egypt in the Bible, that would have been
10:01
aware of this lowercase G Mahat God.
10:06
And this was basically the God of justice.
10:09
That was their their thought. So let me tell you, if you see
10:13
condemnation for your own sins and you're condemning others and
10:18
there's no hope, no life, just punishment, then that's the God
10:22
you serve, not the God of the Bible, because the Bible is a
10:29
book of life and of hope. So people say, oh, John, but the
10:33
Bible says eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
10:38
Yes, the Bible definitely agrees with the punishment.
10:41
God does not back away from that.
10:44
But then chapter after chapter, book after book, Old Testament,
10:49
New Testament, the whole thing is about how the innocent can
10:55
take the punishment for the guilty.
10:58
It's true. So that there's no condemnation
11:01
for anyone who accepts the sacrifice of the innocent.
11:05
It's all the way through. That's why in Scripture Romans
11:08
81 says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ
11:13
because he was the most perfect, perfectly innocent sacrifice
11:19
punished for you. The innocent has taken your
11:24
punishment. So those who suffer A
11:28
condemnation complex that act like everything they do deserves
11:33
a good stoning, they do. Now not every commandment in the
11:41
Bible actually has severe condemnation or punishment.
11:44
To be honest, last night we I had my beautiful nieces over.
11:47
It was lovely, so great. And we had a bit of a fire and
11:52
the boys are like, we're just going right now.
11:55
But one of my beautiful children, one of my beautiful
11:57
sons was saying that they were in an event where some people
12:01
showed up and these people do weird things, just being kind.
12:10
And one of one of my sons said, Dad, is that a sin?
12:14
Is that like sinful behaviour? And I said to him, you know,
12:18
something, being stupid is not a sin because we all do stupid
12:26
things doesn't make them sinful. So not every commandment has via
12:33
punishment for disobedience. In fact, some of the
12:35
commandments are simply ways to live a more blessed life, a
12:39
little less stupid. Yeah.
12:42
For example, you might hear people talk about, you know, the
12:46
commandment or the prohibition against mixing threads.
12:49
That's in Deuteronomy 2211. And, you know, if you mix
12:51
threads, what does that deserve? It deserves a good stoning.
12:57
No, there was no punishment at all for mixing threads in the
13:00
Bible. None, Zero.
13:02
God's like, actually, if you want to live a really full life,
13:04
don't mix threads. And there are multiple studies
13:06
out there now where wearing just pure linen or pure wool has
13:10
benefits. It's like maybe the creator of
13:12
the universe just knows how for us to live a better life.
13:16
Could just be that there's a very weird commandment in Judaic
13:22
literature. This is the least of the
13:24
commandments. OK, so the least of the
13:26
commandments, It's Deuteronomy 22.
13:28
It's a really super weird commandment, I'll give you that.
13:30
But it's about bird eggs. Yeah.
13:34
So what it says in Jeremy 22, what's.
13:36
Yeah, Six to seven, there's this commandment, and it says if you
13:40
come across a nest and you think, oh, eggs, I'm going to
13:42
eat them, all right. It says that you can take the
13:46
eggs, but don't take the mother bird with them.
13:50
Just take the eggs, like, leave the mother bird alone.
13:52
That's what it says, right? If you do it wrong, if you
13:56
ignore that, what's the punishment?
13:59
Stoning. No, no, there's no punishment
14:04
for doing it. But this is what Jesus, well,
14:06
this is what God, Jesus promises.
14:08
He actually says that obedience to this command will prolong
14:13
your days. It's a commandment of blessing.
14:16
What other verse in the Bible, what other commandments says
14:19
that will prolong your days? Honour your mother and father.
14:24
So the least commandment has a blessing to it and it's compared
14:29
to one of the really high commandments.
14:32
So sometimes commandments are just there.
14:35
God's like, I want you to have a blessed life.
14:38
Just like Pastor Graham was standing by tithing.
14:40
It's like, I just want you to have a blessed life.
