Proverbs - Wisdom For Troubled Times

We need to hear if we're going into battle the the words of our father God, and that's what we're going to do in reading Proverbs chapter 6 and then Ben is gonna come up after this reading and and open up this passage to us. We've been working our way through in the mornings In this remarkable book, thousands of years old, but it's just like it was written yesterday in its wisdom for how to live today. And it's Proverbs and it's Proverbs chapter 6. And I'm gonna read from verse 6. Because this was the last term when we did in Proverbs a couple of weeks ago.

Tom opened up the ant. Do you remember the ant? Yeah? Go to the ant. Who went to the ant?

Anybody look at ants after that sermon? No 1. A r Tom. I think I think you're looking online. There we go.

Right. You go and look at the ant, but there we go. Well, we should do. I hope you looked around at nature to learn the lessons. So we're looking at verse 6, and we're gonna read from verse 6 to 19.

But let me pray. Father, this is your word and in many ways your word to us that are in the battle. That we listen and that we grow and we pray that you would help us. Give us ears to hear, please. Help us not just to sit here, Help us not to sermon pick, pick off little tasters that we like, please.

By your holy spirit, do this miracle work that you would bore through our ears and that you would bore into our very minds and our hearts or very souls, the truth of your word, that we may in the power of the Holy Spirit and in love for the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done, step out into this world, knowing these truths in our hearts and minds. Asking you to help us to put them into practice. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Proverbs chapter 6 verse 6 Go to the ant, you slug god. Consider its ways and be wise.

Well, no 1 did that, so you need to hear that again. Alright? Go to the ant. Did anyone go to the ant? Okay.

So well done. 1. Now there's 1 coming out. Alright. Let me just read that up.

This it's quite straight, isn't it? Go to the end. Oh, I didn't go to the end. Go to the end. You sluggot.

Yeah? Go to the end. You sorry. I'm preaching. Go to the ant you slug on.

Consider its ways and be wise. It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there? You sluggard. When will you get up from your sleep?

A little sleep. A little slumber. Folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. A troublemaker and a villain who goes about with a corrupt mouth who winks maliciously with his eye, signals with his feet, and motions with his finger, who plots evil with deceit in his heart, he always stirs up conflict. Therefore, disaster will overtake him in an instant.

He will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. There are 6 things the Lord hates, 7 that are detestable to Him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, heart that de See devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. Keep that open and we're looking forward to hearing what the law says through Ben. Good morning from me.

Welcome to Cornerstone Church. And the name of the lord Jesus Christ. Who who here has seen an ant this week? I actually googled the yellow because I think at the weekend away last week, someone was sat on a colony of yellow ants. And they were like yellow ants.

I've not seen that before. And I don't think I have either, but then I googled it. Apparently, they're really common. So there you go. Go to the yellow ant.

You slugged? Keep please keep that bible open in front of you. We're mainly gonna be looking at verses 16 to 19, but it's useful just have that last bit ready again. Let me pray before we start just for us for the Lord's help. Father, we thank you for this book of proverbs.

We're in desperate need of wisdom. We do not have it ourselves. We have to be reminded again and again. And so as we look at your word this morning and as you speak to us through it. Please help us.

Give us eyes to see what you're saying is to hear. And we need your holy it to understand and to apply it to our lives. So would you do those things for us, we ask in Jesus' name, amen? Right. So if I said Jeremy Kyle to you, pretty sure most people here who would know who I'm talking about, He if you don't know who he is, he's a British broadcaster.

He ran a pretty infamous show called the Jeremy Kyle show. I mean, that's pretty narcissistic, isn't it? I wanna have a show, what should we call it? Me. He ran it from 2000 and to 20 19, I didn't realize I only stopped a couple of years ago.

Apparently, he's gone over to America since then to try over there and failed. But on that show, he was pretty straight talking, if you've ever seen it. And there were guests on who were trying to resolve disputes or arguments or disagreements. And it's 1 of those shows that I actually never sat down to watch Jeremy Kyle. And I don't think I've ever watched the whole episode and yet I've got a whole bank of memories in my mind.

