Total Devotion

Lord, we come to you, this morning confessing our need and our hunger. Our thirst, the deep thirst of our soul. We may think we thirst for other things, but ultimately, Lord, at the bottom of every thirst is a thirst that only you can satisfy. We are hungry for you.

We are hungry. And thirsty for the true and the living God. And I pray that if there are any who are here this morning who came into this room, hungry and thirsty that they would come to realize that it is you that they thirst for. And that they would see you.

More clearly and more beautifully than they ever have. Help us, Lord, to behold wonderful things from your word as we look at this morning and help me to be a, a, a good servant to my brothers and sisters and to all who are here. Lord, as I serve them with the word of life, your holy and precious word. And I ask these things, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.

Well, this morning I, I, want to continue with the theme that we had started actually a month ago, 4 Sundays ago, we looked at 7 all expressions that are in the New Testament. And these expressions that we looked at are the expressions all together, all grace, all prayer, all diligence, all the more, all the nations and all to the glory of God. And my sermon today was the sermon that I was preparing to preach the following Sunday until our plans changed with the news of the passing.

of Donna's father in Indiana.

This morning, what I wanna do is pick up with this theme and I wanna develop further some of the themes from that message a month ago by focusing on a few additional passages of scripture that make a rich use of the word all and here's primarily the passages that we'll look at this morning. In Deuteronomy chapter 6. We are given this command, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.

And then in 1 Peter chapter 2, Peter tells us, in verse 1, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy, and all slander, long for the word.

And James chapter 1 verse 21, James tells us to be putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness and receive. The word. What we find in these verses is a call to a life of full devotion to God and to His word and so we're entitling this message total devotion. In this message, we will examine three aspects of this call.

To a life of full devotion to God that we find in this passage today. I deliver this message, today in part to unburden my heart as a pastor to you. this is a, a message that has been brewing for a while, and I believe we need to hear it. I believe it is a message not only that we need to hear, but that our world today needs for us to hear.

What our world today needs. is not a bunch of Christians living a compromised, half-hearted Christian life, a worldly life of partial holiness and wavering sometimes devotion to God. What our culture needs to see from us is a brand of Christianity that is in the full bloom of holiness and full devotion to God. Think about it from a church standpoint.

Also, the last thing that our culture today needs is another compromising church. Another church that is making concessions to the prevailing opinions of the world that we live in today. As we've talked about a handful of times before, making concessions to the world is always a fool's bargain. Because the world never responds by making concessions of its own to the church.

When the church makes concessions to the world, the world simply moves the goalpost and requires that the church concede even more until the church is no longer The church As a case in point, You're all aware of the growing number of churches and professing Christians who are coming out. In favor of homosexual marriage and homosexual relationships. The Bible clearly says that those who practice such things without repentance will not inherit the kingdom of God. These are sins to repent of, not to rejoice in, which means that these churches affirmation of homosexuality is a shameful violation of the clear teaching of scripture.

On top of that, these churches that have made these concessions have really only obtained a temporary truce with the world. For no sooner do these churches make these concessions that they are then pressed upon to expand their boundaries even wider. And affirm other forms of wickedness, and it's never going to stop. Listen to what one writer named Chuck McKnight said recently, and what I'm about to read is not satire from the Babylon Bee.

He says the Christian church has come a long way on matters related to human sexuality. A particular note has been the headway made in affirming the LGBTQ community in many mainline progressive and liberal streams of the church. I'm proud of the strides we've made. However, the same can't yet be said for another relational orientation, polyamory.

He goes on, polyamory is defined in a recent wide-ranging survey as consensually non-monogamous relationships where there is an open agreement that one, both or all individuals involved in a romantic relationship may also have other sexual and or romantic partners. Polyamory has been on the rise in the global culture at large. And even within the church, in the interest of transparency, I should also disclose the fact that my wife and I are polyamorous ourselves and recently decided to open our marriage as such.

There are thousands of faithful Christians who practice polyamory, living lives of giftedness, dignity and worth, but receiving next to no spiritual support.

