The Good, The Bad, The Beautiful | Ps Jon Eaton

Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to

take hold of so we hope this message inspires you and build

your faith that it helps you have more of a God perspective

for your day. Enjoy SO.

Last month for those who were here, I preached and I preached

about how in the Beatitudes that says blessed are the pure and

half that they shall see God. And the word pure, there's

Cathros. It means completely, 100% pure.

And at that point most people think, well, that counts me out.

But then I explained through John 15 that it's actually

Jesus. He gives us that kind of purity.

It's the only way it really is. And because God Jesus gives us

purity, it means that we get to see God every day in all things.

So I want to continue from that message.

I did say that I'd try and continue it, and today is that

day. All right.

Now, for those who are in the know, my lovely wife Rachel, she

is currently away in the US of A Yeah.

If you've been trying to contact her, good luck.

I know when she actually has her phone she doesn't answer very

often and she personally sees this now as an opportunity to

not answer it at all. True story.

She even said to me I'm going to leave my phone behind.

Oh I love that girl. Anyway so she's been away which

is good. Gave me time to write this

message. I've actually really been

struggling with this message. I had a chat to the leadership,

to team and also to the pre service.

This message has actually been quite hard for me to write, but

at least four Times Now, God has given me some beautiful

confirmation that this is the message for today.

Now, I didn't even ask for confirmation, but I think he

just knew. Yeah, John, John needs some help

with this one because he is kind.

So I want to give you the context of today's message, and

it's specifically if you are dealing with condemnation,

guilt, shame, unworthiness, and I want to bring it back to your

identity in Christ. OK.

And I want to give you a bit of an example.

Oh, actually, if you, because I've got pages of notes, pages

and pages and pages of notes. If you want to know more, just

ask me. I'll send it to you.

But you can also ask our awesome Pastor Henry, who has this

sheet, this document, and has all the scriptures on it of who

you are in Christ rather than pages and pages.

It's all nicely condensed. So ask Pastor Henry for that.

All right, so let me give you an example of how I see

condemnation, guilt, shame, impurities in the Kingdom of

heaven because my wife is away now, bless her beautiful heart.

She was super generous and she pre made a bunch of meals for

us. So all I have to do is reheat

them. Pretty great, but we still do

have to do a little bit of a top up.

And I've noticed that the way that I shop compared to the way

that Rachel shops is very different.

So when I want apples, I think, oh, I need apples.

I go to the shop. I go to where they have the

apple stand. I pick up an apple, put it in

the bag, pay for it at the checkout, go home, eat the

apple. Super easy.

Not so when I go shopping with Rachel, she'll say to me, oh, we

need apples, go get an apple. So I'll do this.

Genuinely true. Pick up an apple.

I show her and she goes, not that one, put it back.

OK, so I pick up another one, hand it to her, she goes, not

that one, put it back. So yeah, poor John.

So now I am convinced in the Garden of Eden, if Adam had

picked a fruit, he would have given it to Eve and she would

have said not that one, put it back and we would still be

living in paradise. For me, an Apple's an apple even

with its impurities, it's dots, it's dents, it's bruises, it's

just an apple. And I don't mind cutting off the

impurities. I just cut them off, you know,

still get to eat it. And I've also noticed that even

apples with dots, dents, and bruises, you can still use it

for things like apple pie, apple juice, and the seeds inside it

still have potential despite its external impurities, because an

apple does not change its identity because of those.

And you were like that apple. In fact, anyone who accepts the

saving grace of Jesus, redeemed by his blood has become the

righteousness of Christ. It says the righteousness of God

actually in Christ. That's Second Corinthians 521

for the note takers. Think of that God is the most

righteous, the most righteous, the most pure.

And then he says in the second Corinthians, you are the

righteousness of God in Christ and you think really what?

Because it happens to anyone called by his name.

And that's what I brought up a little bit last time I preached

in John 15, three, because Jesus is talking about how he's the

one who prunes like he's the one who cuts the dents off the dots

and the bruises. He's the one that trims it.

And then he says to the to the disciples, you have been made

pure by my word. So it has to be a gift from God.

Purity has to be a gift from God.

Now, sometimes having dots, dents and bruises do need

additional care. That's why we have counselling,

psychological help. But sometimes that's not enough

because we need Jesus who does the sanctification.

So cutting off dense dots, bruises, we call that

sanctification. It's just cutting off the

things, the impurities, removing them.

And sometimes we do need a little bit of help for that.