Of clips from it. People shouting at each other and the audience going mad and crazy. And from what I can tell, people were normally having quite trivial or ridiculous arguments about things. That's just the sense I got. Maybe that's unfair.

I don't know. But Jeremy Kyle, he acted a little bit like a judge on that show. He was the kind of the moral compass. These people were in the wild west, they were shooting at each other. Figuratively, and he would come on and land convictions on people and say, you you are a liar, you're you're guilty, and you, you need to sort your life out sort of stuff he would he would declare.

He had a professional psychologist, he would come on to help unpick the lies, and they had a lie detector. I was speaking to my friends about this the other day, and they said, you're a liar, which is 1 of the things that he used to say apparently. So, base to say that to each other in school, which is quite funny. There was also a big TV audience who would get quite rowdy. They would sort of say shame, shame, or laugh at things.

And it's a really odd place to sort out your families sort of dirty laundry, isn't it? It was kind of like family therapy in lots of ways, but with 1000000 people watching on the TV. I remember even in school someone used Jeremy Carla's bit of a threat, so they were having an argument in the playground. And 1 of them turns the other ones I'll see you on Jeremy Kyle then. It's kind of like, I'll see you in court, but 1 better than that.

Jeremy Kyle. Who's obviously the truth decider. 1 of the most exciting things, the reason I'm telling you all of this, 1 of the most exciting things the show did, which it really seemed to relish, was doing a DNA test to find out who the real father of of a child was. So normally there was quite a young mother with 2 equally spotty young guys, both claiming to be the the father of the child and they were arguing, I'm the father, no, I'm the father. And obviously, there was some uncertainty as to who the father was, but Jeremy would do like this DNA test to actually find out who he was, and he would announce it like the winner of big brother.

He'd be like, and the real father is. Bradley, and then the the audience would go and and someone would walk off. It was actually 1 of the only TV shows where they expect people to walk off. And so the corridors and the green room will have cameras and microphones in them. So the show can go on even when people of get upset and walk off.

To be honest, it was a pretty nasty show. And as I said, why on earth would you choose a live audience of a million people to find out who the father of your child. I have no idea, but 1 of the good things about it is that it didn't matter what people said in these discussions about who the father Doesn't matter what they said or how passionately they said it. The best test for who the father is is written into the genes, isn't it? Doing a DNA test, do you carry the same print?

Do you carry the same mark, the same internal code as the father? Or do you belong to someone else? Who's your real daddy, basically? Well, segue into today's passage. Today, we're gonna do a kind of spiritual DNA test with all of you, and I'm Jeremy Kyle.

I'm not Jeremy Carr. That's not a good comparison, is it? But that's the question we're gonna look at today, I hope, in verses 16 to 19. Who is our father. And the way we're gonna do that is by looking first at the DNA of God, what is he like, and then we're gonna check ourselves against him.

Because as we As as with the young men and and the women on the show, it doesn't really matter how loudly you shout. Or what you say, the test is in the DNA? Who do you resemble in your inner being? Who are you most like? And the labs are back?

We have the results in. We have the figurative DNA of God. And we're gonna look first of all at what he's like in these first verses. So First point, let's turn some. There you go.

DNA of God. Look at verse 16 in Proverbs 6. There are 6 things the Lord hates, 7 that are to test a to him. Haughty eyes, which means proud eyes. A lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

That is the DNA of God. And if we've ever thought, oh, God, can God hate anything? God is love, isn't he? God is love. Can he hate anything?

Then I think plainly we can say, yes, he does. He does hate things. And it might surprise us as we read the scriptures that often God uses sort of the word know to communicate what he's like. Thou shalt not do this. Thou shalt not do that.