He then says the following. This raises an important question. Why aren't most LGBTQ affirming churches being equally vocal about their affirmation of polyamorous people? You see what happens?

Churches cave on an issue like homosexuality. They say, OK, we will expand our boundaries so that homosexuality is something that we would affirm and support, and what happens? There are other people standing on the outside of those newly formed boundaries saying, what about us? Why won't you affirm us too?

And such churches have no moral grounds to stop expanding the boundary lines. But why does the world do this? Because the world never makes concessions, ever. Once you cave on one issue as a church or in your personal life, the world demands that you cave on yet another.

That's the way the world operates, that's the way sin operates. And this is why Eric Metaxas said a couple of years ago in an article. In the Christian Post. He says compromising with the world is a loser's game.

We might as well stick to God's word. No compromise for whatever reason will ever be enough to satisfy Satan's appetite for compromise and sin in us. It's a loser's game. And we don't want to go that way, individually as Christians or as a church, instead of compromising, what should we do?

We should be moving in the other direction, surrendering and devoting ourselves wholly to God and seeking to please Him ultimately. And I want to deliver that call to myself and to all of us here today. And the way we'll break down our study is we'll just observe three aspects of the call that we find in scripture to live a life of full devotion to God and To his word. And the first aspect of this call to full devotion is to love the God of the word with all of your being.

To love the God of the word with all of your being. It's interesting in, in Mark chapter 12, someone approaches Jesus and ask him the question, saying, what, what commandment that is in the law is the foremost of all? And look at Jesus' reply in Mark chapter 12 verse 29. Jesus answered, the foremost, in other words, the foremost commandment is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Notice here, That Jesus proceeds to tell us what the foremost commandment singular is. And he quotes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and includes in his quotation from Deuteronomy 6, what amounts to two commands. The command to hear And the command to love. The command to hear some truths about Jehovah God, followed by the command to love the God who has just been heard about or described.

Obviously, Jesus views these two commands as inseparable. In his mind, these two commands together to hear about God and to love the God who is described, these two commands together form the foremost commandment in all of Scripture. And the fusion of these two commandments to hear. And to love is sheer genius.

In my mind. See, it's easy to tell people to love God. And they will respond by happily fashioning a god in their own image and then declaring, I love that God. In fact, most people that you meet will tell you that they love God, but which God do they love?

They love a God that they have fabricated in their own minds often. In fact, you'll often hear people say things like the God I believe in would never judge anybody or send anybody to hell. Where did they get such ideas about God? They didn't get those ideas from hearing God's word as it speaks about who God is.

They got those ideas by listening to their own imaginations and refusing to hear God's word. As it describes God. The result is that they think they love God, but they don't love the God. Of the Bible The passage that Jesus is quoting from in Mark 12 is Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 and 5, where Moses will not let anyone get by with loving a God of their own making.

Moses is very specific about The particular God that He is calling us to love. He says in verse 4 of Deuteronomy 6, here, oh Israel, and the word that is translated here is the Hebrew word Shame, which is translated as obey over 90 times in The Old Testament. It means to listen obediently or to listen with the intent of giving obedient heed to whatever it is that is heard. And here is what Moses wants God's people to hear.

He says, hear, O Israel, Jehovah literally is our God, Jehovah is one. Moses is saying there is a God whose name is Jehovah. He is the God who has been revealed to you. Throughout Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, a God who created the heavens and the earth and humankind and all that is, a God who pursues sinners and who provides atonement for them, a God who insists on blood sacrifice for sin, a God who commands us to abstain from sin and to do what is right, and a God who judges those who break His laws.

A God who has raised up Abraham and formed the Israelites as a people through whom the Messiah would come and bring blessing to all of the nations of the world. This is Jehovah, Moses says, and this Jehovah is our God. He's the only God with whom we have to do. When Moses exclaims that Jehovah is one, we can paraphrase him as saying Jehovah is the one and only.