Friends, family, church, brothers and sisters,

professional help. And our part of this whole

sanctification process is called taking up your cross daily.

It's going, you know, something. Yeah.

I want to continue this journey. And sometimes getting the dots

dense bruises cut off is painful.

But that's why Jesus said it's taking up your cross.

He didn't say it's picking daisies.

But it is God. He's the one who makes you pure.

He's the one who makes you righteous.

He brings wholeness. So I am convinced, genuinely

convinced, because I have things I'm working on.

There are things that I have issues with and struggles, but I

am absolutely convinced that when God picks you, dots, dance,

bruises and awe. Unlike my wife, He won't say,

not that one put him back. In fact, I think he says I'm

going to make juice out of this one.

Or pie. And here's a plan for the seeds

that are in your life. So the title of this message is

the good, the bad, the beautiful.

Yeah. So let's start with the good,

the Bibles. The world needs to get this.

The Bible is not a book of condemnation, actually.

It's actually a book of hope. It might surprise you if you

carry guilt and condemnation in your life, that the Bible is a

book of hope because when you read it, you read it through

those tainted glasses. And I'm even more sure that if

you carry guilt, shame, condemnation, unworthiness in

your life, this is this, that you often push that onto others.

So can I be brutal for a moment? Is that OK?

Yeah. You see, condemnation is when

you know that your sin in your life, the sin in your life,

should be punished. That's what condemnation is.

It's like when you know that the sin in other people's lives

should also be punished, and you live with that.

They deserve a good slap. And whereas conviction, which is

vastly different, is knowing still that sin should be

punished in yourself and that sin should be punished in

others. But it's always in the framework

of hope and life. Always.

It's not just in the framework of punishment.

Full stop. Now actually there's an Egyptian

God, lowercase G called Mahat actually.

And the Israelites would have been aware when they were living

under Pharaoh in, in Egypt in the Bible, that would have been

aware of this lowercase G Mahat God.

And this was basically the God of justice.

That was their their thought. So let me tell you, if you see

condemnation for your own sins and you're condemning others and

there's no hope, no life, just punishment, then that's the God

you serve, not the God of the Bible, because the Bible is a

book of life and of hope. So people say, oh, John, but the

Bible says eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

Yes, the Bible definitely agrees with the punishment.

God does not back away from that.

But then chapter after chapter, book after book, Old Testament,

New Testament, the whole thing is about how the innocent can

take the punishment for the guilty.

It's true. So that there's no condemnation

for anyone who accepts the sacrifice of the innocent.

It's all the way through. That's why in Scripture Romans

81 says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ

because he was the most perfect, perfectly innocent sacrifice

punished for you. The innocent has taken your

punishment. So those who suffer A

condemnation complex that act like everything they do deserves

a good stoning, they do. Now not every commandment in the

Bible actually has severe condemnation or punishment.

To be honest, last night we I had my beautiful nieces over.

It was lovely, so great. And we had a bit of a fire and

the boys are like, we're just going right now.

But one of my beautiful children, one of my beautiful

sons was saying that they were in an event where some people

showed up and these people do weird things, just being kind.

And one of one of my sons said, Dad, is that a sin?

Is that like sinful behaviour? And I said to him, you know,

something, being stupid is not a sin because we all do stupid

things doesn't make them sinful. So not every commandment has via

punishment for disobedience. In fact, some of the

commandments are simply ways to live a more blessed life, a

little less stupid. Yeah.

For example, you might hear people talk about, you know, the

commandment or the prohibition against mixing threads.

That's in Deuteronomy 2211. And, you know, if you mix

threads, what does that deserve? It deserves a good stoning.

No, there was no punishment at all for mixing threads in the

Bible. None, Zero.

God's like, actually, if you want to live a really full life,

don't mix threads. And there are multiple studies

out there now where wearing just pure linen or pure wool has

benefits. It's like maybe the creator of

the universe just knows how for us to live a better life.

Could just be that there's a very weird commandment in Judaic

literature. This is the least of the

commandments. OK, so the least of the

commandments, It's Deuteronomy 22.

It's a really super weird commandment, I'll give you that.

But it's about bird eggs. Yeah.

So what it says in Jeremy 22, what's.

Yeah, Six to seven, there's this commandment, and it says if you

come across a nest and you think, oh, eggs, I'm going to

eat them, all right. It says that you can take the

eggs, but don't take the mother bird with them.

Just take the eggs, like, leave the mother bird alone.

