Transforming the Soul Through Truth and Love

i want to start with two quotes from my wife just this morning one of them she said that it is impossible to pursue transformation without developing a love for truth if i want to really change it will be indispensable that i cultivate a love for truth because that's reality starting with the truth about me that i most want to not look at which is what we're looking at a lot these days so stay with me through these next couple of messages if you're part of this journey [00:00:25]

and it struck me that this gets to the core of what we're talking about in these days we do what we would not do and we become that which we would not be we don't want to we don't want to do wrong and yet we did so that brings us to this third chapter of dallas willard's book renovation of heart we're seeking renovation but there's no way to do this without going through the path of sin something that we don't talk about in our day words that have largely lost their power and meaning [00:01:19]

and dallas writes in chapter three about radical evil in the humans in the ruined soul about being lost and that too is kind of religious language somebody is lost jesus famously said what does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and yet lose their soul that's we're going to explore today with the sobering vistas of the human heart and soul before us dallas writes we need now to rethink for our time what it means to be lost for a ruined soul is a lost soul [00:02:17]

considerable confusion on this topic has resulted from trying to think of being lost in terms of its outcome theologically that outcome is hell a most uncomfortable notion certainly if you are lost in any sense there is little likelihood of you arriving where you want to be but the condition of lostness is not the same as the outcome to which it leads there is a condition of lostness and then there is an outcome that that leads to we are not lost because we're going to wind up in the wrong place we're going to wind up in the wrong place because we are lost [00:02:41]

lostness is a factual condition of the self of the ruined soul you either have it or not just as you have or do not have a certain physical disease that can kill you if you have the condition of lostness you may not know it most likely you won't it's inherently a condition of self-blindness you need treatment nevertheless if you are not to be lost forever and being informed of your condition and what to do about it can help you find relief and that is what we're doing now [00:03:37]

so i want to talk for a moment about what does it mean to be a lost soul when jesus said uh unless uh what is the prophet a person that they gain the world and lose their soul i used to think what he was saying was it doesn't do you any good to make a lot of money and have a lot of sex and a lot of pleasure if you end up going to hell that is not what he's saying it's true of course but it's not what he was saying [00:04:13]

lostness involves each of these dimensions of our personhood so with our wills our wills do not work right we often fail to will what is good i go through life and i could bless everybody that's a part of my life but i don't think to do this or worse yet i actually will that which is wrong or if i do will that which is good i'm not able to bring it about and so i will to be a generous person and yet i'm greedy all the time and then that gets into our mind [00:04:46]

there's a fascinating book i'm reading right now it's called the midnight library about a woman who despairs of her life she is a ruined soul and she wants to die but she's stuck in between life and death and she's given this very weighty book called the book of regrets and she can hardly stand to read it millions of choices and so many of them led to regrets but then there's not only the book of regrets there's what we might call a book of forgets [00:05:18]

and this is part of how the will and the mind interact with each other because the mind if my mind if my will is working right it must choose the good and be powerful enough to execute it but of course it's not if my mind is working right for a flourishing mind i must think thoughts that are true and desire things that are noble and good but i don't and then my mind ends up forgetting that which i my will does not want to remember [00:05:54]

and then you put all of this together a splintered will and a disordered fractured never satisfied mind fueled by desires that has ego all over it and then a body with appetites where sin has got into habit so i don't even see it i don't even remember and then relationships that are built on that kind of deception and my ego is trying to use you now this is the human condition and that is a lost soul [00:09:16]

so what do we do well we begin by seeking to cultivate a love of truth god would you reveal the truth to me to the extent that i'm able to absorb it and what's required in order to do that first of all is to live in the love of god it's very interesting in first john 3 those wonderful words you might know them where john says think about behold the manner of love god has for us that we should be called the children of god and that is what we are [00:10:56]

he appeared to take away our sins now it doesn't say as people often think he appeared to take away the guilt of our sins or the punishment of our sins or the pain that we would go through if god was really mad at us for our sins no no if if jesus tried to deliver me from external pain or punishment without healing me from my divided will and my messed up mind and my enslaved habit-driven body and my root doesn't make any difference you could take me to any pleasure palace in the world i would be a miserable person i need to be delivered healed from my sins and that's what jesus does [00:11:44]