14:43
And this is how you do it. These are the, these are the
14:45
laws that I've put into place. When you follow those laws, it's
14:50
going to work out great for you. Choose life.
14:55
Then there's a whole stack of commandments that we really take
14:57
wrong and either has no punishment like I was just
15:00
explaining or very little discipline punishment.
15:04
For example, the dietary laws, eating bacon stoning.
15:08
No, it was have a bath, wash yourself, wait for a few hours.
15:13
But I've heard and seen on threads atheists go, I don't
15:16
know why Christians eat bacon. Like don't they deserve a good
15:19
stoning? Like they actually said that
15:21
Like, whoa, have a bath, Go wait a few hours.
15:28
Purity laws. There's a stack of purity laws.
15:32
I'm going to try and be very G rated for this.
15:36
Childbirth ones. My favorite one, it's called
15:39
Shikavat Zara. How do I say this really kindly?
15:44
It is a male bodily function. Can we just stop there?
15:48
OK, Shake of that literally means to lay down intimately
15:52
Zeramin seed. That's enough.
15:54
All right, But you know what the punishment was for that?
15:58
I want to say stoning again, but it wasn't.
16:01
It was clean up, wait a few hours.
16:05
That was all. We take everything like
16:08
everything deserves the most harshest punishment.
16:12
That is how you know you're living in condemnation, where
16:14
you think everything deserves a good stoning, even the ritual
16:21
laws. I mean, I've got so many here,
16:22
pages of them. Do you know what's not unclean
16:26
in the Bible? Because there's a stack of
16:27
unclean things that you know, it's absolutely, and it says it
16:30
in Scripture. God points it out.
16:31
He says there is something that's absolutely not unclean.
16:35
Baldness. It does in Leviticus 13.
16:42
Gee, God literally says he goes baldness, whether from hair loss
16:45
or receding hairline does not make a person unclean or impure.
16:52
Good to know, I know. Anyway, second point.
16:57
So this is called the bad. I said the bad, not the bald,
16:59
right? The bad.
17:01
Now if you if you really get into Hebrew and Greek and start
17:04
reading scripture that way, you can become wildly depressed.
17:09
Really, because it does appear that just about everything in
17:13
some way makes you impure at some point in your life.
17:19
Just living makes you impure in some way.
17:22
And I was thinking this through over like the last decade or so.
17:26
It's like, wow, if everything makes you impure, then maybe I
17:29
should just not get out of bed. And then I then I found out that
17:32
being in bed and laziness, that's an impurity.
17:36
And I'm like, what about breathing?
17:37
Surely breathing, we can do that.
17:40
No, no, actually Numbers 19 and Leviticus 13 talk about
17:44
breathing. So define we can also come from
17:51
cut contact every the whole lot. All right, so there are some
17:56
Hebrew words. I'm not going to get a lot of
17:58
Hebrew and Greek. It's not even going to be on the
17:59
screen because it's not important for you to learn this
18:02
today. But there are some really big
18:05
words to avar, which basically it means abomination, filthy,
18:09
disgusting. But there are two words that you
18:14
see almost through all of Scripture in Hebrews to me and
18:19
in Greek, it's akathatos, right? They're the ones that they're
18:22
the, they're the ones that you see everywhere.
18:24
All right, Old Testament, New Testament, the whole lot.
18:27
And they both mean unclean and defiled.
18:31
Unfortunately, these words to my akathatos, same word like as in
18:36
like same meaning, just different language.
18:38
Unfortunately, they are used for everything, just about just
18:43
about everything from impure water like muddy water through
18:48
to demons. Same word, true, same word.
18:52
So if they're ancient Greek, this was Akathatos was anything
18:56
that was in pure. So you can imagine being a
18:59
scholar at Jesus time, a Pharisee religious leader, and
19:02
this actually might give you a little bit of compassion for
19:04
them. But when they're reading the
19:07
Torah of the Tanakh, it looks like everything, whether it be
19:13
muddy water or demons was on the same playing field.
