Transformation • Obedience & Righteousness

We're in 1 John, and we're talking about the anatomy of a healthy church.

So we're gonna recap a little bit of last week so we can get up to speed for this morning.

Now, last week we talked about this first metric of what makes a healthy church, and we called it Jesus First and Foremost.

And what we really said is that our hope is for a 10-year vision of Missio Day Church is that we would reach 1% of the Mason Westchester area.

This is what we said our 10-year vision is.

Now we kind of unpacked, well, what does that mean?

That seems really small, right?

If you're ever at a company and they say, we're gonna grow our sales by 1%, you're gonna like, oh, that shouldn't seem too hard.

But what we actually have is that uh 1% of this area is about a thousand people.

So our hope is to reach about a thousand people over the next 10 years.

And what we talked about was there's 43% of our population, according to metrics, that is unchurched.

So our goal is to go after that.

We want to go after 1% of them so that we can see new disciples being made, people being brought into the kingdom of God through evangelism, discipleship, outreach.

And we want to reach just a portion of that number.

But to reach it, it's gonna cause us to get our hands dirty in ministry.

We're gonna have to uh raise up and multiply and launch new missional communities.

We're gonna have to sharpen our ability to disciple and train.

We're gonna have to uh really uh work on how we even tell the gospel to someone.

For some of us in this room, that's a very foreign thing.

And so we want to help as the church, which one of our responsibilities as elders is to equip you for the work of ministry.

We want to get some classes and things going to make sure that you're equipped to do the work at hand.

But it also means that eventually and hopefully we will be planting more churches out of this congregation.

And so the more that healthy, gospel-centered churches saturate a city, it is proven that more people attend church.

Isn't that a coincidence?

Everybody says, well, you know, why do we need more church plants?

Uh, you know, we already have all these other church plants.

We already have this mammoth behemoth of a church called Crossroads in our backyard.

Well, let me give you a newsflash.

Crossroads only reaches 1% of Cincinnati.

That's 99% rest of our city they don't reach.

Think of it that way.

Think about all the other churches that are in our city, they're just not healthy.

They're not preaching the gospel, they're not uh instructing their people in God's word.

There's things that make up just because we have a church doesn't mean that it's a healthy church, a faithful church.

And our hope and our goal is to be as faithful to the scriptures and as faithful to what God's called us to do as possible.

We're not gonna do be perfect at it.

We're not gonna do it absolutely right, but we're gonna wrestle and strive for that and go together in community with one another.

And so we don't want to just simply grow through attracting other Christians, like we said last week.

We want to grow through making new disciples.

And so we don't want to do all this.

We said this last week.

We don't want to do all of this work and labor unless we're healthy.

And so we have to understand how do we know if we're healthy or not?

And I talked a little bit about last week, right?

About the New Year's resolution, and everybody has these different New Year's resolutions, but and and we saw how some people go to the gym but they don't know what they're doing, and so they just really kind of sweat a lot or look goofy.

They spend a lot of money on like the right clothes, and they got the fresh new AirPods in, and they're ready to get in there, and they just have no idea what they're supposed to be doing.

But think of it another way, maybe I can help you with this, kind of along the same lines is this every single one of you who made a New Year's resolution to lose weight and get healthy had the same goal.

What percentage of you will actually accomplish it?

Why?

Why is that the case?

Every NFL team that started this season had one goal.

What do you think that goal was?

Win the Super Bowl.

How many teams are gonna accomplish it?

Why?

The same thing with Olympic champions.

Everybody trains and has this goal for the Olympic gold as they are putting themselves through all this labor and training and stress.

They all have one goal, but only one accomplishes it.

You see, the reality is that we cannot stand on goals alone.

We can have all the same goals, but the truth is not all of us will accomplish them.

Because it's not just about the goal.

You see, the funny thing is, I would argue that predominantly healthy churches and unhealthy churches often have the exact same goals.

They want to accomplish the same thing.

Some of them do it well and they actually succeed, some of them do it unhealthy, and it affects their ministry and what they're discipling and leading people into.

You see, we can't just stand on goals alone at the end of the day.

Because goals alone will get us nowhere.

We must have systems that build into the identity that we actually desire to cultivate.

You see, systems will make or break us.

And having our eyes set on the identity of who we want to become will make or break us.

You see, that's the difference between people who go into this year to lose weight and get healthy.