But actually, Sometimes you see most clearly what someone is like, don't you? What they're for by seeing clearly what they're against? What do they stand against? And then you almost know everything you need to know about them. I mean, if you've heard of Christians against poverty, cap, Christians against poverty, that's the name of their organization.

But what are they for? You don't have to ask what they're for, do you? They're against poverty. You've got it. I know what you're about.

And so if you take these verses seriously, you can see exactly what God is about. Can't you? You can see what God loves, what's important to him. The God of the Bible, Yahweh, loves humility. He loves truth.

He loves justice and healing. He clearly loves a heart that is inclined to do good. He loves feet that bring the gospel, how beautiful are the feet? Scripture says. My feet aren't that beautiful.

But I'm bringing the gospel right now, so they are. So God loves a true testimony about Jesus. He loves peacemakers in the church, and to be honest, that is good news, if is what God loves. If that's what God hates, that is good news. Who here can determine what God loves and what he hates?

None of us can. But how glorious is it that this is what God is like? I actually think if you look at these verses 16 to 19, you can probably make the beatitudes out in them somehow. I've not really done that. But this is sort of the anti beatitudes, what God is against, and then in Jesus, when he comes, we see what God is for.

Bless it up. But look, in His righteousness and in his purity, God cannot stand to have these things in front of him. I mean, if you think about it, if if God truly cherishes truth, he loves truth. And he wants to stand up and fight for truth, then he's got to hate a lying tongue, isn't he? Why would he like Buddha who smile serenely at everything, put up with a lying tongue if he loves truth so much.

And so there are 6 things that God hates, and 7 that are detestable, or an abomination to him. He can't stand to have them in his sight. And Now I was confused a little bit by the numbers here when I first looked at this passage. So what's going on here? There are 6 things that God hates, but 7 that are detestable.

Which is the 1 that he hates, but isn't detestable. What's going on there? But then I discovered that there's a Hebrew writing structure in play which helps us understand what's being said. And when we see it, we see it really clearly. And that's called a chiasm.

Hope I'm saying that right. A chiasm. A chiasm is is basically a 2 part sentence or structure or phrase, where the first half is repeated or reflected or mirrored in the second half. So you have the same thing being said almost twice. And then in the middle is the thing that's emphasized and highlighted.

That's the big point, the nail on the head. Normally, when we do speeches, we emphasize something at the beginning or at the end, But in this chiasm, it's slap back in the middle. That's the thing you have to pay attention for. And then, as I said, when we see it, we really see what's going on. So take a look at this with me.

So the first thing God hates is haughty eyes. Proud eyes. Eyes, that sort of look above, they are over the teaching. They are too good for the teaching in the sense. People with haughty eyes don't really apologize for anything.

Why would I have to apologize for the way that I act or behave? Because I'm above what's going on anyway. If you look at verse 13, it says, the person who winks maliciously with his eye. Yeah? So this is someone who's looking around at others winking.

Not in a weird sort of way. Well, it is kind of weird. We don't really wink at each other. But in a kind of like looking for comrades around them, yeah, you're on the same side as me. Yeah.

Yeah. We're not paying attention together. Yeah. With both of us, we're too good for this. Oh, yeah.

And you over there. Paul already. I see you over there. Yeah. Yeah.

We're above this. So that's what's going on, a haughty eye, a proud eye, that that doesn't engage itself with God's word or with God's people or the teaching that are above it. And then that's mirrored in a person who stirs up conflict. So a person who's looking around for comrades who's gonna join me in being above and and sort of disconnected from this year, you. And oh, let me tell you about what I heard about these people over there.

Yeah. And then you're stirring up conflict in the community or the or the church basically, the brothers and the sisters, proud eyes, stir up conflict in the community. And then secondly, you've got a lying tongue. God hates a lying tongue or the corrupt mouth as it says in verse 12. It's basically people who find it easy to lie, whether to their parents, they find it easy to lie, to cover up their behavior.

