Anthony Whitehorn - Class 2: Transformation: Why Should I?

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   This is the 2006 Palm Springs Bible School. Brother Anthony Whitehorn's topic is Be Transformed. His second class is entitled Transformation, Why Should I? Good morning everybody. Hey, that's fabulous that. You are such a friendly bunch of people, I have to say that. And in all sincerity, you are so friendly because I'm out here on my own and it's not really nice being away from your family.

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   But I have to say thank you very much for making me feel really welcome. That's really special. Thank you. I was telling my wife about that this morning. There's only about an hour in the day when I can phone her, I've worked out. Eight hours is not a good time fix actually. Either I'm in bed or she's in bed. I tried to phone her up but she was in bed so she just didn't answer the phone.

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   And so I caught her this morning and she was, it was about five o'clock there and it was nine o'clock here. And I was saying what a lovely friendly bunch of people you are. So thank you very much for making me feel welcome. That's nice of you. Yesterday we went through and had a little bit of a look at exactly what we're trying to be doing this week.

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   And we considered yesterday transformation. What is it? And during our study time, we looked at the book of Romans and we analysed that word, metamorpho, and we appreciated that that word was all about an inward change. And it was a dramatic change. It was from the caterpillar to the butterfly, from the tadpole through to the frog.

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   So it was something that was quite fundamental that we as Christians should be doing. And Paul has urged us, implored us to do, to fundamentally change. So we considered that that was what we should be doing or that was what transformation was all about. And this morning, we're going to be looking at, as you can see up there, why should I? Why should I change?

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   So that is our Tuesday's subject. So here comes the challenge then. Why should you transform? Why should I transform? Should you transform because you have been told from the good book, you've been told that that's what you should do? You know, I have a little bit of a problem with that. And this is the problem that I have, is that we, as Christians, are criticised.

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   Are criticised because we are perceived by the outside world as being robots, as being automatons, as being individuals who can't think for ourself. And I would put to you that it isn't just because we have been told that we should do that. And we should analyse, when we look at the Bible, as to the reasons behind it.

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   Not just take it at face value and saying, I've been commanded to do it, therefore I should do it. So the challenge for you and me today is to really understand why. Why I should do these things. Why am I a Christian? Why do I do a particular thing when I'm a Christian?

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   It's not, well I've been told as a command that I should do it. Let's understand the motive and the reason behind it. So I think that is the challenge that we should have in being transformed, as to why we should be transformed. I mentioned to you yesterday that this here is always, this is how we are.

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    We are always full. We are either, this glass is always either full of air, or full of water, or full partially of water and air. And I put to you that naturally, this glass is an empty glass. I did have an empty glass up there, but someone's moved it. But it doesn't matter.

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    We are naturally, imagine, can you have your imagination going now? This is an empty glass, okay? And that's how we are, naturally. And in order to fill that glass with water, we have to displace it. The water is poured into the empty glass, and that displaces the air. I want you now to close your eyes.

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    Just close your eyes. And I don't want you to think about yellow bananas. You mustn't be thinking about any yellow bananas now, all right? So you're not thinking about that, are you? Okay. All right. What I want you to think about now are those lovely, juicy dates at the back of the room that we've been having.

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    All right? You can think about those now. Wasn't that easy? You can open your eyes now. Some of you have fallen asleep. Okay? Please open your eyes. Now, wasn't that easier the second time? And that is God's displacement theory, or God's replacement theory. And that's how it works. Though when I said don't think about this, wasn't it?

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    It was hard not to think about the yellow bananas. But when I said now think about this, about the dates, oh, we could displace the yellow bananas for the lovely, juicy dates. That's God's displacement theory. And he talks all about it in that parable about the woman who swept her house clean of the demon.

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    And it was completely empty, and seven demons came back in. So what we should be doing is we should have our displacement theory in our route to transformation. It's no good just getting rid of all of the bad things in our life. We should be displacing them with something else.

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    And that's why I chose Galatians chapter 5. Let's have a look at it, if you don't mind. Galatians chapter 5 is God's displacement theory.

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    And what we're going to be doing together is we're going to be having a look at various things. And certain things come out which are a little bit surprising. Here's another one. Can you just have a look round? Can you look round and can you just have a look at, and try and remember, all the things in the room that are red?

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    Can you just look round? And just look round and see all the things in the room that are red. A lot of people looking at you over there. Okay? Right? Have you got all those things in the room that are red? Okay, now close your eyes. Alright? Close your eyes. Okay? Okay? And now, think about those things that you've seen, and remember the things that are blue.

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    Oh, oh, you can't be looking now. You've got a few people looking. Alright, now open your eyes. and this is how God works. Sometimes we're looking at something and we're remembering something and then actually something comes out that we're not expecting.

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    And that's what we want to be doing this morning is, yeah, we'll be looking at one thing, but actually we should be a little bit more open and have a look at various other things in the Bible. And that's what we'll be looking at this morning. We'll be looking at red things and some blue things as well will be coming out.

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    And in this passage here, which is in my Bible here, is entitled Life by the Spirit. This is all about transformation. And it's a surprising passage really that comes out for me here in this aspect of transformation.

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    How it starts off then is it goes through and it looks at the acts of sinful nature. What are the acts of sinful nature? The acts of sinful nature is how we are naturally. When you read this, you think, oh, dear oh me, they are terrible things, those. That is the acts of the natural man.

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    And that's quite concerning. Because when we go through them, as we're going to now, we'll be perhaps a little bit surprised. There are four categories. They're not putting categories here, but there are four categories of the acts of the natural man, of the natural man and the natural woman. And here are, this is what we are like when our glass is empty and full of air.

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    Right? We're going to be looking at these, and then we're going to be using God's displacement theory, putting in the acts and the fruit of the Spirit to displace those acts of the natural man. Here's the first category. And they are sexual. It says there in verse 16, This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

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    For the flesh lustest against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are manifest. Which are these?

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    They've got them up there. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lasciviousness. Now, these are not everyday words. And when you sometimes think, what is lasciviousness? What are some of those words up there? Let's just have a little bit of an understanding about what these words are. And these are the acts of the natural man.

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    Man is sinful and desperately wicked. And here are the things that have come out. And they are sexual acts. Natural man has this tendency to commit adultery, to have sex with other people. When you are married, there's a tendency, there's a desire to have sex with other people. And that is what the act of adultery is, as you know.

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    So, man, whilst God at the very beginning, said it is good for man to be joined to one woman, actually, the natural tendency is a desire to have more than one partner. And that is what the natural man wants to do. And when you come on to sexual immorality, or in some versions it says fornication, that is different from adultery.

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    For that is having sex with more than one partner, but outside of marriage. So, adultery is having sex with more than one partner when you are married, and sexual immorality is having sex with more than one partner when you aren't married. And this is the desire of the natural man. And I tell you what, it goes on unbelievably in the world.

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    There's a girl in our CYC, and we were talking about, what are the challenges that you have? And we had our youth weekend two weeks ago. And we were talking about that in little groups, in discussion groups. And we said to her, remember in the discussion group that I was in, and she is 17.

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    And we said, what's the big challenge in your life? And she said, the biggest challenge in my life, and she's baptised, she said, is that in the sixth form, so in her group, in the sixth form, she said, I am probably unique in that I am a virgin. And there are probably 300 girls in her group.

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    This is the act of how the world is today. And it's quite remarkable. There is a tendency for the natural man to have more than one sexual partner.

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    Isn't that tragic? So what about uncleanness or impurity? That literally means to have dirty or lustful thoughts and behaviour. And we think back to when Jesus talked about on the Sermon on the Mount, that when you look at a woman lustfully, you have committed adultery with her as well. And that is a challenge.

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    That is a challenge for me, for all of us, to have a look at a beautiful woman, and not to have lustful thoughts. That is the act of the natural man.