He's the only true God. And he is the only God needed, and there is no God but him. And Moses is commanding us to hear these truths about Jehovah before he gives us the command to love the God who's being described. So guys, don't, don't just ask people if they love God.

Ask them if they have truly listened. To what the Bible reveals about God. And then ask them if they love the one and only God who's revealed. In the Bible The truth is, if you're going to love God properly, you must listen first to the Bible as it speaks about who God is.

You must love God with a listening love, with an ear tuned to his word, and then you must love that God who is described. Which is what Moses commands us to do in verse 5, which is essentially the second component of the foremost commandment of all. Moses says in verse 5, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. By the way, notice that there are 3 alls that are here in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5.

Yet when Jesus quotes this passage in Mark 12, he adds an extra all. Look at what Jesus says, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And with all your strength. Or might.

Jesus adds that phrase and with all your mind, is he adding the scripture? Not really, he's simply ripping open the all statements of Deuteronomy 6:5 and letting us know that included In that is our mind. Our love for God should be a love that engages all of the faculties of our mind as well as we listen to what God's word says about him, we think upon what it says about him, and we love that God. With all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, and with all of our mind.

You don't understand this call to love unless you embrace the all-consuming nature. of this call to love. The foremost commandment in the law is not merely to love God. But it's to love him with all of our being.

That's the call, the essence of true religion is to love the Lord your God, revealed in scripture with an all-consuming love that occupies all of your being. And so the question is, why does God give us this command to love Him with all of our being? Is, is it because God is a needy God, who can't get enough love from us? Actually, to ask that question is to misunderstand the meaning.

Of the love that's being called forth from us here. In fact, it might help you to put two words in the place. of love that can help to unpack and define what Moses means in Deuteronomy 6:5. The, the first expression we can put in place of the word love is the expression delight in.

Delight in. The Lord With all of your being. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for love is used synonymously with the word for delight, and you can write down Psalm 119:47 as an example of that. And this makes sense.

To love someone is to find enjoyment in them. So here in Deuteronomy 6, Moses is at least in part saying delight in the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul and with all of your strength and with all of your might, that is a command. It is the foremost command of all to delight in God with all of your being. And think about the promise that is embodied in a command like this.

As a, as a finite man and as a fallen man, I could never tell anyone to enjoy me with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength. I couldn't do that because I know that there are things in me not to enjoy, and I know that people would run out of stuff to enjoy very quickly. There's not enough in me that could honestly occupy their full heart and soul and might for all of eternity. I could never give this command to anybody, but God is different.

God is infinite in his perfections and in his beauty. He's a being of such inexhaustible blessing. That he can give us this command and not have to worry about us running out of stuff to delight in and to enjoy in Him. This is why the psalmist literally says to God in Psalm 16:11, in your face is fullness of joy.

In your right hand are pleasures forever. And that statement. And Psalm 16:11 could never be said about anything or anyone else other than the one true God. Jehovah, and this is why God and only God can tell us, delight in me, your God.

For all of eternity with all of your heart, soul, strength, and might. The next word we can put in the place of love is the word serve, speaking of obedient service to Jehovah God. In John 14:15, Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Love for God shows itself in obedient service to God, wherein we set aside our own selfish agenda and give ourselves to serving God's agenda with all of our might.

So these are two sides of this coin of love. The love of delighting in God followed by a love of devoted service to Him. This is what it means when God calls us to love Him with all of our being. Delight in me.

With all of your being and serve me. Obediently with all of your might. Let's think about this further. Why does God call us to love Him?

With all of our being. Part of the reason is because he's seeking to rescue us from placing ultimate value on sinful things or even good things that can never satisfy us like only God can. Think about it. What else could you love besides God that would ultimately satisfy you?

Whitney Houston used to sing that the greatest love of all is the love you have for yourself. Really How can, how can that be true? You're a broken and dying and often misguided creature. Why would loving a dying, broken and often misguided creature be the greatest love of all?