Or at work to try and make yourself better or push the blame onto someone else. Perhaps in marriages or or even in the church at home group. Oh, yeah. I can't make it tonight because I'm doing something else something else came up. A lying tongue.

And that's mirrored with a false witness who pours out lies. It struck me that if you're testifying falsely, a lie by itself out of context is obviously a lie, isn't it? It's clearly a lie. And so what do you do to make a lie believable. You can't pad it out with loads and loads of other lies to frame it in a way that makes it look credible.

And so 1 lie requires another lie, requires another lie, requires pouring out lies in order to to protect yourself or save yourself, The next 1, hands that shed innocent blood. Things that we do physically with our hands. I mean, I don't think necessarily everyone here is physically violent, but in in what ways do we violate other people by sending hard messages or snapping too quickly, or even saying things with with our words that violently hurt people? Do we crash people around? And that's mirrored in feet that are quick to rush into evil.

Make snap decisions, fly off the handle, Don't really think about where we're going. Quickly find yourself somewhere and then the excuses come and the lies come out and You know, I'm just sorry. I'm just like that. You'll have to bear with me. But at the center of all of this, these are things God hates.

But at the center of all of this, the thing that is most despicable to God, and from which all the others flow is a heart that devises wicked schemes, a wicked heart. That is what this chiasm reveals you look at it in that sort of Hebrew rewriting structure. It's like a pyramid that leads you to the top, and then shows you the thing at the top, and then leads you down again. So the haughty eyes, the person who's proud, the lying tongue, the hands that shed innocent blood. These are just a trail.

They're just markers in a forest following the stream up to the source, up to the source, which is a rotten heart. At the top of this mountain. And then from that, rotten pull of a heart flow, FE that are quick to rush into evil, false witnesses, and people who stir up the brothers and sisters in the community. So a couple of weeks ago, Pete preached 2 sermons And 1 passage in Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23, above all else guard your heart. Why?

Because everything you do flows from it. A wicked heart is the most detestable thing to God because everything else you do trickles and is sourced from that heart in fact. I don't think it's going too far to say the most detestable thing The biggest abomination in the entire universe is a wicked heart, a heart that is not in love with God and under him and loving his word and Jesus Christ. Jesus said in March chapter 7, what comes out of a person is what defiles them. Don't worry about whether you're washing your hands.

I mean, wash your hands. Yeah. Especially in these times. But he says, it's not washing your hands, isn't what makes you dirty. What makes you dirty is your heart.

And from your heart comes all of these filthy things. They flow from within your heart. And so how is your heart? This morning. How was your heart this morning?

Second point, your DNA. So we've looked at God's DNA. His results have come back. What about your DNA? Let's check our hearts by comparing where we are against what we know about God.

So I wonder, do you recognize any of the symptoms? In your life. How are your eyes? Have you got proud eyes? Do you listen to instructions?

You sat right now having been given instructions from godly wise people. Have you listened to them? Or do you think that you know better somehow than many wise people who are trying to come around and love you and give you good instruction? Are you avoiding even looking at some people? It's interesting.

The eyes give us so much away, don't they? Who are you not looking at? Who are you avoiding looking And who are you trying to pick up as well by looking around? Yeah. They're on the same page as me.

That's not listening to them. Yeah. We know better. Maybe your tongue, how's your tongue doing? Do you lie?

Do you find easy to lie? I read a book this summer, which said that we've all got an internal lawyer working for us in our 24 7. That is ready to leap into action whenever anyone accuses you of anything. I have this. Just ask Kerry.

Whenever she says anything to me, my lawyer goes, right. Let's go. I've got a whole dictionary here ready to like You forgot to do that thing I asked you to do. Or why did you do that? Objection.

Why didn't you do that? My lawyer is very highly paid. What about the way that we testify about Jesus in the presence of others? Do we speak rightly of him? Is the language on our lips about him, a good testimony of what know to be true of him.