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    And yet Jesus says, if you have those lustful thoughts, you have committed adultery with her. And the last one there, lasciviousness or, in some verses it says debauchery. And that is actually homosexuality, or lesbianism. So these are sexual tendencies of the natural man. This is how man is, naturally. To have more than one sexual partner.

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    That's the desire. To think of sexual acts. To have sex, desire sex, with people of the same sex. And that is the natural man. How does God feel about that?

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    When we recognised yesterday that he made a man in his own image, and said at the outset, that is very good. And now he looks at the natural man, after the fall, and sees these desires, these sexual desires. You see, sex is a gift from God. It's a wonderful gift from God. But it is to be used in a particular way.

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    And the natural man has abused it. And when we go through a number of these acts of sinful nature, how man is naturally, when the glass is full of air, what we see is that God has given us many gifts, and man has ended up abusing them. And sex is a prime example of that.

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    Okay. So, that is the first category of how man is naturally. desire to have adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, and lasciviousness. What's the second category? The second category is this one here. It is for, it says in verse 20, idolatry and witchcraft.

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    Let me tell you now, I struggled with this one, because naturally, I didn't know that man naturally has this desire to get into witchcraft and idolatry. Hmm. And then I said, okay, where else does, do these words occur together in the scripture? So it was a great place to start. And there I can, before I can understand how the natural man is with regard to what, what God is trying to tell me here with regard to idolatry and witchcraft.

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    And these two words occur together in one other place. And it occurs when a man approached another man and all he heard was bah moo. Moo.

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    And Samuel looked at Saul and said, what's that I can hear? Are they sheep? Is that cattle that I can hear? And of course, Saul turned around in 1 Samuel 15 and said, hey, hold on, hold on Samuel, I kept the best, I kept the best for God. And what does Samuel say?

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    Does God delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying him? For rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

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    Isn't that interesting? because I struggled with this verse in Galatians, but when you start to analyse it and think about it, actually, witchcraft and idolatry is all about rebellion and arrogance. It is man not wanting to go a particular route. it is man thinking that he knows best. That is rebellion and arrogance.

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    And we are like that, aren't we? We do have that tendency to think that we know best. and that's what the glass is like when it's full of air. It's you and me saying actually I, the old I-itis, I know a little bit better than that and I'm going to do this. That's rebellion and arrogance.

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    And that's what Saul did. I saved the best for God. you are arrogant and you are rebellious Saul. And today your kingdom has been taken from you.

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    So that is the category of idolatry and witchcraft which brings me on to the third category which is that of strife. And here we have a whole long list. As you can see they're in Galatians and it talks about hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, wrath. I call it wrath. I know yesterday some of you are thinking what is wrath?

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    You call it wrath. Now you understand what I was talking about when I took down there. Wrath. Okay. God's wrath. Wrath. Okay. In Romans I was talking about wrath. And now it's all coming together. Okay. A number of people said what is wrath? Wrath. Okay. God's anger. Okay. Wrath. Okay. Wrath. Strife or selfish ambition.

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    Seditions or dissensions. Heresies. Factions. This is the acts of sinful nature. I can relate to these. I understand these very well. Let's go through them. Because all of these here. We had the sexual ones. We had the ones that are all about idolatry. And now we've got strife. And all of these are to do with relationships with others.

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    I'm good at these. And this is what God is talking to you and me about. This is how we are naturally. And we have a tendency to slip very easily into these. And what I find is that when we're in a week together like this, I can suppress some of these. things are things but if you knew me really well, I tell you these would be popping up all over the place.

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    And that's what living together is all about. Living together is all about is recognising that this is not what God wants when these ones pop up. people and I see this in other people and I don't like it in other people.

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    And my wife's really good because when I see this in other people and I say I don't really get on with him because he loses his temper too much or I don't like that person there because of such and such. And my wife turns around to me and she says do you know what?

