Lawlessness

Psalms 71:17 - Fighting Familiarity
* Familiarity breeds contempt.
* Familiarity - “extensive knowledge of or close association with someone or something leads to a loss of respect for them or it.”
* Familiarity only breeds contempt if

is experienced apart from

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.
*

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- “the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.”
*

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- “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint.”
*

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- “the act or process of conquering.”
* Comfort, apart from a desire for Conquest, leads to Contempt.
* Christ’s hometown shows us this - they were comfortable with Him, but they didn’t want to really know Him.
* The result - they lost out on the

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and

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of God!
* BACKSTORY - David penned this Psalm in his old age.
* Look what he says:
Psalms 71:17 - “O God, You have taught me from my youth, And I still declare Your wondrous deeds.”
* As an old man, after all this time, after all the things God has done in the past, it’s so easy to just get used to it. 
* But David wants his readers to be tourists! Those in constant discovery!
* To be overwhelmed by the whole experience of God and men. 
* To stand in wonder and praise His benevolence. 
* How do you fight off familiarity in your relationships with God and others?
* Think in terms of

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!
* You will never fully conquer, but you are always conquering!
* This is why reading the Bible is so important - it’s keeps you moving up the peak!

1 Corinthians 5:5 - Two Sides of Love
* Love is

with

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.
* You can’t have one without the other.
* Compassion - “to suffer together.”
* Standards - the rules of relationship.
* Paul’s letters open up with fatherly salutations.
* He really feels genuine compassion for the people to whom he’s writing.
* But he showed what true love looked like as well.
* 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 - “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? 3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”
* Tony Evans - “What was the Corinthian church to do (with this man)? They were to gather in the name of our Lord Jesus and with the power of our Lord Jesus, acting on Jesus’s behalf, under his authority, to exercise his kingdom power by handing over this man to Satan—that is, kick him out of the church, so that God’s covenant protection was removed from his life. With that umbrella gone, the man would have no defense against the devil’s schemes. But the goal of this move was not punitive. Rather, the goal was for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. In other words, Paul wants the man to be driven to repentance and even allows the devil to be used as the instrument to accomplish this so that the man could be delivered from this sin before facing Christ’s judgment seat.”
* This was Paul exercising the “standards” side of love.
* But then he went right back to compassion.
* 2 Corinthians 2:6-8 - “The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.”