When we're in the presence of those who don't know him, do what do what do our lives and our witness reflect him? Or our hands? What have our hands done? Where have our feet taken us? I was preaching a couple weeks ago about the adulterous woman who drips with honey.

And the advice will stay away from her front door. Don't let your feet take you to her front door. So what's happened in the weeks since I preached that? Wherever your feet taken you. Perhaps most tellingly, do you leave a wake of encouragement and peacemaking in the church?

Or have you left a stirred up trail behind you of discontentment and complaints? How does your DNA compare to gods. It's quite interesting. The pharisees were convinced they were the children of God. They were carrying around pieces of paper, certificates saying, I am the child of God.

They insist many times in John chapter 8. We are Abraham's descendants. We have never been slaves of anyone. Abraham is our father. We are not illegitimate children only father we have is God himself.

But despite what they say and how many times they say it, Jesus knows dna. He's run the test, Jesus, and the results are in. And the Faracies have proud eyes. They love to walk around in the market spaces with flowing robes. They've got lying tongues.

When the time comes for Jesus to be crucified, he's put on trial, and they come up with false testimonies about him. Their hands shed the only innocent blood there has ever been in the history of mankind. Which was Jesus Christ's. And then they stir up the crowd to shout crucify him, crucify him. Their hearts were constantly devising wicked schemes to kill him.

And that's the that's the result. The DNA result. Doesn't matter what you say, look at your DNA and so Jesus replies to them unapologetically says, you belong to your father, the devil. And you want to carry out your father's desires. Regardless of what you say about being Abraham's descendants.

No matter how it, you say it, or what you wear, or what religious ceremonies you attend, whether you're sat here right now, What does your DNA resemble? And to the pharisees, their inner being, what made them up most of their core, ressembled their father, the devil. Not God. It's a pretty harsh teaching, actually. Really harsh teaching.

But actually, immediately the points proved, because what do they do after Jesus says, your father's the devil? They say, he's demon possessed. They say, the son of God has the devil in and they pick up stones to try and kill him. So what does that mean for us then? Because we're sinners, aren't we?

I'm a sinner. Hope you know that you're a sinner as well, because to be honest, when I've been thinking about this and looking at my own heart, I see bits of all of those things. My hands, my tongue, my eyes, my feet. So I am nothing less than a sinner. My DNA I look at myself, I'm riddled with sin.

What remedy is there for me not to be like the Pharisees. What hope is there? That Jesus doesn't say you are of your father, the devil. And as good as the a to z podcast series There's no podcast I can listen to that's gonna sort me out. There's no diet I can go on that's gonna cleanse me.

There's nothing There's no sort of 5 step program I can get to a cleaner heart. The reality is, I need nothing thing short of the heart transplant. If my sinful heart is the most detested thing in the universe before God, If it's the source and the center of everything that God hates, then Lord give me a new heart. Give me a new heart that has the DNA of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah?

That beats like his. That loves like his, that walks like his, give me give me a heart like Jesus so that then it will trickle down, and I'll have eyes that see the needy like he did. I'll have hands that stretch themselves out like he did. I'll have feet that walked across like he did. And a heart that burns with compassion when he saw the loss.

And, lord, deal with my sinful heart. Get rid of the old 1. That's what I say. Don't know about you. That's what I say about my heart.

When I look at myself and my DNA, nail my heart to the cross Jesus. Get rid of it because I don't want it. Actually do not want it. I do not want it in me. So get rid of it.

Chuck it out. This is this is the thing. This is the most thing in the universe to God's eyes, get it out with me. I I need a new heart lord. And here's the wonder of the gospel.

Love love getting to preach. Every week you get to this point, and then you get to go, let's go. Jesus. This is exactly what our father in heaven has done. In Ezekiel Oh, I missed that.

Ezekiel chapter 36, The Lord speaks about his salvation plan in Jesus, and he says I will sprinkle clean water on you. And you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. That's the blood of Jesus on the cross. Washes away your polluted sins, that pull at the top of the mountain, that is contaminating everything you do.