They see themselves, they identify themselves as healthy people, and then they ask the question well, what would healthy people do?

What decisions would healthy people make?

How would they live their lives?

How would they structure themselves?

How would they discipline themselves to ensure that they maintain and accomplish what they are hoping to be?

We can have goals, but goals alone will get us nowhere.

So too often we focus on the goal and we end up only really understanding the what, the what we do.

When we focus on the goal, we only end up understanding the what.

So what do you do?

Well, we uh read our Bible and we pray and we do all these things.

These are the what's of Christianity.

These are the what's of the church.

We have plurality of elders, and we have expositional preaching, and we have deacons, and we have uh all these other things that we do, right?

These are the what's of what we do because you have to have these things in place, we think, to accomplish health.

Now there's certain things within the scriptures that are obviously um uh prescriptive commands for the church to have.

And we recognize that, we hold that authoritatively, and we have those things in place.

But if we don't know why we have those things in place, if we don't know why that they exist, if we don't understand theologically and Christocentrically why we do these things, the what's will only get us so far.

You can have the what of reading your Bible, but if you don't understand the why, your motivation to read it will just wane.

How many of you are already like days behind on your reading plan for 2020?

Yeah, right?

I stink, right?

For lack of better flattering words.

I just, I'm already like three, four days behind.

I can't even, I'm gonna have to play catch-up this week.

You know why?

Because I don't understand the why still, convictionally, of why I need this word in me.

It's a what.

And so we need to focus on the identity so we can understand the why.

Because the why will get us much farther than the what.

We want to answer the why theologically and Christ-centered so that we can set our gaze toward the identity that we're becoming.

And we as the church too often only focus on the what.

And like our weight loss goals, we never actually become the person that we want to be.

And so we're laying out four metrics of what church health looks like.

And most of these metrics are founded and and and derived from this work by a man named Jonathan Edwards.

And it's it's a work that he wrote called The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God.

So Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan pastor, and he was one of the key players in America's first great awakening.

And what was happening throughout America is revival was going out.

And Jonathan Edwards was one of the preachers that was preaching and seeing souls be saved.

People were putting their faith in Christ.

He would hold meetings where people would wail and lament over their sin, and all these different kinds of signs would follow the ministry of Jonathan Edwards, the preaching ministry of Jonathan Edwards.

And so Jonathan Edwards started to be both attacked for what he was doing and mimicked to try and recreate it.

So he was being attacked and saying, Well, this isn't really a work of God.

These people who reportedly you could hear a quarter mile away weeping over their sin.

That can't be a move of God.

And then he had other people trying to fabricate and mimic the very ministry of which he was doing so they could reproduce it for their own glory and their own fame.

And so Jonathan Edwards being attacked from both sides, those who are saying this isn't really God, and those saying, Well, I'm gonna take this and use it for my own glory.

He belabored to write this work, the distinguishing marks of a work of the Spirit of God, so that we could assess and know, he could assess and know.

What, how do we know if this is really God moving or if it's not?

And so we have derived these four metrics of health from that work.

And like we said, last week was Jesus first and foremost, making Jesus the focus in every aspect of our lives.

I'm not gonna be labor long on what that was.

You can go back and listen to the sermon from last week, but that was Mark one.

Jesus first and foremost.

And for us, Mark II is transformation, obedience, and righteousness.

Working with the Holy Spirit to restore God's image in us.

Transformation, obedience, and righteousness.

Now, you see, this part of how we understand and measure health is leading us to understand not just a goal, but the identity of which we're becoming.

You see, the Bible actually lays out for us system and identity.

We're gonna discover what that means.

It doesn't just give us a goal of glory, but it gives us a system and identity.

It explains the why here for us.

And so while our passage is out of 1 John, we're gonna kind of set up this passage first with Romans 8, 29.

It says this for those whom he foreknow, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Now, this passage is packed with a lot of language, right?

And we could go a hundred different ways on this thing.

My goal is not to convince you of predestination or to the what is the minute differences and understandings of the word foreknew, right?

Missio lands there, we're very confident of our position.

Come to the intro to missio class to find out more.

However, if we are foreknown by God, and if we are predestined by him, there's a purpose to it.

And Romans 8, through Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives us the why.

Why is to be transformed.

Is to be transformed to the image of his son.

You see, in the Christian life, the goal is transformation and the identity is Jesus.