That's what it says, right? If you do it wrong, if you

ignore that, what's the punishment?

Stoning. No, no, there's no punishment

for doing it. But this is what Jesus, well,

this is what God, Jesus promises.

He actually says that obedience to this command will prolong

your days. It's a commandment of blessing.

What other verse in the Bible, what other commandments says

that will prolong your days? Honour your mother and father.

So the least commandment has a blessing to it and it's compared

to one of the really high commandments.

So sometimes commandments are just there.

God's like, I want you to have a blessed life.

Just like Pastor Graham was standing by tithing.

It's like, I just want you to have a blessed life.

And this is how you do it. These are the, these are the

laws that I've put into place. When you follow those laws, it's

going to work out great for you. Choose life.

Then there's a whole stack of commandments that we really take

wrong and either has no punishment like I was just

explaining or very little discipline punishment.

For example, the dietary laws, eating bacon stoning.

No, it was have a bath, wash yourself, wait for a few hours.

But I've heard and seen on threads atheists go, I don't

know why Christians eat bacon. Like don't they deserve a good

stoning? Like they actually said that

Like, whoa, have a bath, Go wait a few hours.

Purity laws. There's a stack of purity laws.

I'm going to try and be very G rated for this.

Childbirth ones. My favorite one, it's called

Shikavat Zara. How do I say this really kindly?

It is a male bodily function. Can we just stop there?

OK, Shake of that literally means to lay down intimately

Zeramin seed. That's enough.

All right, But you know what the punishment was for that?

I want to say stoning again, but it wasn't.

It was clean up, wait a few hours.

That was all. We take everything like

everything deserves the most harshest punishment.

That is how you know you're living in condemnation, where

you think everything deserves a good stoning, even the ritual

laws. I mean, I've got so many here,

pages of them. Do you know what's not unclean

in the Bible? Because there's a stack of

unclean things that you know, it's absolutely, and it says it

in Scripture. God points it out.

He says there is something that's absolutely not unclean.

Baldness. It does in Leviticus 13.

Gee, God literally says he goes baldness, whether from hair loss

or receding hairline does not make a person unclean or impure.

Good to know, I know. Anyway, second point.

So this is called the bad. I said the bad, not the bald,

right? The bad.

Now if you if you really get into Hebrew and Greek and start

reading scripture that way, you can become wildly depressed.

Really, because it does appear that just about everything in

some way makes you impure at some point in your life.

Just living makes you impure in some way.

And I was thinking this through over like the last decade or so.

It's like, wow, if everything makes you impure, then maybe I

should just not get out of bed. And then I then I found out that

being in bed and laziness, that's an impurity.

And I'm like, what about breathing?

Surely breathing, we can do that.

No, no, actually Numbers 19 and Leviticus 13 talk about

breathing. So define we can also come from

cut contact every the whole lot. All right, so there are some

Hebrew words. I'm not going to get a lot of

Hebrew and Greek. It's not even going to be on the

screen because it's not important for you to learn this

today. But there are some really big

words to avar, which basically it means abomination, filthy,

disgusting. But there are two words that you

see almost through all of Scripture in Hebrews to me and

in Greek, it's akathatos, right? They're the ones that they're

the, they're the ones that you see everywhere.

All right, Old Testament, New Testament, the whole lot.

And they both mean unclean and defiled.

Unfortunately, these words to my akathatos, same word like as in

like same meaning, just different language.

Unfortunately, they are used for everything, just about just

about everything from impure water like muddy water through

to demons. Same word, true, same word.

So if they're ancient Greek, this was Akathatos was anything

that was in pure. So you can imagine being a

scholar at Jesus time, a Pharisee religious leader, and

this actually might give you a little bit of compassion for

them. But when they're reading the

Torah of the Tanakh, it looks like everything, whether it be

muddy water or demons was on the same playing field.

And so that is why, especially in Matthew 7, the Pharisees got

super angry, offended at the disciples because they didn't

wash their hands properly before they ate.

So they're not thinking it's just dirt.

They're thinking demons because it was on the same playing

field, same word. And that's actually the problem

with any language. We we all group different

meanings to one word. For example, love.

You know, I love my family, my kids, my nieces, right?

But I also love apple pie. Yeah, I really do.

It's great stuff. Now, there's obviously a big

difference between them, right? I would die for my family and I

would kill for apple pies. Bless you.

Now, have you ever heard someone say that all sin is the same?