Jesus washes that, with his blood. And then verse 26, I will give you a new heart. I will give you a new heart I'll give you a new heart that is a new source and wellspring of life. That isn't like the old 1. That isn't going to trickle down into lies and discouragements and and stirring things up.

And I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. The Lord knows exactly what we need. We don't just need a paint job, where we just get like touched up a bit Just a new layer. We need an absolute heart wrenching transplant.

Take that out, put that new 1 in. This dead's cold heart from which every sin will flow, this diseased organ that's in me that's causing me to be sick, take it out And that is what Jesus has won for us on the cross. Not just a washing of the old heart. Let me just wash it like a like hoover filter and then stick it back in you after I've cleaned it, but chuck it out and put a new heart within you. And he says, I will sprinkle, I will cleanse you, I will give you a new heart, I will remove from you your heart of stone, I will put my spirit within you.

That is the lord's work from start to finish. So if anyone here has been trying to do it themselves, you've maybe recognized your DNA. And you're like, I don't want that anymore. I'm gonna try my best to sort myself out, then stop it. This is the Lord's work.

From start to finish. He's the surgeon. He's the 1 who can do it. So if that's what you want, then come to him. Come to him and ask him to do this in you.

Come to him and ask him to change you. You can't change yourself, come and ask the 1 who can. Give us a new heart lord. With your DNA, give us a heart that loves truth, that loves humility that causes us to serve with our hands. Give us a faithful testimony of Jesus.

Lord, would you give that to us? That's my prayer for us. That's my prayer for me. Third point, new DNA. So look, here's the test.

Yeah? Here is the test. To see whether you have a new heart in Jesus. If you want to know, do you want to know if you've got a new heart in Jesus? Yeah.

Whether you've had that heart ripping surgery, you wanna know how you know if you've had that? And it might surprise us, actually. But look again at what the DNA of God is like in verse 16. Look at verse 16. There are 6 things the Lord hates.

7 that are detestable to him. And so when you see your haughty eyes, And when you see your hands that hurt other people, and when you see your feet that cause you to sin, Do you hate that in yourself which God hates? Do you hate that within yourself which God hates? Because that's the key. That is the evidence of God's DNA in your life.

We wouldn't hate sin if God had not performed this within us and put his spirit within us. We would still love our haughty eyes and our hands that shed innocent blood. So the question isn't so much, do you sin? Not asking that. Have you sinned in your life?

Have you sinned this week? I'm asking you now, do you hate that sin within you when you've done it? Because if so, if you hate the sin and you plead with God, God, would you change me? Would you cleanse me? Give me a new heart within me.

Then that's the ultimate difference between you and the Pharisees, who Jesus spoke to. That's the difference between a new heart of flesh and a dead heart of stone. Because, yes, I am as sinful as the pharisees are. I'm probably guilty of almost everything the pharisees have done. And yet, they loved their sin.

And so their father was the devil. But if we, if we like God, if we hate our sin, and we find it detestable within us. Do you do you wonder that sometimes? Are you detested by yourself and what you've said and what you've done? You recoil in it.

If you can honestly look at this passage and say, yes. There are 6 things that I hate, and 7 things that I find detestable. Even though we do it ourselves, if we can hate those things, then we resemble our father in heaven, the lord. The DNA tests are back. We're like our father.

But you might say, why do we still sin then? Why is God given us a heart that hates what we do, but doesn't change us completely. Why would he do that? Why didn't he just fix us now? Well, I wanna say, well, that's the normal Christian battle in this life.

Pete was the first well, that song that we sang. We won't fear the battle. Well, sometimes we do fear the battle, don't we? Sometimes this battle is hard and I know that many of us here really struggle, week in, week out. We come here, we sit under the word, We let it refresh us, and then we go back out to the fight.