What else can you love beside God that would ultimately satisfy you? Love somebody else? Love someone else who is a broken and often misguided and dying creature. Love something, a thing that will break down and decay over time or possibly get stolen from you?

What could you possibly love with all of your heart that would be truly safe? And that would satisfy you like only God can. Absolutely nothing. So in giving us this command, God is seeking to rescue us.

From lesser loves that could never satisfy us, and this is not even to speak of the sinful things. That we love, that wreak havoc on our lives and on the lives of other people. And calling us to love Himself with all of our being. God is also rescuing us from a half-hearted love for Him that leaves us open to foolish and hurtful sins.

And I hope you realize that and feel the love even in God giving us this command. Do you realize, guys, that a half-hearted love for God leaves you vulnerable to many dangers? For example, we're told in 1 Kings 3:3 and Pastor Mike talked about this. a couple of weeks ago, I think in the Sunday school hour in First Kings 3:3, the text says Solomon loved the Lord.

So everything's good, right? He loved God, he loved the Lord. Well, the text goes on to say, Solomon loved the Lord walking in the statutes, in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. So apparently, Solomon loved the Lord, but not with all of his being.

We get further explanation of this a few chapters later. Yes, Solomon loved God in some sense, yet look at what it says in 1 Kings chapter 11. Let me just read this sad narrative to you. Says now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, you shall not associate with them, neither shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.

Solomon held fast to these in love. And he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. For it came about when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David, his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtareth, the goddess of the Sidonians.

And after Malcolm, the detestable idol of the Ammonites, and Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not follow the Lord fully as David, his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Kemosh, the detestable idol of Moab. On the mountain, which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech, the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. Thus also he did for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrifice to their gods.

You would never dream of this outcome. Reading First Kings 3:3 where we're told that Solomon loved. The Lord, I'm sure if you had come to Solomon when he was 18 years old and told him, Hey, by the end of your life, you're gonna have 700 wives and 300 concubines. He would have said, I love God.

There's no way that will happen. I'm sure if you had told Solomon at the age of 18. That he would one day end up building places of worship to pagan detestable deities. And actually participate himself in burning incense to those wicked deities, Solomon would have said, I would never do that.

I love the true God. But Solomon ended up doing those very things. And his failure, I don't think came simply because he didn't love the Lord at all. His problem was that he did not, the text says, follow the Lord fully.

His heart was not wholly devoted to God. In other words, he loved God to some degree, but he did not love God with all of his heart, and with all of his soul, and with all of his might. So guys, do you see the goodness of God in giving us this command in Deuteronomy 6, to love Him with all of our heart, soul, And might When he tells us to love Him with all of our being, he's seeking to rescue us from the dangers of a life of half-hearted love for him. A life in which we're left vulnerable to many foolish and hurtful choices that bring ruin to us and Hurt to others.

The only safe place. For the soul The only safe place where you can be is to just pursue loving God with full devotion. With all of your heart and all of your soul. And with all of your strength to be fully devoted to him, and God is loving you by calling you into this love.

But how do we show this love for God? What is true love for God look like? This brings us to the second aspect of the call to a life of total devotion to God and His word, and that is to love God by honoring His word in all times and places. Love God by honoring his word in all times and places.

Observe what Moses says to explain what loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength looks like. Verse 6, he says, these words which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. Isn't that interesting? Love God with all of your being, and then the first practical specific of what he says is take God's words and have them on your heart.

When we say to people, even today, you've been on my heart. Today, what we're telling them is that we've been thinking about them all day and we could not get them out of our mind. And that's the idea here, Moses is telling us that God's words should be on our mind all the time as we meditate on His words day. And night.

This is what love for God looks like. We read His word, the Bible, we meditate on what is in his word, the Bible, and we carry His word around in our hearts and on our hearts, and we cherish the words of the God that we love. Isn't this a part of what love is? To cherish the words.

Of the one that we say we love? Could a man say to a woman, Honey, I want you to know that I love you with all of my heart, but I honestly don't ever want to hear anything that you have to say. And anything you do say, I'm gonna totally forget about it because I don't care, but I love you though. Just not your words.