OK, it is in many ways because all impurity anything.

No matter what it is, least of the highest cuts us off from a

super righteous pure God. But not all sin is the same

within impurity or consequence. All right?

It's like muddy water and demons are not the same.

So why doesn't God use different words for different levels of

what impurity is? That would be handy.

Hey. Well, first one is because God

limits himself to our language restraints.

It's just like speaking baby language to babies.

You know, You just saw my beautiful new grandson,

Jeremiah. Now Hope Belfa's here too.

I haven't seen him yet. But when when you talk to my

grandsons, I'm like, hey, darling, say granddad.

Granddad. I don't say quantum mechanics.

Yeah, so that's the first reason.

The second one is because as I mentioned earlier, no matter how

great a sin or how low or little the sin is, it all completely

cuts off soft from God, which is why Romans 323 Paul says all

have sinned, all have become unpure and fall short of the

glory of God because he is massively pure.

In Isaiah 64 verse 6, it says, but we are all like an unclean

Isaiah 64:6

thing and all our righteousnesses are like filthy

rags. In other words, the best that

you've got is disgusting. Man.

I'll tell you this verse so people like, well, you know, if

all my righteousness is so disgusting anyway, what's even

the point? Can I put this into some sort of

perspective for you? I really want you to understand

this. I hope.

OK, So imagine you've got a cat. I know that's a good thought for

some of you, bad thought for others.

But you've got a cat, and there's some rogue rat that has

been infiltrating your house, destroying things.

And then one day you're sitting in your lounge, you're watching

TV, and your cat, who's now caught the rat and destroyed it,

brings it into the house and spits it out right in front of

you, like. And you're thinking, Oh my gosh,

that's disgusting. Good job, cat.

Actually, this is exactly what I want you to do.

Oh, gross. Keep doing this.

But oh yuck, get it out of the house.

You see the conflict there? Keep doing the righteousness,

but I'll all that righteousness is as filthy rags.

Proverbs 2211. This is interesting.

It talks about a whole generation who thinks that they

are pure but they're not because they genuinely think that them

doing nice things, righteous things is enough.

Last point, the beautiful so as I mentioned, I preached the last

thing about blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God

means they see God now and everything and I spoke about

focus. What is it that you see right?

Are you do you see God or do you see other things?

This is the problem with condemnation is that you see

your failings more than you see God.

You see unworthiness. You see your your sins.

David had the same problem. King David, the Bible in Psalms

51 three says, I know my transgressions and my sin is

always before me. Now there is somebody here, or

maybe there's a few people, maybe all of us who have

thought. All I see is my failures.

I want someone to hear this because as I was driving, these

words dropped into my head. This is what happens in your

head. This is what you think, you go,

I am a massive disappointment to God.

Well, you need a massive revelation of how pure and loved

you are and those impurities do not define who you are.

In Matthew 548, Jesus says to the crowd, He says, therefore

you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is

perfect. It's like what?

Who wants to give up Now? The word perfect there, the

Greek was Telios and it gets used a few times in Scripture

and it really means complete whole Shalom fully matured.

So you might be thinking that this verse about be perfect as

your father in in heaven is perfect is about your behaviour.

You know, be a perfect little Princess, perfect young man.

But this verse is absolutely about God wanting you to be

whole, be whole as your Father in heaven is whole.

Be completely healed like your Father in heaven is healing.

In fact, in Scripture, the Bible demonstrates that the perfect

righteous purity of God must be given by God.

So which means that that be righteous as your Father in

heaven is righteous. He has to give it to us.

He has to give us His wholeness. He has to give us our purity.

We actually can't do it ourselves because as I said

before, just breathing, you failed in some ways.

It has to be imputed to us. Imputed means put in where God

takes his own righteousness, his own purity, and He just shoves

it into your life because it's the only way that we're going to

make it. That's in Romans 519, First

Corinthians 132nd Corinthians 521, You know, last week, last

week, Pastor TJ who was here, who was here for that great

preacher, I love that man. He mentioned Isaiah 118, which

says this come now and let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet.

Let me let me give you some explanation here.

Though your sins are like scarlet means this is

disgusting. This just in you're disgusting.

That's as good as I can rap. I don't know where that came

from to the next, even though your sin is disgusting, people

like although your sins are like scarlet, it's a lovely colour.

That's not what this means. It means disgusting though your

sins are disgusting. The next part, they shall be

white as snow, though they are red like Crimson, they shall be

as wool. That is a gift from God.

I like this part though. It says, come now, let us reason

together. It's like, Are you sure God,

think about it, sit and reason. How is it reasonable that God

gives us his purity? That's not reasonable, really,

when you think about it. But God's reason is, yeah, I'm

going to have to, so I will. In Ezekiel 47, there's this

beautiful vision of God's cleansing and healing power

bringing life to the dead. It's where this river just flows

out into the Dead Sea and it just heals it.

And it says in verse 12, Ezekiel 47, verse 12, full 9 to 12, it

Ezekiel 47:12

says that every living thing that moves wherever this river

of life goes will live. And there's going to be healing

trees because everything will live wherever this river goes

go. This is a whole prophecy that

God gives purity, righteousness, and it brings life and it brings

life to the dead because the Dead Sea can't heal itself.

The Dead Sea can't bring life and God's like, hey, let's, I'm

going to be reasonable, so I'll do it.

In the Ziya 6 verse 5, there's an event happens where Isaiah is

having this vision and he sees the Lord on the throne.

He starts to freak out. He's like I'm going to die.

I've seen God, no one lives, right?

And he starts saying this in verse 5.

He says woe is me, I'm undone because I'm a man of unclean

lips. He's just like I am unpure,

impure, not righteousness. And the next line he says, and I

dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips.

I like that. So he throws them under the bus

too. Hey, he's like, and so are they,

for I've seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

But this big old Angel, he grabs a coal from the altar and he

puts it on his eyes, lips, purifies him, Righteousness of

God, because God thinks it's reasonable that he should give

us his purity. So now we see this, We see that

wholeness, perfect completion, purity and authority might speak

about that next time. And authority is and must be a

gift from God for those who wanted.

You see, this is the power of God.

This is how only God can make all things work together for

good. Romans 828 we sang about it

earlier. Because God gives His wholeness,

because He gives completion, because He gives purity, that's

how He makes it all work out. It's interesting when we read

that verse. Romans 828 says all things work

for good for those who love the Lord according to His purposes.

It's like our brains automatically go accept our

mistakes just to be honest. See, that's how we interject,

accept my mistakes. Well, The thing is, when it says

all, it means all. You can't get around that all,

all things, which means your mistakes and your impurities are

not your final identity. You know, when I was young, like

super young, I was living in Townsville with my parents, and

we had this huge mango tree at the back of the house.

Huge tree. You remember that?

Past the mill? Yeah, big.

And you just have these big, big mangoes like, oh, huge.

Unfortunately, at night the flying foxes would often come

and they would put dots, dense bruises.

They would destroy the mangoes. A lot of them that really did

damage a lot of mangoes. And sometimes listen to this,

and sometimes the damaged mangoes would succumb to the

attack. They would then separate

themselves from the tree. They would fall to the ground

and just rot, just die, totally ruined.

It actually was really slimy and gross.

Rachel's like, do you like mangoes?

I'm like, I love mangoes, and I hate mangoes because I really

like mangoes. But the imagery of me slipping

around in the backyard, Oh, it's traumatic.

But here's the good news. The mangoes that stayed

connected to the tree despite their damage eventually healed

and they were good to eat. Good for mango smoothies and the

potential of the seed inside them.

Astronomical Church, my beautiful family, stay connected

to the tree. Jesus says in John 15, I'm the

vine, stay connected to me. He's the one who gives you the

purity. He's the one who gives you the

righteousness. In fact, just to wrap up, thank

you for coming out. Two people in the Bible, Judas

and Peter, both disciples of Jesus, both messed up, both had

impurities. Judas betrays Jesus, Peter

denies Jesus three times. But it was only Peter who

survived. You see, Judas fell, Peter

stayed connected. You can see that in John 21.

He saw Jesus on the beach and ran to him, stayed connected and

then he led the purity of Jesus into his life.

Whereas if you read Acts one, it actually says that Judas fell

and to be polite says he was slimed just like a manga.

John 15 verse three. You are already clean because of

the word which I've spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you heavy moment.

Hey, but condemnation, shame, unworthiness, it has to go.

There are people in our community, they won't even walk

into this church because they have a sense of shame and

condemnation before they get 100 feet from this place.

And Jesus, all he wants, all God has made a way for is that they

would come in, hear the word of God and be purified.

Yes, we make a big deal about handing out those pamphlets, but

like, you've got our beautiful Josh and his family hearing the

word of God purifying from that darkness.

That's the life of Christ.