ANTHEM: Strategies for Fighting Lust

Lust
A desire that we should not have because it is untethered from the purifying effects of Christ and is therefore directed to the wrong object or is so out of proportion or unsuited to its object as to disorder our thoughts or feelings or actions.

Christ centered, gospel rooted strategies for overcoming lust:
Avoid
No
Turn
Hold
Enjoy
Move

Avoid
2 Tim 2:19-22
But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal, "The Lord knows those who are his," and "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity."
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

• What sort of situations have defiling effects on our desires?

Romans 13:12-14

The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on  the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh , to gratify its desires.

• Avoid the stimulus and associations that drag us towards lust. 

Blessed are the pure in heart-001

• Jesus is concerned with our heart. It is not enough to clean up our act on the outside.
• The aim of Jesus Christ is not reform the manners of society, but to change the hearts of sinners.
• The heart is what you are, in the secrecy of your thought and feeling, when nobody knows but God.
• What you are at the invisible root matters as much to God as what you are at the visible branch.
• Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
• From the heart are all the issues of life.
• The heart is utterly crucial to Jesus. What we are in the deep, private recesses of our lives is what he cares most about.
• Jesus did not come into the world because we have bad habits that need to be broken. He came into the world because we have such dirty hearts that need to be purified.

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/blessed-are-the-pure-in-heart

God Demonstrates His Love

God shows [demonstrates] his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

Notice that "demonstrates" is present tense and "died" is past tense. God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The present tense implies that this demonstrating is an ongoing act.

The past tense implies that the death of Christ happened once for all and will not be repeated.

Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.
1 Peter 3:18


...suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame...
Romans 5:3-5

(The goal of everything God takes us through is hope. He wants us to feel unwaveringly hopeful through all tribulations).

Suffering >> Endurance >> Character >> Hope

How is that possible?
...because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:5

God's love has been poured into our hearts.
The tense of this verb means that God's love was poured out in our hearts in the past (at our conversion) and is still present and active.

God did demonstrate his love us in giving his own Son to die once for all in the past, for our sins. But he also knows that this past love must be experienced as a present reality if we are to have patience and character and hope.

Therefore, he not only demonstrated it on Cavalry; he goes on demonstrating it now by the Spirit in our hearts. He does this by opening the eyes of our hearts to taste and see the glory of the cross and the guarantee it gives that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Money, Sex, Power

Living in the Light

• All of creation was meant to communicate the supreme beauty and worth of God.
• God created the world for His glory. He created the world so that He would be magnified by the way His creatures find their greatest satisfaction in Him.
• Money, sex, and power exist ultimately to show that God is more to be desired than money, sex, and power.
• Everything hangs on what we value as supreme. What is our highest treasure? What is our greatest satisfaction? When God takes that place in our hearts (of the greatest treasure and satisfaction); then money, sex and power begin to find their true and beautiful order. 

Definitions and Foundations

• Money: not just paper and coins but the pleasures, advantages or status that money can signify.
• Money, sex and power are gifts from God. If they sink us, it's not because they are bad. It's because something happened inside of us to turn instruments of grace into instruments of sin, into altars and incense in the temple of pride.

Notes from John Piper's book: Living in the Light: Money, Sex and Power.

Fake Christians walk in darkness

1 John 1:5-10
This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we have say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we have fellowship with God, it's because we are united with Him in light and therefore cannot walk in darkness.

God is the light. He sent Jesus as the light of the world. Whoever follows Jesus will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Life is given in connection to Jesus and it enables us to see and become.

John 12:36 says that while you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.
When we believe in Jesus, we are enabled to SEE light, and to SHINE with the true light of God.

John 1:14 - and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

• The Pharisees failed to see this light;
• Those who crucified Jesus failed to see this light.

When you see the light, life has come into you.

When you see the light, the glory, you become like it.

1 John 2:8-11

The darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

Love is the expression of the light. We become like the light when we believe in the light. The Light (God) is love. We become like the Light by loving others.

