Ephesians: The Belt of Truth-Love the Truth

If I had to summarize the gospel in four words, it would be Christ in our place. Christ in our place. What does that mean? As we look at the past work of Jesus, it's all Christ in our place. Jesus lived in our place. Meaning, he lived perfectly, fulfilling the law of god. He kept every command perfectly. Christ in our place. Jesus lived for us. He fulfilled the law for us. He fulfilled righteousness for us. [00:14:49] (39 seconds)  #ChristInOurPlace

We need to start here. Behind every sin is a lie about God. Behind every sin is a lie about god. And the goal is not to stare at our sin all day long. Boy, that would wear us out. That would burn us out and burn us down. No. The goal is to recognize the sin and to name it so that we can begin to get rid of it. The sin is often clear. I'm breaking one of the 10 commandments or I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. The difficulty is figuring out why you're doing it. Name the lie behind the sin. [00:39:12] (48 seconds)  #NameTheLieBehindSin

You know, I think when we realize just how good the gospel is, that Jesus earned our righteousness, that he paid our debt, that he even guarantees our future through the resurrection, that helps us begin to stand firm against the lies of the enemy. Because when we're honest, when we compare Christ in our place with any lie of the enemy, no lie compares. No lie compares. [00:16:02] (32 seconds)  #GospelOutshinesLies

Christ in our place. Christ in our place. He died on the cross for us. He paid the penalty for the sin that we committed. He paid the penalty that we deserve, Christ in our place. Amen. Three days later, Christ in our place rose from the dead. The scripture tells us that because Jesus rose from the dead, the first fruits that we who are in Christ rose with him. The gospel is Christ in our place. [00:15:28] (33 seconds)  #ChristPaidItAll

The fruit of our love for Christ is a growing desire for his commands and an increasing obedience to them. And here's where the enemy loves to step in just as he did in the garden. He loves to take a pen and circle a command of God. Do not eat from that tree. He loves to circle it. He loves to point at it. He loves to spin us up and ask all sorts of questions in our hearts and minds like, god must not be very good if he's keeping you from that. [00:20:36] (33 seconds)  #LoveLeadsToObedience

Sometimes I wish Jesus would just take me because it's easier to be a dead sacrifice than a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice has an option to get off the altar. The dead sacrifice is finished. And so all of us who are in Christ long for the day when we're going to be glorified, when we're perfected, that we're no longer fighting with our sin. But in the meantime, we stand firm in the belt of truth by being a people who recognize that we have to kill off our sin. We have to starve it. [00:45:22] (36 seconds)  #LivingSacrificeStruggle

I think a good place to start for us is to ask Jesus to help us hate our sin. Have you ever prayed that prayer? Lord Jesus, help me to hate what you hate. Help me to hate my sin. I remember the first time someone encouraged me to to ask Jesus to help me love him more. I thought that's weird. I don't wanna ask Jesus to help me love him. I should want to love him already. I'm not gonna confess that I don't love him. And my friend said, he already knows. Uh-huh. So just ask him. Ask him to help you love him more. And in the same way, ask him to help you hate your sin. Until we hate our sin, we're gonna keep playing with it. [00:45:58] (45 seconds)  #PrayToHateSin

And so, Lord, I confess that sin, and I ask that you would forgive me. Help me to love you, and to see you as more glorious than those around me. Lord, I've loved comfort more than holiness, and so I need you to strengthen me. Because if you don't, I'm gonna continue to keep running down the same roads of sin. When you confess the sin and agree with God, and then we need to repent. We need to kill it. This is taking decisive action. It's choosing to refuse to manage our sin. [00:43:25] (39 seconds)  #ConfessAndRepent