19:18
And so that is why, especially in Matthew 7, the Pharisees got
19:21
super angry, offended at the disciples because they didn't
19:25
wash their hands properly before they ate.
19:28
So they're not thinking it's just dirt.
19:31
They're thinking demons because it was on the same playing
19:35
field, same word. And that's actually the problem
19:40
with any language. We we all group different
19:45
meanings to one word. For example, love.
19:48
You know, I love my family, my kids, my nieces, right?
19:52
But I also love apple pie. Yeah, I really do.
19:56
It's great stuff. Now, there's obviously a big
19:59
difference between them, right? I would die for my family and I
20:03
would kill for apple pies. Bless you.
20:14
Now, have you ever heard someone say that all sin is the same?
20:18
OK, it is in many ways because all impurity anything.
20:24
No matter what it is, least of the highest cuts us off from a
20:28
super righteous pure God. But not all sin is the same
20:35
within impurity or consequence. All right?
20:39
It's like muddy water and demons are not the same.
20:42
So why doesn't God use different words for different levels of
20:47
what impurity is? That would be handy.
20:49
Hey. Well, first one is because God
20:52
limits himself to our language restraints.
20:56
It's just like speaking baby language to babies.
20:59
You know, You just saw my beautiful new grandson,
21:01
Jeremiah. Now Hope Belfa's here too.
21:04
I haven't seen him yet. But when when you talk to my
21:07
grandsons, I'm like, hey, darling, say granddad.
21:11
Granddad. I don't say quantum mechanics.
21:20
Yeah, so that's the first reason.
21:23
The second one is because as I mentioned earlier, no matter how
21:28
great a sin or how low or little the sin is, it all completely
21:34
cuts off soft from God, which is why Romans 323 Paul says all
21:39
have sinned, all have become unpure and fall short of the
21:44
glory of God because he is massively pure.
21:50
In Isaiah 64 verse 6, it says, but we are all like an unclean
21:55
thing and all our righteousnesses are like filthy
22:01
rags. In other words, the best that
22:04
you've got is disgusting. Man.
22:09
I'll tell you this verse so people like, well, you know, if
22:12
all my righteousness is so disgusting anyway, what's even
22:14
the point? Can I put this into some sort of
22:17
perspective for you? I really want you to understand
22:19
this. I hope.
22:20
OK, So imagine you've got a cat. I know that's a good thought for
22:25
some of you, bad thought for others.
22:27
But you've got a cat, and there's some rogue rat that has
22:31
been infiltrating your house, destroying things.
22:35
And then one day you're sitting in your lounge, you're watching
22:37
TV, and your cat, who's now caught the rat and destroyed it,
22:47
brings it into the house and spits it out right in front of
22:51
you, like. And you're thinking, Oh my gosh,
22:56
that's disgusting. Good job, cat.
23:00
Actually, this is exactly what I want you to do.
23:04
Oh, gross. Keep doing this.
23:06
But oh yuck, get it out of the house.
23:10
You see the conflict there? Keep doing the righteousness,
23:13
but I'll all that righteousness is as filthy rags.
23:23
Proverbs 2211. This is interesting.
23:25
It talks about a whole generation who thinks that they
23:27
are pure but they're not because they genuinely think that them
23:33
doing nice things, righteous things is enough.
23:39
Last point, the beautiful so as I mentioned, I preached the last
23:43
thing about blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God
23:47
means they see God now and everything and I spoke about
23:51
focus. What is it that you see right?
23:54
Are you do you see God or do you see other things?
23:57
This is the problem with condemnation is that you see
24:02
your failings more than you see God.
24:06
You see unworthiness. You see your your sins.
24:10
David had the same problem. King David, the Bible in Psalms
24:14
51 three says, I know my transgressions and my sin is
24:19
always before me. Now there is somebody here, or
24:23
maybe there's a few people, maybe all of us who have
24:27
thought. All I see is my failures.
24:30
I want someone to hear this because as I was driving, these
24:34
words dropped into my head. This is what happens in your
24:36
head. This is what you think, you go,
24:39
I am a massive disappointment to God.
24:45
Well, you need a massive revelation of how pure and loved
24:49
you are and those impurities do not define who you are.
24:57
In Matthew 548, Jesus says to the crowd, He says, therefore
25:03
you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is
25:07
perfect. It's like what?
25:09
Who wants to give up Now? The word perfect there, the
25:14
Greek was Telios and it gets used a few times in Scripture
25:19
and it really means complete whole Shalom fully matured.
25:29
So you might be thinking that this verse about be perfect as
25:32
your father in in heaven is perfect is about your behaviour.
25:35
You know, be a perfect little Princess, perfect young man.
25:39
But this verse is absolutely about God wanting you to be
25:44
whole, be whole as your Father in heaven is whole.
25:48
Be completely healed like your Father in heaven is healing.
25:53
In fact, in Scripture, the Bible demonstrates that the perfect
25:59
righteous purity of God must be given by God.
26:03
So which means that that be righteous as your Father in
26:07
heaven is righteous. He has to give it to us.
26:12
He has to give us His wholeness. He has to give us our purity.
26:16
We actually can't do it ourselves because as I said
26:21
before, just breathing, you failed in some ways.
26:26
It has to be imputed to us. Imputed means put in where God
26:31
takes his own righteousness, his own purity, and He just shoves
26:35
it into your life because it's the only way that we're going to
26:39
make it. That's in Romans 519, First
26:42
Corinthians 132nd Corinthians 521, You know, last week, last
26:48
week, Pastor TJ who was here, who was here for that great
26:51
preacher, I love that man. He mentioned Isaiah 118, which
26:55
says this come now and let us reason together, says the Lord.
27:01
Though your sins are like scarlet.
27:04
Let me let me give you some explanation here.
27:07
Though your sins are like scarlet means this is
27:10
disgusting. This just in you're disgusting.
27:14
That's as good as I can rap. I don't know where that came
27:18
from to the next, even though your sin is disgusting, people
27:27
like although your sins are like scarlet, it's a lovely colour.
27:30
That's not what this means. It means disgusting though your
27:36
sins are disgusting. The next part, they shall be
27:41
white as snow, though they are red like Crimson, they shall be
27:46
as wool. That is a gift from God.
27:53
I like this part though. It says, come now, let us reason
27:55
together. It's like, Are you sure God,
27:57
think about it, sit and reason. How is it reasonable that God
28:02
gives us his purity? That's not reasonable, really,
28:05
when you think about it. But God's reason is, yeah, I'm
28:08
going to have to, so I will. In Ezekiel 47, there's this
28:16
beautiful vision of God's cleansing and healing power
28:21
bringing life to the dead. It's where this river just flows
28:25
out into the Dead Sea and it just heals it.
28:29
And it says in verse 12, Ezekiel 47, verse 12, full 9 to 12, it
28:36
says that every living thing that moves wherever this river
28:40
of life goes will live. And there's going to be healing
28:43
trees because everything will live wherever this river goes
28:49
go. This is a whole prophecy that
28:51
God gives purity, righteousness, and it brings life and it brings
28:57
life to the dead because the Dead Sea can't heal itself.
29:03
The Dead Sea can't bring life and God's like, hey, let's, I'm
29:07
going to be reasonable, so I'll do it.
29:13
In the Ziya 6 verse 5, there's an event happens where Isaiah is
29:18
having this vision and he sees the Lord on the throne.
29:21
He starts to freak out. He's like I'm going to die.
29:25
I've seen God, no one lives, right?
29:28
And he starts saying this in verse 5.
29:31
He says woe is me, I'm undone because I'm a man of unclean
29:35
lips. He's just like I am unpure,
29:40
impure, not righteousness. And the next line he says, and I
29:44
dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips.