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    That person that you don't get on very well with over there who perhaps displays some of these things. Let me tell you you're going to end up having a vine next door to him in the kingdom.

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    Now I'm not too sure about that one. But actually that helps me. Because it makes me realise and when we come in on the last day and we talk a little bit about relationships and how we get on with people just remember that. If there's somebody here or in your life that you think I struggle with that because he perhaps is displaying some of these attributes these acts of sinful nature.

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    Just remember you might be having a vine next door to him and be living next door to him forever. Let's go through to some of these then. Hatred. This actually means I've put the Greek word next to it and what that Greek word actually means is it means a bad feeling that is hidden in the heart.

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    And that's what God doesn't like. It's not I hate that person coming out outwardly. It's the hatred that's hidden in the heart. We're great at putting up the good appearances but God says I'm not interested in the appearances I'm interested in what's in your heart. So it's the hatred that's in your heart that God doesn't like.

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    Not the hatred that comes out. What about discord or variance? This is the word iris. The Greek word iris. And this actually comes from and it was used in the games a lot. It's about contestants contesting against each other. And you would think oh that's quite a good thing that. and it's contesting against each other in order to try and win.

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    And here we have this natural thing inside you. It's not nice to lose is it? No it's not nice to lose. And we have this little thing inside us that said I want to win. And I noticed that with myself and particularly my daughter whereby when we're having a little discussion we both want to have the last word and that's that little thing inside us.

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    It's about wanting to win. We want to win all the time and it comes up in our relationships with each other. That's what discord is about. It's wanting to win against the other person. What about emulations or jealousy? And that Greek word actually is the Greek word for zeal.

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    And zeal I would suggest is a good thing. And it comes back to this thing this aspect where God has given us this gift and we have abused it and misdirected it. It actually means misdirected passion. It's what that word there specifically means in the Greek. It's misdirected passion. And we want to be passionate but we have misdirected it.

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    then this next word wrath or pits of rage and this is the word famous and this is about anger. Oh it is naturally isn't it natural when you're hammering in a nail and you hit your thumb with the hammer what do you go oh dear it's natural to get angry isn't it and that's the challenge and I I've I've got into the habit now that when something like that happens I'm into word substitution because I think that's alright in a way but it's not because this is about the inner anger it's not what comes out of a man that's important it's what's inside a man oh that's a really tough one isn't it because that is we would say very natural to get angry fits of rage hey I don't get into fits of rage this literally means don't get angry oh right what about this selfish ambition this is about why do we do things why do you do certain things ambition is a good thing isn't it because God has given us that little gift of ambition to be ambitious for him and we have yet again misdirected it and ambitious for me why do you do certain things why do you do certain things in the meeting is it so that somebody can come up and say you did a really good job there thank you I remember brother Len Richardson saying that he just stood up and he had given a really good Bible talk it was a corker superb Bible talk and he sat down in the audience afterwards and a brother came up to him and said to him

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    brother can I just say that was a really good Bible talk and brother Len turned around and said yeah the devil inside me said the same thing as well and that's a challenge isn't it let me put this challenge to you why do you want to be in the kingdom do you want to be in the kingdom because you want to live forever do you want to be in the kingdom because you want to be with Jesus forever or do you want to be in the kingdom because you want to give back to God the reason for which you were made now I find that quite a challenge because I suggest that certainly initially the reason that I wanted to be in the kingdom was I put it like this for selfish ambition because I wanted to live forever let's analyze some of the reasons that we do things dissension seditions now that's slightly different from discord and discord is staying together and arguing dissension or sedition is splitting we're good at that aren't we man is good at that we are natural man our community is good at that you know the purest fellowship that we can ever have is a fellowship of one and I put it to you if if all of you were like Anthony Whitehorn it would not be a very nice place God wants us to be different and naturally what happens is that when we come against differences we either get discord because we want to win or we end up taking our bat and ball home and a bit of dissension and we end up splitting why

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    do you think in the Bible that when we read about the disciples it says Matthew the tax collector and Simon the zealot we know so little about Simon the zealot but I tell you what if ever ever you wanted to get a group of people that weren't going to get on you're going to get a zealot and a tax collector and you're either going to get a load of discord or a load of dissension isn't Jesus saying that to us here you're different and naturally there'll be discord or there'll be dissension you either will want to win or you'll say I don't agree with that and go off and I pray I pray personally for me for the spirit of tolerance and I would suspect that that it would be a lovely prayer that we could we could offer because we are very different and there's a natural tendency to have discord and dissension and what about factions and heresies well that literally means where we think that our own ideas are better than God's ideas and we are therefore ending up being too close minded and actually being open minded is a some would say is risky I would say that's where we should be because that's how we grow being open minded and being open minded to looking at this and hearing other people's points of view on it because if we don't hear other people's points of view we'll either end up with discord or dissension or have our own ideas I can see me in all of those that is absolutely the natural !

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    Anthony white and the final aspect are the aspect of excesses where it talks about drunkenness things revelings and such like drunkenness and orgies and this is again the misuse of something that is meant for our good a little bit of wine is good for the stomach sex is a gift from God and we have abused it why because we take it to its excess that is a foible of natural man well there's something that's nice we just want more of it and so we have those those categories and it's actually that's quite interesting that isn't it how does God feel about that how does God feel about giving us these gifts and we end up abusing them and that's what seems to happen in a lot of these he gives us gifts and it's imagine just imagine that you have got all your savings and you identify a brother or a sister in the meeting and you get all your savings and you you go and you buy a beautiful car it'll be a Hyundai I work for Hyundai so so can you buy one you go out and you buy a Hyundai beautiful car it's a lovely car pristine it's wonderful and you actually go and give it to this brother or sister in the meeting all of your savings and you give it to the brother or sister in the meeting and you come back in three or four weeks time and you see that that beautiful car it's got a scratch on it oh and you look inside and there's paper in there and and there's marks all over the dashboard how do you

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    feel you think hold on that's all of my savings and I've given to this person and this person here is not looking after it what does God feel what a wonderful gift he's given you and me how are we abusing it and that's how we're abusing it with sexual idolatry strife and excesses that is the natural man we have four clear areas of our lives that need transforming and that's why we should because naturally we don't like those when I've gone through them hopefully you can identify them and thinking actually yeah I really do need to change and here here are some antidotes because what we've done here is we've identified the problems and it's really useful to identify the problems first whenever you're going through any project you identify the problems first don't you there was a person called Charles Stemets now Charles Stemets was a very famous electrical engineer in the 1950s and he was working away as a consultant as an electrical engineer and General Electric had a machine now this machine was huge it filled a great big warehouse it was enormous this machine and it went wrong and this machine cost millions and millions of dollars and all of the individuals came and tried to mend it and they couldn't so they called in Charles Stemets to come in and have a look at this machine and Charles Stemets came in and he spent about ten minutes looking at the machine and he said the problem is just here you need to change a small valve that's in here and we looked at him and said are you sure I said

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    absolutely and he left there for just ten minutes they'd spent days weeks trying to mend this machine and in ten minutes he said yep this is what you need to do so during that day they changed it and they put a new valve in and it worked and they wrote to Stemets and said please send in your bill it worked thank you very much indeed and Stemets sent in a bill for ten thousand dollars and the accountant got to general electric and thought hang on one moment ten thousand dollars for ten minute work and he wrote back and said could you just annotate your bill a little bit more please and it came back and it had one dollar to identify the problem nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars to know exactly where the problem was and that's why we look at the problems first because we can look at the problem so we can understand what we're dealing with and now let's get into how we can look at some of the antidotes in our methods of transformation and what we're going to look at is the fruit of the spirit and that's where those two are put together and that's where they're written Paul wrote to the church at Galatia in that way he said these are the issues have a look at them in detail and identify them in your life and now let me give you the replacement theory the dates that are going to come in and move out those yellow bananas and it is the fruit of the spirit now whenever we talk about the spirit perhaps sometimes

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    we feel a little bit uncomfortable why why is that because when we talk about the holy spirit we naturally think about tongues and healing and dramatic acts those are the gifts of the spirit this is fundamentally different from the fruit of the spirit and what I feel is unfortunate certainly it's certainly true in some areas in the UK is I think that we thrown out the baby with the bath water hope you understand that phrase good you do for we don't talk about the spirit very much and that's a real shame because it says this it says this in Romans 8 it says be controlled by the spirit if the spirit of God lives in you if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ he does not belong to Christ absolutely we should have the spirit in us oh how comfortable do we feel when we talk about that we think does that mean I'm going to be speaking in tongues no it doesn't those are the gifts of the spirit we are talking here about the fruit of the spirit brethren and sisters we should be filled with the spirit and that will produce the fruit so hopefully that's cleared that up a little bit I'm not talking about the gifts that's totally different I have never seen the gifts work I have seen the fruit something else as well are you and me are we human beings or are we human doings you see the fruit of the spirit is about being it's not about doing God is God actually is not interested take this as I mean it God is not

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    interested in what you do God is interested in why you do it and when you analyze a lot of the issues of the acts of sinful nature they might be acts but when you delve into what the Greek means it's actually the motives so we should be human beings not human doings and that is the transformation it's a transformation of us inwardly not the conforming the doings bit it's the changing inwardly it's the taking away of those acts of sinful nature and replacing it with the fruit of the spirit and why does it say why does it say the fruit of the spirit and goes on and talks about nine of them why does it say the fruits of the spirit have you ever thought about that okay well this is what I think about it when we say this the family in room number 213 is the smiths that's John and Peter and Jane and Bobby and that's what I think is being said here the fruit of the spirit is love which consists of joy peace tolerance and I think that's what is being said here the fruit of the spirit is just one thing and then there are eight aspects of that love to describe to describe it it's like an orange but what you have is you have this is an orange and when you open it up there are eight segments in it and isn't eight wonderful eight of course means new beginning you've got eight people who went on the ark and the first day of the week is the eighth day there were eight resurrections circumcised on the

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    eighth day it is all about a new beginning and why is it new because we're replacing the old we're replacing the sinful nature with the fruit of the spirit which is love okay so let's now have a look at the fruit of the spirit this is the replacement theory we've identified how we are naturally let's have a look at what we can replace it with it is the fruit of the spirit and the first one of course is love agape and I won't go into that too much you've heard more talks than I'm sure I have on agape of course it is divine love save to say this if I said to you do you in here love Fred Smith you're sort of looking puzzled you're thinking who absolutely let me tell you if you knew Fred Smith like I knew Fred Smith you'd love him how can you love somebody that you don't know and that's how God works he says you come and know me and when you know me in your mind then the more you get to understand me you will love me in your heart that's what agape is agape is not just an emotion and it's not just a head understanding it is absolutely the two of them and we have to be careful that we don't get steeped in just understanding without having lots of emotion what is God interested in he's interested in a relationship not just an understanding and a relationship requires an emotion and are we emotionally attached to God so it is an understanding which brings forth an emotion love is both agape love

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    is both so that's what love let's now have a look at this in a bit more detail let's look at the segments the eight segments of love first one then joy now what this doesn't mean this doesn't mean that when you become a Christian that you walk around with a big grin on your face that's not what it's about what is it about then is it about always being happy no it's not so what is it that's why this Greek word kara is important because this word literally means doubt abandoned that's what this means it doesn't mean walking around being happy all the time it means doubt abandoned and it's probably in the translation lost a little bit of the true meaning there you see doubt was part of the curse wasn't it there was Adam and Eve previously they were walking around in the garden and once they'd eaten of the fruit of the tree they went to hide because they weren't too sure they were doubtful about their relationship now with God but this here is all about doubt abandoned now I'm going to say something here that I don't want you take the wrong way what does it really mean in terms of doubt abandoned it's a knowledge a surety that you will be in the kingdom oh hang on are we happy with that this is nothing to do with being arrogant please don't get me wrong here this is about knowing that God's grace is sufficient for me that is what I mean by doubt abandoned it's the confidence in God's grace so that's what this joy means it's it's

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    the trust it's the more that we appreciate God and his love for me the more that doubt will be abandoned God is wanting so much for you and me to have a relationship with him forever and therefore I know that he wants me to be in the kingdom and his grace is sufficient for me to be there so that's that's the kara point the next point is one of peace and again this is perhaps a surprising word this isn't someone who's sitting back in the chair thinking this is fine and it is actually all about an inner peace and the word actually means there I'm not going to attempt to say it Irene probably Irene something like that it actually means an inner peace now you might say yeah but that's easier for some people than others some people are naturally quite laid back I'm a bit of a stressful person so it's easier for them than me or it might be well that person there's got a nice life me I've got bills up to here I've got troubles with my family or the neighbour it's easier for other people so circumstances it's a bit different for me he doesn't say that it doesn't say for some of you inner peace will be a little bit more difficult it says what we should be looking for is inner peace and inner peace is all about trust in God if you think about it the inner peace is about looking at our life and saying that God is working for the good in absolutely everything and sometimes that's a bit of a difficulty isn't it

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    because it might be right now for you that you're in a particular situation you're thinking why has God done this I believe that God is interested in 100% of my life 100% of my life not just the big things because the big things are made up of lots of little things if God knows how many hairs I've got on my head and I haven't got that many but if God knows that he is really interested in every little aspect of my life because he's interested in my salvation he's interested in having a relationship with me forever and therefore he's working for good he's working towards my transformation and that should be an inner peace that we have a knowledge that God is working 100% in my life in order to get me ready for the kingdom when it comes what about the next one then the next one is long suffering and patience and that actually the Greek word there is macro phimio now if you remember the last one phimio means anger and macro means slow so it's slow to anger doesn't mean no anger at all it means slow to anger I um it's a couple of days ago I don't know if we have this in the states but or in Canada but certainly in the UK we have at the checkout in the supermarket we have an express line do you have one of those good good okay it says nine items or less okay yep I was queuing up in one of them about four days ago I was queuing up and I was in the queue and I looked

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    in the person's basket in front of me one two three he had eleven items in there you're right you see that's what I thought I can't it's eleven I was seething I was absolutely seething and then that evening I started to write this talk and I'm thinking what am I doing hold on one moment it is easy to do isn't it and perhaps you've been there in that queue you've been there and you can't I can't believe the guy or when you're driving around the motorway or the freeway whatever you call it and there's a queue and you're there and somebody pulls up and want to push in you're not going to let them in are you you're right up close to that car in front they're not going to come and you don't look at them you don't look at them at all but you're seething of someone he then goes on and he gets in front of the person in front of you you are seething slow to anger and that is something that that we have to look to do it's a natural thing it's a natural thing when you hit your finger with the hammer to get angry but you know God is saying here let's slow stop just stop and stop those natural tendencies gentleness gentleness gentleness krestotes is the word here it literally means undeserved kindness undeserved kindness oh that's quite fascinating because I think in some versions it's it might be translated as kindness but actually the literal word means undeserved kindness and that's important because it is so easy isn't it to be kind to those who

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    are kind to us you be kind to those people who aren't kind to you psalm 7 don't look at it now I was quite surprised at this one though psalm 7 it says that God gets angry with us every day God gets angry with us every day but he is slow to anger and shows us undeserved kindness and this is the process of transformation the process of transformation is just taking that deep breath and not going down the natural route but being something a little bit different about this one here goodness agathosuni and this actually means using our conscience the fundamental difference between you and you me and the animal kingdom is we have got this little thing inside us called conscience we are not a set of reflex actions the animal kingdom are a set of reflex actions we're not we have this thing called conscience we know actually intuitively what is good and what is not good i'm going to ask you some questions don't put your hand up but think to yourself okay you're walking along the road and there's a guy in front of you you're walking with your christadelphian friend and the person in front of you there's a fifty dollar note and it drops out what do you do you're with your christadelphian friend i suggest that you probably pick it up tap the person on the shoulder and give it to him okay second scenario you're walking down the road on your own man in front of you fifty dollar note drops out you pick it up i suspect that you probably might hopefully i think you dropped this

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    okay man walking down the road you're behind him fifty dollar note drops out you know don't know how you know but you know that this man actually got this fifty dollar note from selling drugs to young children now what do you do ah there you go you're all sudden you're making some value judgments here aren't you nobody's taught you this nobody has taught you what is right and what is wrong but you have this little thing inside you called conscience that god has given you and what he's saying is he's saying use it hone your conscience use it a lot and how should you use it um descartes who's a french philosopher said i think therefore i am i suggest we should be i think therefore god is and that's what these are all about this is just not having the reflex action but having the spirit of goodness which is just taking time out and being different using that spirit of conscience next one faith you know faith hebrews 11 verse 1 hebrews 11 verse 1 talks about the substance the evidence it's all about things that are certain you know that when you when jeff sat down on that chair he had faith that the chair was going to hold him and actually he put it into practice it wasn't the case of i've got faith in that chair but i'll go and send this one over here this is all about putting your faith into action that's what hebrews 11 talks about it's it's something that you do because of what you know and it should be reflected in our action and

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    this final one here in the fruit of the spirit is the one of meekness ! meekness meekness and it's interesting that God in Psalm 8 is talked about as being meek Jesus is talked about as being meek meek if you said to a teenager I want you to be meek they go I don't want to be meek but meekness is all about it literally means proietes means controlled strength and comes back to this area again about being in control and God is meek why?

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    because he has controlled strength and this is the last one temperance temperance or self control and that almost sums it up because it's all about being in control it's holding back those natural tendencies and that's what ekratia means it means in control of yourself and that is the fruit of the spirit and that helps us in displacing the glass and it's beautifully put together here in terms of the antidotes because sexual we look at temperance and goodness and if you have a look at what those literally mean they will displace the sexual elements idolatry and witchcraft think about faith joy and meekness they're great for displacing that for strife think about gentleness and slow to anger and for excess is the inner peace and those beautiful eight elements of the fruit of the spirit displace those four major categories of the elements in terms of our transformation of the natural person we are naturally full of air we should be full of the spirit and we should be praying to be full of the spirit I don't know if you've ever looked at a vine and when we think of the fruit the grapes we understand that but actually at some time or other break a branch on the vine and I did that once well I did it by mistake I went back the next day and there was a little pool of water and I was thinking that must be the sap and I put my finger in it and I tasted it and do you know what it's grape juice running through the branches is the grape juice and the fruit is

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    the little sack that you can see and isn't that marvellous because running through us should be the spirit and what you can see is the fruit and so this morning we've talked about that transformation from the natural man to having fruit of the spirit and that's why we should do it because we want to have the fruit of the spirit and I'll finish with just a little story it was a native American who was being interviewed he was a Christian and in the interview he was asked what was it like to be a Christian and the native American looked up and he said it's a little bit like having two dogs inside me and the interviewer said sorry he said it's a little bit like having two dogs inside me one is a black dog and one is a white dog and the interviewer said to the native American so tell me what are these dogs doing and the American said they're fighting they're fighting said the interviewer yes said the native American so said the interviewer which of the two dogs wins the white dog or the black dog a native American thought for a while and he said the dog that wins the most is the one that I feed the most !

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    the ! the one one two ! One two ! One two two Florida Florida Florida Florida Florida Florida Florida ! Florida ! Florida ! Florida ! Florida ! Florida !