Why were you made?

The Good News of Christianity
We cannot live meaningful lives if we don't know why we were created.

Six Foundational Truths for Understanding the Good News of Christianity

1. God created us for His glory.
2. Therefore, it is our joyful duty to live for His glory.
3. All of us have failed to glorify God as we should.
4. Therefore, we are all dead in our sins and under God's just condemnation.
5. God sent His Son to save sinners and bring them into His eternal joy.
6. All the benefits purchased through Christ's death and resurrection are given to those united to Him through faith.

Glory

• Greatness
• Beauty
• Value

Isaiah 43:5-7
Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by My Name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.

Implications

• That My glory may be known as the greatest treasure
• That My glory be enjoyed as the greatest pleasure
• That My glory be shown as the greatest treasure 
• by being enjoyed as the greatest pleasure and by attitudes and actions that flow from that pleasure in God.

Psalm 115:1 (NIV)
Not to us, LORD, not to us but to Your Name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

Psalm 115:1 (NLT)
Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to Your Name goes all the glory for your unfailing love and faithfulness.

In the Beginning was the Word

• Written for unbelievers and believers alike. As believers, we are to abide in the vine. Believers in Jesus must go on believing.
• The book of John is an eyewitness account.
• It is Divinely inspired.
• "The Word" refers to Jesus Christ.
• John calls Jesus the Word because he had come to see the words of Jesus as the truth of God and the person of Jesus as the truth of God in such a unified way that He is the final and decisive Message of God.
• What God had to say to us was not only or mainly what Jesus said, but who Jesus was and what He did.

A Word for Backsliders

How eager Jesus was to restore broken fellowship with his apostles after the resurrection! Surely this is a sign of how eager he is to restore us when we have drifted (or bolted) away.

All the apostles had forsaken him. In the garden, at his most sorrowful hour, "They all left him and fled." (Mark 14:50).

Now he was raised. What would he say to those who had abandoned him? Three healing things:

1. To Mary at the tomb: "Go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" (John 20:17)...
2. He finds the apostles, stands among them, and says, "Peace be with you." He showed them his hands and his side - horrible reminders of what it cost him when they forsook him. And he says again. "Peace be with you." (John 20:19-21)...
3. To Peter, three times: "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"... [then]... "Feed my lambs." "Tend my sheep." Feed my sheep." (John 21:15-17). I have not given up on you, Peter. You are a shepherd of my sheep. Do you recall that I prayed for you? I told you what was coming. I never let you go. My command was a promise. "When you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." (Luke 22:32)

Jesus was eager to repair the damage that had been done. Eager to forgive, restore, recommission. If you  have forsaken him, let him down, offended him, take heart. He is not less eager to repair things with you. Seek his face. Ask him. Receive his grace...

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Secret to Invincible Joy

Jesus revealed a secret that protects our happiness from the threat of suffering and the threat of success. The secret is this: Great is your reward in heaven. And the sum of that reward is enjoying the fullness of the glory of Jesus Christ. (John 17:24). Christ is my reward

He protects our happiness from suffering when he says,

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
(Matthew 5:11-12)

Our great reward in heaven rescues our joy from the threat of persecution and reviling.

He also protects our joy from success when he says,

Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in ehaven.
(Luke 10:20)

The disciples were tempted to put their joy in ministry success. "Even the demons are subject to us in Your name." (Luke 10:17). But that would have severed their joy from its only sure anchor.
So Jesus protects their joy from the threat of success by promising the great reward of heaven.
Rejoice in this: that your names are written in heaven. Your inheritance is infinite, eternal, sure.

Our joy is safe. Neither suffering nor success can destroy its anchor. Great is your reward in heaven. Your name is written there. It is secure.

Jesus anchored the happiness of suffering saints in the reward of heaven. And he anchored the happiness of successful saints in the same.

And thus he freed us from the tyranny of worldly pain and pleasure.

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