But this is the normal Christian battle that we have a new heart, the old has gone, the new has come, but until we're raised to new life, we're still in our old natures. We're still in our sinful sort of body, We're still surrounded by the adulterous woman who's calling us. Satan is still out there, and so we're still in the battle. This is exactly the battle that Paul talks about in Romans 7, he says, so I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me, For in my inner being, I delight in God's law.

I love what God loves. I hate what God hates. But I see another law at work within me, waging war against the law of my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me, what a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God.

Who delivers me, who rescues me through Jesus Christ our Lord. I mean, there's a man who hated the sin within himself, isn't it? What a wretched man I am, he says, who's gonna rescue me from this body of death? But that's the DNA of God within him. That's the evidence of a new heart in that man.

And though even though he sinned, he did what he didn't wanna do, he hated that within himself, which God or so. Hates. He's got it absolutely right. If you this morning are sat here and and and you hate what you do and you you would wanna follow the Lord then what should your response be when you see that within yourself and you hate it? Or we should be exactly like Paul.

We should cry out to be rescued. Who will rescue me from this body of death? And then we should praise God who delivers us through Jesus I start lord. I just want to finish quickly by marveling at the love that that God has for us. I mean, it's it's amazing.

It is amazing. It's easy for me to say the most despicable thing in the universe is my heart. Before God. But if that's true then what on earth should God do with us? How should he look at us?

And then in 1 John 3, we get this verse. See what great love the father has lavished on us. That we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. We have no right, do we, at all, to be a child of God, to resemble in any way what he is like, to share he is his DNA. Actually, though we were uniquely in all of creation, we, you, were uniquely made out of all of creation to resemble and reflect and glorify him.

Our hearts became the most detestable thing in the universe to him. We were meant to be the most glorious thing, and we became the most detestable thing. He should have recoiled from us in horror, First 15 in Prob chapter 6 says, therefore, disaster will overtake him in an instant. He will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. That should have been us.

We should have been destroyed without remedy. But what kind of great love triumphs even over the most detestable, despicable thing in the entire universe? What kind of love looks at what fell the furthest and yet is still overflowing with love for it? That is the love of God for you in Jesus Christ. That's the love that stretches to an enemy and makes it into a child.

So do you have the DNA of God in you? Jeremy Karl again. Now that we've seen God's DNA, now that we've looked at your DNA, do you have the DNA of God in you? Do you hate your sin? Do you find it ugly within you?

Do you wanna be different? If so, thanks be to God who delivers you through Jesus Christ our Lord. He's gonna sanctify you in this life. You're gonna hopefully grow in holiness and purity. There will be things that you put to death in your life.

But in glory, you will shine like the sun. Thanks, Peter God, who delivers you through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And maybe to those who don't recognize this DNA. Maybe you've grown weary in this fight and you've forgotten it and you don't hate that within you as much as you used to. Then why don't you say, create in me a pure heart o God and renew a steadfast spirit within me?

From Psalm 51. Because if you do, if you come to God and you say that to him, he's gonna sprinkle you with the blood of Jesus. It's gonna cleanse that that pull at the top of the mountain, it's gonna give you a new heart. It's gonna remove from you that old heart that you don't want anymore. And he's gonna put his spirit within you.

He's gonna lavish his love on you. He's gonna call you his child. What an amazing God that is. Let me just pray to finish. Finally, we thank you that you show us who you are by telling us what you stand against.

And, Lord, when we look at our own hearts, we see so many of those things that you stand against. But we praise you that you've given us the Lord Jesus Christ, who cleanses our hearts, who puts a new heart within us and removes from us our heart of stone, Lord in this life, we're gonna battle, we're gonna fall, but I pray that you would keep us like you. In loving and delighting in Jesus and hating and recoiling from that sin that we see within ourselves. Thank you 1 day you will deal with us completely, and we will be perfectly obediently living with you forever. Help us please in this world.

Keep us going. Help us to see this great love that you have for us, though we were the most despicable thing you've made us your children. And so thank you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen.