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159: Rebuilding The Walls
4 Playsin 6 minutes
We've reached the end of Old Testament section in The Story. We’ve seen the cycle of the story- God’s people sin, receive judgment, cry out, God saves them, and they fall back into their old patterns of sin again. Now that they've been rescued from slavery, it might seem like we'll know what happens next- God's people fall back into idolatry. But they don't. Gods people never fall back into the habit of idolatry. They lost their kingdom, they're weak, they're subservient to other worldly powers. But God used this weakness to change their hearts. By their own power, they couldn't achieve righteousness, but by the power of the Spirit, they've been changed. We today are powerless to change ourselves. We find ourselves unable to break free from our sin and our destructive habits. Listen to this week’s episode as Ryan Pfendler explains by the power and work of Jesus, we are changed. By his power we are transformed and made new.
If you’d like to dig deeper, check out these discussion questions. You can complete them on your own, with your Community Group, or with family and friends.
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Transcript
00:00:00
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The following podcast is a Jill Divine Media production.
Announcement of Summer Break
00:00:19
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Welcome to Normal Goes a Long Way. I'm your host, Jill Divine. And before we get into this week's episode, I want to give you a little programming note to write down. So we will be taking a break over the summer from the sermon series based on the story.
00:00:35
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So chapter 21, what you're about to hear this week, will be on break until we resume in August. On August 5th, chapter 22, that's when we will pick back up.
00:00:48
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But let's stay in the present for right now and present to you chapter 21, Rebuilding
Focus on Youth Ministry
00:00:54
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the Walls. Do you think people can change?
00:00:59
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I started wrestling with this question when I was in college. When I was down at Concordia University, Texas, I had the chance to serve with Link Austin. And Link operated a homeless youth ministry down at University Lutheran Church down by the University of Texas, which I believe was the same church that Pastor Jim went to in college back in the nineteen hundreds s Am I right? So, small world moment. um But anyways, so I got to serve with with Link Austin in this homeless youth ministry, and it targeted specifically youth between the ages of 14 and 23.
00:01:37
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And I would go down there with some of my classmates and and serve meals and and and kind of just help them with running this environment they had. And one week I asked the site leader, Kevin, you know why is it that you guys focus so much on this age group?
00:01:52
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Why don't you open this ministry up to homeless people of of all ages, to to homeless adults? and And he shared with me ah that the reason they focus on this age group is because homeless youth actually have a decent chance of turning their lives around and finding jobs and creating new habits with the right help and the right coaching.
00:02:19
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But he said that once this kind of lifestyle persists into adulthood, the statistics on life change just drop dramatically. and so he said, we wanted to focus our biggest efforts and our most resources on the age that that impact will have the most that our efforts will have the most impact.
00:02:42
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And he said, it's not that we don't care for and love the homeless adults in our area. We do. We serve them. we We feed them. And I actually got to to serve some of those folks as well.
00:02:54
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But Kevin said that, unfortunately, um for those folks, they are going to be stuck in that pattern of living for the rest of their lives.
00:03:05
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That conversation ah was a heartbreaking reality check for me that that our lifestyles and our habits, even when they are destructive, can be really hard to break.
00:03:19
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the the The way we live, the the habits we create, when you've been living a certain way for years, that way of living can be hard to break. If you're married in this room, you're saying amen right now.
00:03:33
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Our old habits die hard, don't they?
00:03:38
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And even when they're destructive, they can be hard to break.
00:03:43
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And maybe you know someone in your life that has been stuck, in a destructive habit a repetitive sin or an addiction that they just can't seem to break out of.
00:03:58
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Or maybe you have been stuck in an addiction or a repetitive sin or a destructive habit that you've tried to kick, you've tried to break it, but you just keep falling back into it. The cycle just keeps repeating itself.
00:04:17
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And maybe you've asked yourself, man, I'm not asking, can people change? I just want to know, can I change? Or am I stuck in this cycle the rest of my life?
Rebuilding Jerusalem Post-Exile
00:04:31
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Today, we're looking at a story of change. Because where we're at in the story, first off, we are at the change of the story. We are at the end of the Old test Testament.
00:04:42
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And we're transitioning over to the New Testament. This period is known as the post-exilic period. We are after the exile now. Last week, Pastor Chuck shared with us the story of Esther.
00:04:56
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What happened, to give you a quick recap, the Persians, well, the Babylonians had come in. They they took the the the Jews out of Judah and Jerusalem and took them into exile in Babylon.
00:05:09
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The Persians then come in. They conquer the Babylonians. And now the Persians, at this point in the story, have actually let the Jewish captives free to go back home to Jerusalem and to Judah and to and to go back home to the home the ah promised land.
00:05:28
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And so there's three major leaders in this part of the story, this post-exilic period. You've got Ezra and Nehemiah. They've got both got books of the Bible named after them. And then you've got a kind of lesser-known guy named Zerubbabel.
00:05:41
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Zerubbabel, he was ah one of those first leaders to to take the people back home. He became the first governor, and he was known for rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem that Babylon had destroyed.
00:05:54
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Then you have Ezra. Ezra was the priest. He reestablished temple worship for God's people and led the faith life of these newly returned home Jews.
00:06:08
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And then you have Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a later governor, and he's known for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and and keeping his people safe from attack.
00:06:19
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And so in one sense, you're looking at this part of the story, and in a sense, it's kind of like a return to life as it was, right? God's people are back home again,
00:06:33
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They've got Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The temple has been rebuilt. There's a priest leading worship. The walls are there keeping the people secure. Life seems to be back to what it was, back before the exile. God's people are home, and they're safe again.
00:06:52
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But you know, I'm thinking, man, we've seen this kind of situation before, haven't we? This turn from something bad to something good.
00:07:04
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Back last year when we had our Judges series, Pastor Chuck made this wheel of judgment to show this kind of cycle that shows up in the book of Judges over and over again. ah What would happen is the people would sin. They would do something and and things they weren't supposed to do. And so they would become oppressed and and they would be judged for their sin.
00:07:25
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The people would repent. They would cry out to God and say they were sorry for their sin, sorry for their actions. God would deliver them. He'd take the bad people who'd invaded them and take them away, and and the people would have peace, and things would be good for a while, and then we'd fall back into sin again.
00:07:52
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And so where are we at in the story? Well, you know, we talked for about 45 weeks about the sin of idolatry, right? So that's kind of the sin, that the defining sin of the kingdom period.
00:08:03
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They keep falling back into the worship of idols and the worship of false gods. And so we had we had the sin. then God sends in ah the Assyrians, of the Babylonians, to take his people into exile. so we've had the oppression.
00:08:20
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We've had the judgment. and We don't really see repentance, but we can skip that part. Now God's delivered them. They're free from exile, and they're back home. The walls are rebuilt. The temple is there. There's peace again.
00:08:34
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And you can almost feel it coming back, right?
00:08:39
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I mean, you're just waiting for them to come back. You're waiting for them to go back to their old ways that got them into this mess in the first place. I mean, if we've seen anything in this story, it's that God's people seem completely incapable of fixing themselves and of fixing their own problems.
Cycle of Sin and Redemption
00:09:00
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All the evidence has shown that these are people who just can't help themselves, and they just can't change themselves.
00:09:11
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And if that's what you think, well, you'd be right. These are people who can't help themselves and who can't fix themselves. They do keep falling back into the same cycle of sin over and over again. And that's why the exile happened.
00:09:35
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God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel during the exile to kind of explain to the people, hey, this is why this is happening. He said, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by their conduct and their actions.
00:09:53
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God's point point was, look, back when you had the kingdom, when you were in control and you had your own power, well, you abused that power. You worshiped idols, even when I told you not to.
00:10:05
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And despite all my warnings, You didn't fix the behavior. I gave you the chance to deal with it on your own, but you couldn't.
00:10:18
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And so here we are, and and we know the cycle of the story. God knows the cycle of the story. We've been through judges. We've been through the period of the kingdom. Here we are now. The people have been delivered. They're in a place of peace and Those idle, you can just feel them about to come back out.
00:10:38
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You can feel those same mistakes and those same bad habits about to resurface. And it's just like any other bad habit in life, right? I mean, yeah, you you can kick it for a while.
00:10:50
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You might have some freedom for a little bit, but sooner or later, we know you're going back to it because we know your habits. And we know what you're like.
00:11:01
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We know you can't break free from that.
00:11:07
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What did we say earlier? We said long time habits are hard to break. Well, man, if long time habits are hard to break, centuries long habits have got to be impossible to break.
00:11:22
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But you keep reading and you get to the end of Ezra.
00:11:29
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And you get to the end of Nehemiah and you get to the end of the Old Testament and the idols don't come back.
00:11:41
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The shrines to the false gods don't get rebuilt.
00:11:47
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And this centuries long habit that seemed unbreakable doesn't return.
Repentance and Confession
00:11:56
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Now, don't get me wrong. God's people, they still sin. They still do things that God's got to call them out for. But this never-ending cycle of idolatry and turning from God towards towards idols is never-ending cycle that seemed to never fix itself.
00:12:13
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We get to the end of the Old Testament, and we see that the destructive habit has been broken. The change that seemed impossible has happened.
00:12:29
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Tim Keller said that what we see in this part of the story is that God really can change hearts.
00:12:38
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God really can transform people.
00:12:44
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And the change that once seemed impossible can happen.
00:12:52
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And if you're someone who has been stuck in a pattern of sin, or a destructive habit, or an addiction that you just can't break, this part of the story gives you hope.
00:13:11
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There's two huge moments that are at the heart of this story of change.
00:13:19
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The first happens at the very beginning of this post-exilic period. God sends a prophet, Zechariah, to go with God's people back to Judah and Jerusalem when they resettled the land.
00:13:31
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And God speaks through Zechariah and he tells this new generation, hey, let me just run down for you. This is what your ancestors did. Don't be like them. They messed up. they They fell into idolatry and wickedness and sin.
00:13:44
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Do not do what they did. And Zacharias that when God's people hear this conviction from God about the actions of their past and the actions of their ancestors, when they hear this conviction, they don't push back against it.
00:14:04
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They don't argue about it. They don't try to justify their past actions. No, what Zacharias says is that the people repented. Repented. And they said, the Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve.
00:14:24
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This story of change begins with a confession, an admission of guilt.
00:14:34
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The people repent. That word repent means something specific. To repent means to acknowledge and recognize that your past ways were wrong and evil.
00:14:48
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And that you now turn. That's what repent means, to turn. You are now turning from your old ways towards a new and different way. And so what the people do here is they come to grips with the reality of their past and they don't try to hide from it.
00:15:04
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They don't try to justify it. They say what we did was wrong. We are not gonna justify it. No, what we're gonna do is confess to what we did.
00:15:19
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And it's time for us to repent and turn from our old ways and go a new way.
00:15:29
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One morning, Ezra the priest gathers the people of God together in front of the temple to hear God's word. On the 24th day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. Now, if you do that, that's interesting. But most of you probably have never done that before in your life.
00:15:53
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But this practice of wearing sackcloth, putting dust on your heads, fasting, this is a symbol of repentance. So the word repent is not in there, but you see all the symbols of repentance right there.
00:16:08
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Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors.
00:16:20
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They stood where they were and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God.
00:16:34
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You see what's happening there. People, young and old grandparents and grandchildren gathering together to hear the word of God and confess their sins.
00:16:46
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Sound like something you've ever been a part of before? I mean, that's what we do here on Sunday mornings, isn't it? We gather to hear the word and and Pastor Chuck just led us in a confession of our sins.
00:16:59
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And that's what the people are doing here. And so the people begin with repentance. They admit the ways of the past were wrong.
00:17:11
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And the second big moment in this story has to do with power.
Transformation Post-Exile
00:17:18
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Like I said, and in some ways, this is a return to the way things were, right? the God's people are back home in the promised land again, but the situation is very different because now they are powerless Back in the days of the kingdom, oh yeah, they had a kingdom, right?
00:17:39
Speaker
But now they're just a province in the empire of Persia. They used to have their own king who had the power to do whatever he wanted, but now they've got a governor who's got to take orders from a guy far off in another land.
00:17:56
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God's people are subservient. They are powerless right now.
00:18:04
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But isn't that interesting? That it's only when God's people become powerless, powerless on their own, that this transformation happens.