We were saved for a purpose.

To have the image, that our sin marred and perverted, restored, so that we reflect Jesus to the world around us.

You see, God in the beginning made us in his image so that his image might be reflected as it filled the earth.

That was the Genesis 2, right?

Let us make man in our image.

And then the first command to the created beings of Adam and Eve was be fruitful and multiply.

What was the purpose and endeavor of God's created beings?

These ones who are the uniquely and distinctly share his image.

It was to fill the earth with that image.

But we believe too often that we're called to fill the world with our own image.

In fact, we believe that the world needs to see more of us because we are so wonderful.

But no, that's actually not the truth at all.

And what the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit in saving you and making you new, is so that the image that your sin marred and perverted in the garden, the image of God that was placed in the fabric and DNA of your very being, is restored.

So then we find ourselves here in 1 John chapter 2, 1 through 6.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

And when we look at the first two verses, I love this passage of scripture because it's tough.

And like, right, thank God we have this like sweet little Georgia Bell tell it to us in such a nice, sweet way, because this is a rough passage.

You're a liar.

The truth is not in you.

But she said it so nice.

She's just one of those people, bless your heart, right?

But verses one to two one through two actually gives us assurance.

I hope that this faith, though, this passage, though it's difficult to hear, builds up your faith or causes you to fear and tremble before the Lord.

So verse one through two says, My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

The summary of one, two is that we have we are assured in the pursuit of transformation.

That's the summary of verses one through two.

We are assured in the pursuit of transformation.

So why is John writing this letter?

He's writing these things to these people so that they may not sin.

We have to understand that the end goal of Christian life is glory, absence of sin.

But the reality for us in this Christian life is that we are to work and pursue the demonstration of a transcendent truth in our lives here and now.

And so we have the instruction of the word, we have the commands of God, so that we may not sin.

But if anyone does, this is our assurance.

As we pursue transformation, you and I will fail.

We'll mess up.

I was talking to someone this week about the Christian life, and I told them that the mark of the Christian life is not about whether you will fall or not.

The mark of the Christian life is will you get back up and keep walking?

Because you're assured that there's an advocate that is seated with the Father who is pleading on your behalf to champion you on as you run your race.

We have an assurance in the pursuit of our transformation.

You see, we have the instruction of God's word through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so that we may no longer continue in sin.

This may seem very foreign to many of us in the church.

If I asked you simply, what is the highest goal of Christian living?

What would you say?

To be selfless, to give to the poor, to evangelize.

What if the highest mark was to not sin?

Does that seem foreign to anyone?

As you think about the marks of a true Christian and the marks of true faith, you see, the reality that we will sin is inescapable in this life.

It is a truth, but it's not a reason to not pursue transformation.

Just because you will doesn't mean you just stop in this apathetic state of, look, it's gonna happen anyway, I might as well just embrace it.

No, that's not the work of the Holy Spirit, that's not the charge of Christ.

This is not how we know if we know Him.

And so when we do sin, we rest fully and completely in the work of Jesus.

He is the assurance in our pursuit of transformation.

Jesus Christ the righteous.

Then, verse three, what we see is that we have an evidence of a life transformed.

So one and two gives us assurance in our pursuit of transformation.

Verse three gives us evidence that a life has actually been transformed, that they've experienced a sort of beginning or spark of transformation.

The thrust, the thrust of the book of 1 John is really a litmus test for the Christian faith.

That's the thrust of the whole letter.

How do I know if I am saved?

What is a litmus test?

Well, it's a definitive way of proving something.

That's a litmus test, a definitive way of proving something.

So obviously, this was an issue within the church.

How do we know if they're really Christians or not?

And so the Apostle John labors in this letter to say, well, here, here's how you know.

We need certain evidences to prove the authenticity of the faith that we profess.

And to be a Christian is fundamentally known by obedience and righteousness.

That is fundamentally how you will know that you are in Him.

Is obedience and righteousness.

Because look, serving the poor, loving your neighbor, evangelizing the lost, digging wells in third world countries, I don't care what it is, right?

That will flow like a river from a life that is filled with obedience and righteousness.

We're trying to pursue the weight loss without changing the way we eat.

Verses four through six says, then whoever says, I know him, but did not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

So going back to verse three, how do we know that we've come to know him?

If we keep his commandments, it's that easy.

The Christian life is simultaneously that easy and astronomically difficult.

How do we know if we know him?

How do we know if we love him?

Do you keep his commandments?

And so, verses four through six, as we close out this section of scripture, we summarize it this way that the knowledge of assurance is through obedience.

The knowledge of assurance is through obedience.

Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

But whoever keeps his word in him truly the love of God is perfected.

We have to understand, first and foremost, church, as we're looking at this litmus test of the Christian faith, as we're looking for evidences of genuine profession of Christian living, we have to understand that first John and the vast majority, if not all, of the New Testament was written to a community, not to an individual.

It wasn't written to a person, it was written to a church.

And so John ultimately is not instructing the individual on how they will have insurance.

John is instructing the church on how they will know one another is truly.

You see, when we read the Bible in a community perspective and not in an individualistic perspective, what we'll discover, especially in this passage of scripture, is that John the Apostle was laboring to equip them, the church, communally to judge the faith of an individual.

You see, we have an obligation, we have a responsibility to judge.

It's the truth.

The Bible's not against judging.

The Bible's against us judging when we're unwilling to rightfully and humbly judge ourselves.

That's what the Bible's against.

The Bible's not against us judging.

In fact, it commands us over and over again to judge, to see if there is evidence of the faith of which this person professes in their life.

And if there is not, to not falsely affirm them, but to help them and shepherd them toward gospel faith.

And if they're persistent in resisting, if they dig their heels in the earth and say, I won't do it, then we have the power, authority, and obligation to no longer affirm the faith that they profess.

It's Matthew 18.

You see, we have to be equipped, and this is the reality of what we're doing.

We're judging not internally through this intrinsic authority or power or standard of righteousness.

We're judging from an external authority that's beyond ourselves, of which we also have to submit to.

And so we hold the word of God up for ourselves as a mirror and for the community altogether so that we can be equipped to judge.

Because here is a non-loving thing about the Christian church to affirm someone as a Christian when they're not.

If you think that the primary response to Christian living is loving your neighbor as yourself, the most damning and condemning thing you can do is say, You're okay.

Do you love them?

Then don't give them false assurance.

How do we not give them false assurance?

Well, we line up their life to what the Word of God says after we have lined up our own lives with what the Word of God says.

Right?

When we look at Jesus' ministry, he always went after these religious leaders, right?

When we look at the gospels, these were the guys that he continually went after.

And you can look at stories like I was looking at one this week where uh there's a woman thrown before Jesus who was caught in the midst of adultery, right?

And Jesus stoops down and he writes something in the dirt.

Who knows what he's doing?

Uh anyway, he says, You men, because her punishment was death.

They should have stoned her to death.

And Jesus looks up and he says, Whoever is without sin, cast the first stone.

And man, they dropped the rocks, they walked away, and he looked at that woman, he said, Go, where are your accusers?

Neither do I.

Go and sin no more.

Now, we can take that scripture and we can make that the anthem or the apex of how we create this doctrine of don't judge in our lives.

We we we can do that, or we can look at the context of what's going on.

The religious leaders who are surrounding this woman is the same people who Jesus is constantly going after.

You don't judge yourself.

You wicked generation, you empty whitewashed tombs, you serpents, you don't judge yourself and you judge these people and you oppress them under a law that's not God's.

You see, that's what's unfair when we oppress people and we judge them when we're one unwilling to do that to ourselves, and two, creating extra biblical standards to place upon them.

We oppress them, we marginalize them, and we crush them under the weight of a load that they could never carry, that you could never carry.

You hypocrite.

But thanks be to God that we can be equipped as a community to judge the faith of an individual.

But this isn't condemning, this isn't a way in which we are attacking.

Our goal should always be to come alongside our brothers and sisters to help bring them forward in the faith so that the evidence of their profession might be seen in the reality of the way that they live their lives.

It's only in the one who bucks back so hard that they're unwilling to take those baby steps with you, even if they're just tiny little steps.

Look, so many of us in this church get so frustrated and angry when there are people that we're trying to disciple, people in our lives, people in our family that aren't at the same place we are when we weren't there a year ago.

Be patient and long-suffering in what?

In seeing transformation in one another.

There's many times we call people wolves and goat when they were just baby sheep learning to walk.

And so if we reject obedience and we reject righteousness, we ultimately, church, reject Jesus.

Because our knowing of him is chained to our transformation to be like him.

You can't break those things apart.

To know him and to be transformed to be like him are inseparable realities for you and I.

Now, maybe you might say, well, John, he's just kind of, you know, making this thing up.

He's really he's kind of harsh in the way that he speaks and he's difficult.

Well, maybe, but maybe he's just repeating what he heard Jesus teach him himself.

John the beloved, the apostle of whom Jesus loved the most.

We all know that.

John says that himself, right?

Well, after Jesus' resurrection, John gets this special opportunity time to sit with Jesus.

And he's teaching.

And he's promising the Holy Spirit's gonna come.

And he says this simple phrase in John 14, 15.

Christ says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Let that rest.

If you love me, you will serve the poor, no?

If you love me, you evangelize it, no?

If you love me, you will A, B, C, D, go down the line of whatever thing you think should be placed in that spot.

No.

Christ said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

So for our main idea this morning is this that to truly know Jesus is to become like him.

That's the goal.

The system is sanctification, the identity is Christ.

And so, all of this Christian life, as we're looking at what do we see as we come to the fullness of fruition, the fullness of completion of who we are, what will we be?

We will be sinless.

We will be in glory.

And even later on in John 3, it says that when we see him, we will be like him.

There will be no difference in separation in character and personhood between his church and the groom, Christ the Lord.

They will be indistinguishable.

That is glory.

So to truly know Jesus is to become like him, but we don't believe this.

We don't act and live lives like we believe this.

And I think there's two primary things that we do within the church.

And some of us see obedience as a means to earn righteousness.

Some of us see obedience as a means to earn righteousness.

What this is is legalism.

We believe that if we keep these commands, that we will earn God's love and favor for us.

We believe that if we do these things, we will earn it.

We believe if we were baptized as an infant.

We believe if we went to church camp and said a little prayer when everybody's eyes were closed and head bound, whatever kind of manipulation, tactics, garbage that they do today.

Look, that doesn't earn you righteousness.

Keeping your nose clean and your head up does not earn you righteousness.

That's legalism.

And we've seen legalism in different ways within the church.

And most of us were raised under a negative legalism, right?

You gotta burn all your secular albums, you gotta tear up all your posters, you gotta wear long skirts and do this, right?

That's what we saw as legalism.

If you do these things, Christ will love you.

You'll earn righteousness.

And then the church has greatly responded to negative legalism with just positive legalism.

And so no longer it's burn all your secular CDs, no longer do all this.

No, no, no, no.

Drink a beer, and then here's three ways you should love your wife, and then God will love you.

You see, both negative and positive legalism are just the two different sides of the same coin.

Without the gospel, without Christ's accomplishment, he has given us his righteousness.

There is nothing we can do to earn God's favor, his blessing, his love on us.

Nothing.

Jared C.

Wilson, he is the director of content strategy for Midwestern Seminary, managing editor of For the Church.

He wrote a book called The Gospel-Driven Church, and he says this in his book legalism is what happens when you disconnect the Christians due from Christ done in the gospel.

When you disconnect the Christians due from Christ done in the gospel, that is where we find legalism.

We have to escape legalism.

We don't do anything, whether it's negatively or positively, to ever earn Christ.

We do because Christ has done for us.

Because we're transformed to reflect the image of the one of which we're created in.

That's why we do.

And so for those of you who are suffering, who are wondering where God is, who are wondering when he's gonna bless you, who are wondering how you could have him move in this area of your life, there is not more Bible reading to be done, more prayers to be had, more anything to try and cause him to want to move on your behalf.

He has done it all in the culmination of Golgotha at Calvary.

Christ is seen as God's perfect and unrelentless, unrestrained blessing, favor, and love on your behalf.

Some of us, though, see no need for obedience because we've already obtained righteousness.

Some of us see no need for obedience because we've already obtained righteousness.

We would call this hyper grace.

Leaning toward what we would call an antinomian perspective.

Well, what's that, right?

I only have a high school education, so when I can throw out five dollar words, I do it, right?

So you all think I went to seminary.

Antinomianism is the teaching that Christians are under no obligation to obey the laws of ethics and morality because they have already been forgiven.

So we're no longer under this obligation.

We no longer have to do these things.

Well, that's hyper grace.

This is something that is plaguing the church.

There's no need for obedience anymore.

We've already obtained righteousness.

Well, read Romans 3, please.