No way. And it's the same with God. We show our love for God by listening to his words, treasuring them in our hearts and letting them be our guide through all of life. Do you love God?

Here's a good Diagnostic question, how much time have you spent this past week reading, thinking about And enjoying his words. This is not all we do. Look at what else we do to show our devotion to God. We'll just look at this very quickly.

Beginning in verse 7, he says, you shall teach them diligently to your sons, literally, you shall engrave them into your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down at night and when you rise up in the morning, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead, you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. This is going way beyond just, hey, make sure you take 10 minutes to just read.

The word in the morning. No, God's word is to be everywhere, on every part of our life, based on these words, what does a person who loves God do?

He takes God's words, and he puts them on his heart, he teaches them to his children. He loves God so much that he takes God's words and literally engraves them into his children. He places God's words on his own tongue, and he talks about God's words when he sits in his house, when he walks by the way, when he lies down at night, and when he rises up in the morning. God's word is the last thing on his mind when he goes to bed at night, and the first thing On his heart when he awakens in the morning.

He also binds God's words as a sign on his hands signifying my hands belong to God. He binds God's word on the frontals of his forehead, signifying that his mind belongs to God. He writes God's word on the doorpost of his house. Signifying that my house belongs to God, and he writes God's word.

On his office space at the gate of the city, signifying that his business dealings and his politics and his behavior as a citizen is fully devoted to Jehovah and surrendered to the service of him. In these verses, Moses is calling the Israelites into a life of totality. A life of full devotion to God, instead of living a compartmentalized existence in which Jehovah is Lord of some areas but not other areas. Moses is calling upon God's people to live a life of full surrender to God in every arena of life.

Where every part of your life is under the governance of his word. That's what loving God with all of your heart and soul and strength looks like. Moses calls us to love God with all of our being. Immediately we see him going to the matter of our relationship to God's word.

One of the truest measures of where you are in your love for God is to evaluate your relationship with God's word. And if you go by that standard of measure, are you loving God? As you should You may read these verses in Deuteronomy 6 and say, well, we're not the ancient nation. of Israel, so we're not actually supposed to put God's word on our hand and on our forehead like the Israelites did.

So, Pastor Milton, what's the modern day application of these instructions? Well, let me give you A modern day application. Think about your smartphone. Think about how much time you have it attached to your hands.

Almost as if it is an appendage. We hold our smartphones with One hand and we swipe it, we tap it. With our fingers, we position it right in front of our face, about 1.5 maybe in front of our forehead, and we stare and we search and we explore and we enjoy. It's almost like it's attached.

About 1.5 from the front of our forehead and it stays in that position for the average person in the United States, 2 hours and 51 minutes a day. And we're so preoccupied with it that when other people In the room are trying to talk to us, we often don't even hear them, right? Sometimes we will even take earbuds and put them as signs on our ears. So that we can be even more tuned in and send a message to everyone else, leave me alone.

I'm focused on what's coming from my smartphone. I'm not gonna ask for a raise of hands, but I would imagine that 5 hands at least would go up if I asked how many of you have ever had someone say to you, you're always on your phone. We take our phones with us everywhere we go, whether it be work or driving in our cars or Even when we go to the gym, we will attach it as on our forearm or on our arms somewhere, we'll take our phones to bed with us. It'll be the first thing that some of us look at when we wake up in the morning and it's the last thing we look at when we go to bed.

At night My point is that we are literally fulfilling the specifics of Deuteronomy 6 today. Only we're doing it with our smartphones. And we are devoted. To our smartphones.

Think about how desperate you get when your power is getting low. You will grab a charger cord from anywhere. You will steal from anybody in the household in order to be charged up. My wife has her name written on the plug-in for her phone, Donna, Donna, Donna, Donna, on every side so everyone in the family knows to leave it alone because she knows of the theft that frequently will occur.