00:18:19
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And here, I think we see God teaching his people and teaching us about how he works.
00:18:26
Speaker
He's teaching them a truth that will carry over into the New Testament. Because you see, for so long during the years of the kingdom, the people had gotten used to relying on their own strength, their own power, and their own might to do whatever they wanted to do.
00:18:43
Speaker
And we kind of live that way too, right? we We are used to getting things done by our own power and our own strength. And you know what? When you can do everything you need to with your own power, who needs a ah God anyways?
00:18:56
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What's he doing for you that you can't do yourself?
00:19:01
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But now, after the exile, the people have no power left. They are weak. They are subservient.
00:19:14
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But God shares with them now that it was never about their power in the first place.
00:19:24
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God speaks to Zerubbabel, he gives a word to him through Zachariah as he's preparing to do this great work of rebuilding the temple. And he gives Zerubbabel a principle of how this great thing is gonna be done.
00:19:39
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And God says, not by might and not by power, but by my spirit.
00:19:48
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You used to trust in your own power. You used to trust in your own might. to do what you wanted to do, but now you're gonna learn to trust not on your own strength, but on my strength.
00:20:03
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By my spirit will this awesome thing be done. And that's a truth that carries us into the New Testament and permeates its way into the whole life of faith of a follower of Jesus.
00:20:19
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that we don't trust our own might and we don't trust our own power because we've seen where our own power and our own might have gotten us. And so now we trust the power of God.
00:20:34
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We trust his spirit.
00:20:38
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And that's really what happens. That's really what happens when the people finally turn away from the idols. They turn away from putting their trust in the power of human hands and put their trust fully and the power and the hands of God.
00:20:57
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These two moments, the confession of sin and trusting in the power of God, these are at the heart of this story of change.
00:21:11
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And so here we are at the end of the Old Testament and we're seeing changed behaviors and we're seeing humble, confessing, repentant hearts.
Inner Transformation through Jesus
00:21:27
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But the story's not over
00:21:31
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because God is after more than just outward change and confession. As good as those things are, God's after more.
00:21:44
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God doesn't just want outward change. He wants to change the person. He wants to change me and you from the inside out, from the ground up. That's the kind of change God is after.
00:21:58
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God's not just after the confession of guilt. He is after the forgiveness and the removal and the healing of all guilt.
00:22:10
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During the exile, God made a promise that he would rescue his people, but not just from the claws of the Babylonians.
00:22:22
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He said, I'm gonna rescue you from the claws of sin itself. Sin that has held you captive, not just for 75 years, but since Genesis three, I'm gonna set you free from that exile, from that slavery.
00:22:41
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And he told the prophet Ezekiel, he said, i will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.
00:22:55
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But more than that, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
00:23:08
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I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.
00:23:15
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God's saying, it's not you that does that great work, it's me. And what you don't have the power to do yourself, I will do it for you.
00:23:28
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God promised after the exile that he would change people He promised that he would change you, but not just your behaviors.
00:23:42
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God said he would change you from the inside out, from the bottom up. He said, I will take that old, sinful, broken heart and I will give you a new one.
00:23:58
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I will take that old broken spirit that causes you to fall back into the same cycles over and over again, and I will give you a good and a new spirit.
00:24:10
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I will transform you fully from the inside out. And when you flip the page from the Old Testament to the New Testament, you see how God does this beautiful work of transformation in you.
00:24:27
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As you've seen so far and in the passages we've read, God's word has taken a central place. he It is the central actor in the story. In Zechariah, God speaks through the prophet, speaks his word through the prophet to the people.
00:24:45
Speaker
In Nehemiah, we saw God's word read aloud to the people. but you flip the page from the Old Testament to the New Testament and the word of God comes down now in a new way, not through the words on a page and not through the words of a prophet, but down in the form of a person.
00:25:05
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This word was with God. This word was God.
00:25:13
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This word took on flesh and took on the name Jesus Christ.
00:25:19
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And Jesus came not just to give you new behaviors, he came to give you a new self, a new heart, and a new spirit. He came and he traded that old, broken spirit and gave you his good and perfect and new spirit.