29:47
I like that. So he throws them under the bus
29:49
too. Hey, he's like, and so are they,
29:55
for I've seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
29:57
But this big old Angel, he grabs a coal from the altar and he
30:01
puts it on his eyes, lips, purifies him, Righteousness of
30:07
God, because God thinks it's reasonable that he should give
30:12
us his purity. So now we see this, We see that
30:20
wholeness, perfect completion, purity and authority might speak
30:26
about that next time. And authority is and must be a
30:31
gift from God for those who wanted.
30:35
You see, this is the power of God.
30:37
This is how only God can make all things work together for
30:43
good. Romans 828 we sang about it
30:45
earlier. Because God gives His wholeness,
30:49
because He gives completion, because He gives purity, that's
30:53
how He makes it all work out. It's interesting when we read
30:59
that verse. Romans 828 says all things work
31:02
for good for those who love the Lord according to His purposes.
31:05
It's like our brains automatically go accept our
31:09
mistakes just to be honest. See, that's how we interject,
31:18
accept my mistakes. Well, The thing is, when it says
31:21
all, it means all. You can't get around that all,
31:32
all things, which means your mistakes and your impurities are
31:36
not your final identity. You know, when I was young, like
31:44
super young, I was living in Townsville with my parents, and
31:49
we had this huge mango tree at the back of the house.
31:52
Huge tree. You remember that?
31:54
Past the mill? Yeah, big.
31:57
And you just have these big, big mangoes like, oh, huge.
32:03
Unfortunately, at night the flying foxes would often come
32:08
and they would put dots, dense bruises.
32:12
They would destroy the mangoes. A lot of them that really did
32:16
damage a lot of mangoes. And sometimes listen to this,
32:22
and sometimes the damaged mangoes would succumb to the
32:27
attack. They would then separate
32:31
themselves from the tree. They would fall to the ground
32:36
and just rot, just die, totally ruined.
32:40
It actually was really slimy and gross.
32:43
Rachel's like, do you like mangoes?
32:45
I'm like, I love mangoes, and I hate mangoes because I really
32:50
like mangoes. But the imagery of me slipping
32:52
around in the backyard, Oh, it's traumatic.
32:58
But here's the good news. The mangoes that stayed
33:03
connected to the tree despite their damage eventually healed
33:11
and they were good to eat. Good for mango smoothies and the
33:17
potential of the seed inside them.
33:22
Astronomical Church, my beautiful family, stay connected
33:30
to the tree. Jesus says in John 15, I'm the
33:35
vine, stay connected to me. He's the one who gives you the
33:38
purity. He's the one who gives you the
33:40
righteousness. In fact, just to wrap up, thank
33:45
you for coming out. Two people in the Bible, Judas
33:51
and Peter, both disciples of Jesus, both messed up, both had
33:59
impurities. Judas betrays Jesus, Peter
34:03
denies Jesus three times. But it was only Peter who
34:09
survived. You see, Judas fell, Peter
34:13
stayed connected. You can see that in John 21.
34:17
He saw Jesus on the beach and ran to him, stayed connected and
34:23
then he led the purity of Jesus into his life.
34:27
Whereas if you read Acts one, it actually says that Judas fell
34:30
and to be polite says he was slimed just like a manga.
34:38
John 15 verse three. You are already clean because of
34:43
the word which I've spoken to you.
34:45
Abide in me and I in you heavy moment.
34:55
Hey, but condemnation, shame, unworthiness, it has to go.
35:02
There are people in our community, they won't even walk
35:04
into this church because they have a sense of shame and
35:08
condemnation before they get 100 feet from this place.
35:13
And Jesus, all he wants, all God has made a way for is that they
35:18
would come in, hear the word of God and be purified.
35:26
Yes, we make a big deal about handing out those pamphlets, but
35:29
like, you've got our beautiful Josh and his family hearing the
35:32
word of God purifying from that darkness.
35:38
That's the life of Christ.