In our moments of desperation to be charged up so we can stay connected. And intimate with our Cell phones. How about we put our phones down? And pick up a copy of God's word and hold this in our hand.

And put it about 1 ft 1.5 ft in front of our foreheads and stare and read and enjoy having the true and the living God of the universe actually speaking. To us. And when we put this book down, how about we let God's words continue to be on our heart and on our minds and on our tongues as well, and we meditate upon it, we memorize it, and, and we're thinking about it when we go to bed at night and when we wake up in the morning, we often wake up and we're so encouraged at the thought that God's word, something in his word is actually the first thing on our mind when we wake up.

In the morning.

Wouldn't that be wonderful? And wouldn't we be spared a whole lot of mess? What church would we be if we spent more time with the Bible in our hands and in front of our eyes and then letting it mark every single area of our lives. You say, OK, I'll, I'll love God and I'll honor the place of his word in my life.

I'll put it on my heart, on my tongue, and my children, and on my house and on my gates. Is that all that I need to do? Actually, There's yet one more aspect of the call to a life of full devotion to God and His word that I want us to look at today, and that is to put aside all sin in deference to God's word. To put aside all sin in deference to God's word.

When a man takes a wife, he doesn't pursue romantic relationships with other women, right? He shouldn't The arrival of a wife into his life means the removal of all other women from any place that should now be occupied by his wife. And the same is true when it comes to receiving God into your life and acknowledging Him as the God that you love with all of your being. Giving God in His word the most honored place in our life means that we are committed to expelling anything and everything.

In our lives that stands in opposition to him, that is a rival to him. And that's exactly what we're told to do in the New Testament. Looking at 1 Peter 2 and James 1. We see two things we're called to do in connection with God's word.

In 1 Peter 2:2, we're told to long for the milk of the word and in James 1:21, we're told to receive the engrafted word. But in both passages, it's interesting. We are told that our longing for the word and our reception of the word should be accompanied by a putting off of sin. And not just some sin, but the emphasis is on all sin.

In 1 Peter 2. Peter gives us this call, he says, therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect of salvation. If you have tasted the kindness. Of the Lord One of the things you notice about all 5 of the sins that are listed here by Peter is that they're all relational sins.

Mali speaks of ill will. Toward another person. Deceit is lying to another person, either to hurt them or to hide the truth about yourself from them. Hypocrisy speaks of wearing a mask with the goal of hiding your true self from someone and trying to make them think that you are someone that you are not.

Envy is when you begrudge someone a blessing that they have. And to be jealous of them. And to harbor ill will towards them because they have what you want. The word slander, the Greek word translated slander simply means to speak against someone, either by lying about them or it could even include speaking truth about them with the intention of hurting them or their reputation.

And Peter, guys, is telling us to get radical against Our own sins and to put aside all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy. And all slander. That we might be tempted to speak. In a way that is hurtful to others.

While Peter's focus is on relational sins that we are to put aside, James directs his focus to moral sins and James chapter 1 verse 21, James tells us to put aside sin and says, therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness and humility, receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls. Literally the expression translated filthiness speaks of dirt. Something that's filthy or causes filth. It speaks of anything and everything that is morally defiling according to scripture, anything that is inconsistent with the Christian life.

We're also told here to put aside all that remains of wickedness, and this is a tough expression. To translate. But the idea is that we are to accept whatever God's word says is wickedness and then put aside any remnant of wickedness in our life. This wickedness might be prevalent all around us in our culture today.

It's prevalence and it's acceptance might make us inclined to be more tolerant of it in our own lives. But James is saying to Christian people, it doesn't matter how abundant this sin is, or how prevalent it may be in the culture around you, you may even find this wickedness springing up from within your own person. But none of this changes your responsibility. James says, read God's word and agree with God on anything that God says is wickedness.

And then set about to putting that aside. The wickedness aside, all of it, all of it, make no truce with sin. Give it no place in your life, declare war against sin. We need to be instructed by the fact that Peter and James make frequent use of the word all when they tell us to put aside sin.

Why do they do that? I think they do that because they know how strong our tendency is to put aside some sins, but not all. It's easy to kinda try to put aside the sins that alarm us or cause us pain. Then we'll tolerate certain levels of sin in our lives and simply become sin managers rather than sin murderers.

We make our little truces with sin and we think that we can contain sin in our lives as long as it stays at a certain level or maybe we've grown discouraged and we don't even believe it's possible to truly put aside certain sins anymore. Peter and James would not tell us to do this if it was not possible. And they're telling us to put aside all sin. Because they know, guys, you can't make peace with sin.

You cannot make concessions with sin, just like you cannot make concessions with the world system. Sin is never content to merely have a small compartment of your life. It will grow and it will fester and demand more and more until it has all of you. Sin is a malignant force.

That grows. Who of us in this room would allow someone to inject us With just a thimbleful of melanoma cells. It's just a thimbleful. Why are you so uptight?

About that We would never allow for such an injection. Because we know the malignancy. Of those cells. And that's the way sin is.

So don't let any sin be an exception to this standard. Don't willfully hold on to any sin in your life. Because that sin will ultimately seek your destruction. In both passages, Peter and James tie their command to our interactions with God's word.

Peter says, put aside all these relational sins and long for the milk of the word that you may grow thereby. James tells us to put aside moral perversity and then receive with meekness the word of God, which is able to save our souls. This putting aside of sin is tied to our ability to receive and get the most out of God's word. And the reason Peter and James tell us to put aside sin in connection with our reception of God's word.

is because they know that holding on to any sin in our lives willfully will hinder our ability to get the most out of God's word. As the old saying goes, this book, the Bible, will keep you from sin or sin will what? Keep you from this book. Sin in our lives, known sin that is tolerated and clutched onto serves as a great inhibitor to us being able to get the most out of God's word and maybe that explains why this book is a dead book to some of you.

You're bored to death. This is why you don't even take time to read this. This is a dead book to you. And you might experience that and say, this must be a dead and boring book.

That's not the problem. The problem is sin. That is in your life. You are willfully holding on to sin and refusing to put it aside.

You wanna make this book come alive to you? Put aside sin. Repent and renounce it. Surrender yourself to God and you'll be amazed how alive this book has been all along, but you were the dead one.

Too dead to experience the vitality of his word. So, well, how do I put aside Sin This would be a whole sermon in itself, but just some suggestions. First of all, you put aside sin by admitting Your sins, confessing your sins as sins to God. Making no excuses.

Secondly, you repent of those sins and actually ask Jesus to save you from those sins. Think about it. When was the last time that you asked Jesus to save you from a sin? Especially a sin that you love.

See, I'm convinced that We don't ask that enough because we're not sure we really want to be saved. from those sins that we love. If Jesus is your savior as you say that he is, Why not ask him daily. To save you specifically.

From the sins that seem to enslave you, especially your pet sins. Thirdly, when, when you're tempted to commit sins, you resist the temptation. Guys, every time you're tempted to sin and you resist that temptation and refuse to give in, you are in that moment, putting aside sin. Also, if you see that you're truly trapped in a sin and having trouble putting it aside, reach out and enlist the help of other people, asking those who are spiritual to help you to get uncaught.

From that sin that seems to be trapping you. Also, guys, don't, don't just aim for a sin reduction in your life, aim to remove sin from your life altogether. Don't be a sin manager, seek to mortify the sin that is in you. And don't give up.

When you fail in any of the above ways, and all of us do, you repent of that, you obtain God's forgiveness that is provided for you through the shed blood of Jesus, and you stay committed to making warfare against sin in your life. And lastly, and maybe, maybe most importantly, keep feasting, even on your worst days where you have failed so many times, open up God's word, feast on his word, keep feasting. On the gospel, keep delighting in Jehovah, keep feasting on the truth and the promises of the gospel, knowing that such feasting will ultimately produce a harvest, nourishing the growth of godliness in you.

And ultimately having a quenching effect on the sin that is in you.

Realize that holiness is not something that you fully achieve in one moment, it's a harvest that comes as a byproduct of hundreds and thousands of moments of sowing seeds to the spirit in your life. Basically what we have in these passages is a call to a life of totality. A call to total surrender wherein you love God with all of your being, you give His word, an honored place in every area of your life, putting aside all sin in deference to God's word. CS Lewis in his book, Mayor Christianity, says it beautifully this way.

He says, Christ, he comes to us and says, give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it.

No half measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there. I wanna have the whole tree down. I don't wanna drill the, the tooth or crown it or stop it, but to have it out.

Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked, the whole outfit, just hand it over to me. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself and my own will shall become. Yours.

And we might hear such a call to total surrender and we think, man, that sounds really, really hard. And maybe it is. But what's harder than living a life. A full surrender to Christ.

what's harder? Living a life of half surrender. is way harder. Than a life of total surrender to Jesus Christ.

And it's here that CS Lewis helps us once again, listen to what he says. The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing is to hand over. Your whole self. All your wishes and precautions to Christ, but it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead.

For what we're trying to do is to let our mind and heart go their own way, centered on money or pleasure or ambition and hoping in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And his point is, Christ says you can't do that. And that's impossibly hard. Much harder than a life of full surrender.

The half surrendered life is the hardest life to live. A life of full devotion. And full surrender to God is the simpler life. As helpful as that is to hear, we do need to hear more than that, I fear.

What is it that melts our hearts? And tears down our mistrust. of God so that we're disposed to surrender ourselves to Him. It's the gospel.

It's, it's in the gospel that we see a God who has every right to damn us for all of eternity. To the experience of his terrifying wrath in the lake of fire. But it's in the gospel that we also see a God who spared not his own son, but delivered him over for us all at the cross, having Jesus die and shed his blood so that through his shed blood we could have forgiveness and atonement for our sins. It is in the gospel that we see a God who will not withhold anything from us that is truly needful.

In the gospel, we see a God who stands ready to freely give of Himself to us. He gives us forgiveness when we believe in Him and he makes us His children, and he brings us into His presence so that he can fully gives himself and disclose himself to us. The love of God that is revealed to us in the gospel, cuts our distrust of God at its root. And causes us to look at him and say, what, I can give myself to him.

I can be totally devoted to him. I can trust my life to Him who gave his life for me. I can surrender my all to this one. who surrendered himself to me.

God has given Himself to us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He's given all of his triune self. To us and paid the ultimate price to give Himself to us. And I hope you guys will agree with me this morning that that is a God worth surrendering to.

Amen. Let's pray and ask God to help us. To respond to him. In this way Lord, you're a good God, and you have spoken to us in your holy and matchless word.

Help us, Lord, as saints of God to be done with lesser things. That we know in our quiet, honest moments, we know they don't satisfy. We drink and we drink and we drink and we're just as thirsty, if not more thirsty. And all such things are broken cisterns that cannot hold any water and cannot satisfy, but you are the true and the living God, the fountain of living waters that is endless.

And that could fully ravish and occupy our heart, soul. And might for all of eternity. If we would but Be totally devoted to you. As a church, Lord, like this.

Help us to be a church wholly devoted to you. Full of Christians who are wholly devoted to you. Who, when the world looks at us, they see something different than what they see in the world around them. And what they see awakens them to their own spiritual poverty and And their need for you.

May we show forth the excellencies of your greatness by the lives we lead and by our passionate pursuit of delighting in you and serving you. Thank you for grace, for all the ways we fall short. May we drink of that grace deeply this morning as we confess our sins to you, and may that grace serve as wind beneath our wings, enabling us to soar to greater heights of devotion. And love for you Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you.

Receive these funds and do much with all that is given in this offering today. For the spread of the message of the glories. Of Jesus Christ and salvation through him. We surrender ourselves to you.

In this moment, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,