Sin Shaped or God Shaped?

Genesis 2
²⁵ Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

Genesis 3
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
² “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied.
³ “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
⁴ “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman.
⁵ “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
⁶ The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.
⁷ At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

• Review: Three Enemies of the Soul
  John 8
  ⁴⁴ For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.

• Temptation is “the appeal to believe a lie, to believer an illusion about reality.”
  Thomas Aquinas is credited with laying out ‘the Three Enemies of the Soul’ as
  The World, The Flesh, and The Devil.

• Though this phrasing does not appear in that sequence anywhere in Scripture, the correlation and causation of lying ideas about God and us humans is plainly ‘in play’ between and among these three agencies.

• Deceptive Ideas – The Devil

• Disordered Desires – The Flesh
• Sinful Society – The world

2 Corinthians 2.11
Do not be unaware of the devil’s schemes.

James 1
¹² God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
¹³ And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else.
¹⁴ Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.
¹⁵ These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.

James 4
⁵ Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.
⁶ And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
⁷ So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
⁸ Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.

2 Corinthians 10
³ We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do.
⁴ We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.
⁵ We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

Romans 12.2
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
₃ Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are.

1 Corinthians 1.30
God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.

Definitions: Comer - Live No Lies p.188
“The Flesh - our base, primal, animalistic drives for self-gratification, especially as pertains to sensuality and survival.
The Spirit - God’s empowering presence in us.
Freedom in modern Western use - the permission to do whatever (the hell) we want.
Freedom in the New Testament - the power to want and do what is good. (Phil. 2.13; see ‘The Spirit’.)
Love in the modern Western use - desire; often sexual desire,
Love in the New Testament - the compassionate commitment of the heart to delight in the soul of another and to will that person’s good ahead of your own, no matter the cost to yourself.”

• The law of returns (Reaping and Sowing) - every action has a reaction, and those reactions are often disproportionate to the action.

• Key Texts For Prayer and Thought: Galatians 5-6; Romans 8.1-13; 1 Peter 2.9-22

• Working Theory of the Devil’s strategy: deceitful, evil ideas that play to disordered desires that are normalized in a sinful society.

• Working theory of the law of returns (Reaping and Sowing) applied to spiritual formation: sow a though, reap an action; so action, reap another action; so some actions, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; so a character, reap a destiny, either in slavery to sin, the world, the flesh and the devil OR freedom in the Holy Spirit.

• Working theory of how we fight the flesh: We feed our spirits and starve our flesh by practicing habits laid down by Jesus.

Practices - Making My Schedule (My Life) Fit to God:

• Prayer - Lord, teach us to pray:
  Matthew 6.7-13
  ⁷ “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.
  ⁸ Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!
  ⁹ Pray like this:
  Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
  ¹⁰ May your Kingdom come soon.
  May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
  ¹¹ Give us today the food we need,
  ¹² and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
  ¹³ And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

• Guided Prayer by the Holy Spirit:
  Romans 8
  ²⁶ And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.
  ²⁷ And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

John 16
¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.
¹⁴ He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’

• How does Jesus pray for us? Look at John 17!!

John 14.26
But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

Ephesians 1
¹⁵ Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere,
¹⁶ I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly,
¹⁷ asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.
¹⁸ I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
¹⁹ I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power
²⁰ that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.

• The Pause App
• Wildatheart.org “Prayers”
• Lectio App

• The Word of God, Fellowship, and Community:
  Acts 2
  All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

• Prayer in community will look like Philippians 4.2-9 - correct, godly relationships, embrace reality, fixed faith and unreserved trust in God.

• Fasting:

Matthew 6
¹⁶ “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.
¹⁷ But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. 18 Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

• Confession; Connects prayer to confession
  James 5:13-18
  ¹³ Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises.
  ¹⁴ Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.
  ¹⁵ Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.
  ¹⁶ Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
  ¹⁷ Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!
  ¹⁸ Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

Comer:
“As we practice these habits over time, we not only grow our own willpower muscles but, more importantly, we open our minds and bodies to a power that is beyond us - that of God’s Spirit.
…
“In summary: The devil’s deceitful ideas are ot random; they appeal to our disordered desires, or what the NT writers call ‘the flesh’. The flesh is our animal side, the primal instinctual drives of self-gratification and self - preservation. The solution is not to white-knuckle our way through but to live by the Spirit via practices that enable us to draw on the power of God to live in freedom.”

Galatians 5
¹⁶ So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.
¹⁷ The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.

Philippians 2
¹² Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.
¹³ For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
¹⁴ Do everything without complaining and arguing,
¹⁵ so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.

“The call to follow Jesus was and still is a call to join his community
of the Way. And by following Jesus together, not alone, we are able to
1) discern Jesus’ truth from the devil’s lies,
2) help one another override our flesh by the Spirit, and
3) form a robust community of deep relationships that functions as a
counterculture to the world.
In doing so, we’re able to resist the gravitational pull of all three
enemies of the soul.”
But here’s a crucial idea we need to recapture in our generation: the
church is a counterculture. It is a ‘beautiful resistance’ to the world
and its vision of life of rebellion against God.”