00:25:42
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Through Jesus, God cleansed us just as he promised in Ezekiel. He gave us that new heart. And I love the way that the apostle Paul puts it.
00:25:54
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He says, anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. That's my favorite verse right there.
00:26:07
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Anyone.
00:26:10
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That means you.
00:26:13
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with all your baggage and all your history
00:26:20
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and all that never-ending cycle of sin and freedom and sin and freedom and never breaking free from it, God says anyone, even you, with all your failed attempts at fixing yourself, you are a new creation.
Personal Change through Faith
00:26:43
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In you, the old has gone and the new has come.
00:26:49
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Do you think people can change?
00:26:53
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Do you think you can change?
00:26:57
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God says yes. He says yes.
00:27:05
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And so whatever sin binds you, and you know what it is,
00:27:12
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Jesus has come to set you free.
00:27:18
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And whatever addiction you have tried to kick, that you have tried over and over again to set yourself free from, that addiction that pulls you away from friends and family and loved ones, Jesus says, I have healed that.
00:27:37
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Those of you that struggle with with anger, I mean, it's one of those things that just rises up and you feel like you can't control it and you say and you do things to people you love that you wish you never did.
00:27:48
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Jesus said, I have come to give you peace.
00:27:55
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Those of you that struggle with spiraling thoughts that lead to anxiety or or self-harm, Jesus said, I have come to renew your mind.
00:28:08
Speaker
which you do not have the power to do yourself, I have come to do in you and for you.
00:28:20
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Today we saw a story of how God's people are restored from a centuries old habit. And if God can restore them, he can restore you.
00:28:34
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And if it wasn't too late for them, it is never too late for you.
00:28:43
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Not by power, not by might, but by his spirit and by his son, can you be healed and transformed. And maybe you've prayed to be transformed and changed before.
00:28:57
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it is never
Faith and Recovery Process
00:28:58
Speaker
too late. If it wasn't too late for them, it is not too late for you.
00:29:06
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I hope that if you've seen anything in the story so far, it's that there is no new struggle under the sun. That cycle of falling back into sin over and over again, you are not alone in that.
00:29:21
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But now, finally through Christ, healing is here. The old has gone and the new has come.
00:29:32
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And those two moments of confession and trusting in the power of God, that's how it starts in you. Because when you confess your sin, what you're saying is not just that what I've done is wrong.
00:29:50
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Oh yes, you are. You're saying, man, I have messed up. I have made mistakes and I don't have the power to fix it myself. And so I trust I trust in his power, not by my power, not by my might, but by his power and his spirit and his son will I be set free.
00:30:17
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Those of you who who have been through recovery, I think you get this better than anyone. I've had the pleasure of having some good friends in my life go through recovery. They've they've been through AA or other programs. and And that's the first three steps of the 12 steps, isn't it?
00:30:34
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Step one is admitting that you are powerless to fix yourself. And step two is recognizing and realizing that God does have the power to change you.
00:30:46
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And step three is surrendering yourself and trusting yourself to his transformative power.
00:30:57
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Not by power and not by might, but by you can I be changed.
00:31:05
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And so if any of you here are struggling with an addiction or a repetitive sin or a destructive habit, wanna invite you to pray with me right now.
00:31:21
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Lord, we are powerless over the power of sin in us.
00:31:29
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We confess to you now that we are caught up in hurts, habits, hangups that draw us away from you and away from the good things that you've given us.
00:31:41
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But Lord, today we trust our lives to you, not by our power, not by our might, but by your spirit and your son can you transform us.
00:31:57
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And we trust that what you have promised to do in us will be done in us through your son, Jesus Christ.
Visit for Updates
00:32:06
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Make us, make me ah new creation today.
00:32:12
Speaker
As a reminder, we are taking a break from the story sermon series this summer. We will resume on August 5th with chapter 22, but I encourage you to come back this Thursday Ms. Hannah and Ms. April present to you Chapter 21 for the kids.
00:32:29
Speaker
They will also be taking a break over the summer for the story in kids form. But again, we'll resume in August. If you have any questions or you want to reach out about this, feel free to go to normalgoesalongway.com and we would be so happy to hear from you. All of our contact information is there.