Where Paul labors over just because you have received grace and righteousness through Jesus Christ means all the more that you should obey his commandments, not that you should flee from them.

Obedience to Jesus' commands is absolutely necessary, not to earn, but to display that we truly have obtained the righteousness of Christ in our lives.

And both of these perspectives, whether it be legalism or hyper grace, cheapen the cost of the grace that Jesus extends to us.

It makes the purchase of our ransom, it makes the purchase of our very souls so cheap.

They cheapen the terms of which we're able to hold a relationship with God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, World War II era theologian, called this costly grace.

He said that the gospel is costly grace.

It costs all of heaven to be able to reconcile us to the Father.

How dare we cheapen it by adding to it extra merits so we might earn something so freely given to us.

And how dare we cheapen it by rejecting and denying the holiness that God demanded to reconcile us back to Him.

You see, the reality, church, is this God does not love you unconditionally.

Every relationship has terms established to uphold it.

God loves you radically conditionally.

And Christ Jesus alone fulfilled the terms of the relationship.

If God loved you unconditionally, then Christ would not have to come.

If he could have a relationship with you unconditionally, then Christ would not have had to die on the cross.

God's relentless, self-choosing love for you demanded that Christ fulfill the terms of the relationship.

And Jesus, this is the beauty of the gospel, Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Father so that we might inherit his righteousness.

Jesus fulfilled the terms of the relationship for us.

God so desperately wanted us in his life that he became flesh and he fulfilled what we never could in being perfectly obedient to the Father so that we might be with him.

Christ God condescended, he took on flesh, and in perfect obedience fulfilled what we never could.

The Bible says that he was perfectly obedient even to the point of death.

Death on a cross.

Why?

So that we might inherit his righteousness, so that we can have his righteousness in our lives.

We're not working and laboring and toiling to produce righteousness that is absent within us as we obey.

No, we are working and striving to demonstrate the truth of the righteousness that is within us because Christ has placed it in our very being as he made us alive and brought us out of the grave with him, seated us on the right hand of the Father with Him, so that we might display the truth of His righteousness in us.

That's why we obey.

That's why we seek transformation.

I can tell you first and foremost, the world doesn't need to be filled with the glory of Justin.

Amen.

The earth needs to be filled with the glory of the Father, the glory of the Son, the glory of the Spirit, three in one of whom we were made in the image of.

And the beauty of the gospel is we get to just joyously celebrate our participation in that work.

What freedom is there, church?

What freedom is it that you don't have to earn this?

You don't have to place yourself under such a wicked taskmaster.

But see, we focus on the what?

And you're not gonna read your Bible enough, you're not gonna pray enough, you're not gonna serve the poor enough, you're not gonna deny yourself enough, you're not gonna do any of these things ever enough.

And if the if the responsibility was on you, the scales of justice would never budge.

You would always be found guilty, you would always be found fallen short, you would always be found wanting, but Christ tips the scale.

And so, how should we live in response to this?

How should this new Christian life be lived?

It's this way we would be transformed through obedience, demonstrating righteousness in our lives.

That's how we should live in light of this truth.

This is how the gospel should cause us to live our everyday.

It transformed, right?

Seeking the renewing of the image of God in us through the power of the Spirit, transformation, how?

Through obedience, that we would strive to be like Him.

Not working in isolation on our own, but working in together with the Holy Spirit in gospel community so that we might be transformed, demonstrating righteousness in our lives.

Righteousness should be a marking characteristic of not just the people of God, but the full and entire church of God.

We should be striving to demonstrate the righteousness that is in us.

Think about how the world would change if they saw righteousness being demonstrated, if they saw obedience being pursued.

That our neighbors, our coworkers would say, I don't even know you anymore.

Praise God, because I'm not that guy.

He's dead, I'm now alive in Christ.

I buried him.

And every day he tries to poke his head out of the earth, I push it back down and I say, Christ, I will obey.

Christ, I will pursue transformation.

He's not gonna win over me anymore.

The dead man which was crucified with Christ no longer has power and control over me.

I can walk victoriously, not overcoming the enemy, but trampling over his dead body that Christ put on the ground for me.

So many of us have been entangled in the same sin for 10 plus years.

Believe the gospel.

Believe that Christ is your righteousness.

Believe that it's a joy to obey him.

Believe that we are called to demonstrate the truth of who we are to the world around us.

It's the glory of Jesus.