All right, tonight we're going to be doing another open study. If you want to find this study later on our sermon audio page, it will be open study number 92. And I've got two excellent questions tonight. I think we'll have time to cover both of these. So let me just jump right in. The first question is this, if a man and a woman are committed to one another exclusively, why is premarital sex wrong? And in parentheses they put theologically and pragmatically. So certainly it's an important question to ask. I like the way they asked it. Super important in our current time, our current cultural circumstance, because of what I can only describe as a fading biblical worldview in our culture. And because of the culture moving further and further away from the principles of God's Word, you know, we see more and more violations in cultural, just normal and accepted cultural practice of what the Lord says should not be done and certainly that is absolutely the case in regards to sexual activity in our culture. They separated their question into two categories and I like their categories. They asked for a theological answer to the question and a pragmatic answer to the question. Pragmatic, just in case you're not clear, just simply means practical. So what we're looking for is a really a biblical response to, you know, if we consider the principles of God's Word and then a practical response in terms of we're not really taking into consideration what's revealed in God's Word as we answer that question. So there are different answers then if we're going to separate the answers into those two categories. I'll say it this way. I'll just give you the straight answer for both categories and then we'll develop the categories a little bit. In terms of theological, biblical perspective, if you have two people that are not married, but they are sane to each other, we are committed to each other exclusively in relationship. Is premarital sex still wrong? And from a theological, biblical perspective, yes, it's wrong. Yes, it's sin. And it always is in that context. I'll give us some principles from God's Word to support that and to develop that in just a moment. Pragmatically, though, and this, you know, when you first hear me say this, it may sound It may sound challenging to your perspective, but I'll try to explain what I mean by it. Practically speaking, pragmatically speaking, if we're not taking into account the revealed principles of God's Word, then I would say premarital sex is not wrong. But it is unwise, even for those who do not know the Lord and are not walking with him. But ultimately, only the theological perspective really matters. But since they asked the question from both perspectives, I'm going to try to answer it from both perspectives. So let's tackle the first one, the pragmatic perspective first, in that I'm saying, from a practical perspective, The choice to indulge in premarital sexual relations even in an exclusively identified relationship is not wrong, but it is unwise if we're not taking into account theological concerns, which is a good way to consider it because our culture that surrounds us for the most part isn't taking into account theological concerns. It's not considering the Bible. How many young people, and it's not just young people, it's not limited to young people anymore, older people cross these lines as well, but of course because Youth is a time of energy, and that certainly applies in the sexual arena. We could say there's more expression of this at a younger age. But when young people today, or older people, whoever is intending to cross these lines, as they're considering, okay, we are in an exclusive relationship, we're not married, we're not going to make that level of commitment, but we're saying to each other, I belong only to you, you belong only to me, and we're not going to have these kinds of intimate relationships with anyone else except each other. Do you think people that are in that situation today are stopping before they make the final decision whether to go forward or not and thinking, yeah, but what does the Bible say about that? And the answer to that is only people that self-identify as Christians are going to even consider that anymore. There was a time in our culture, I grew up in a time in our culture, where my family were not believers. My family that I was raised in identified as atheist. But biblical principles and biblical standards were accepted in the culture as a whole. And it was considered, even in my family, to be wrong to cross those lines, even though there was no biblical foundation for that that my family adhered to. It was just a matter of, in society, you don't cross those lines. And of course, then the 60s came. I was born in the mid-50s. The 60s came. And somewhere around the mid-60s, 1960s, there was an event that later became known as the sexual revolution. And essentially, it was an intentional movement within the culture, within the society, to move away from the standards of Scripture, to disconnect from the Bible and its principles, and to choose to experience life on people's own terms, meaning whatever seems right to you is right. We're not considering any higher authority. We're not considering any moral standard imposed upon you from outside of your own heart and your own preferences. So in a situation like that, purely practical and pragmatic. I'm saying it's, in that context, hard to convince someone in that situation that premarital sex is wrong. But I do think you can make a strong case to help them to understand that it remains unwise for them to make that choice. And I think there are strong reasons for that. These are not necessarily going to be attached to chapter and verse. I think they'll be evident just on the surface of the significance of these principles. First, health factor. the more sexual activity there is. And even if two people are saying to each other, we're exclusively committed only to each other, there's no guarantee that there has been a prior exclusivity or a saving of oneself only for this new exclusive relationship. There's oftentimes prior sexual relationship with others before entering into even an exclusive sexual relationship with someone else. And as a result, in our society today, what are known as STDs, sexually transmitted diseases, are more and more prevalent. The more activity there is, the more prevalent the physical and biological consequences of that kind of activity is going to be more prevalent. And once certain STDs, this applies more than others, there's obviously treatment for all of them medically. some once contracted are lifelong in their effect on a person's health profile. For that reason alone, I would say it would be wise not to do so. Second, this one is pretty obvious. There's the pregnancy factor. Many people that enter into an exclusive sexually intimate relationship with each other aren't necessarily looking to start a family. If they were, they most likely would get married. And of course, with that kind of frequency of sexual relationship, pregnancy is a you know, is a real possibility, and unwanted pregnancies, of course, are going to only complicate their lives. Third, this one's an interesting one, but it's a real one, and it's more psychological and emotional than it is spiritual, though there is a spiritual component to this. Once there has been prior sexual relationship and then a new relationship is started, there's the reality of a comparison factor, meaning a framework of comparing your current experience to your previous experience, or comparing your current experience with your, at least, at the very least, your anticipation and expectation of what that experience is going to be like for you. And in that comparison factor, it will have, especially if there's been prior activity, it will have a definite impact on the quality of the relationship that you're currently involved in. And then the fourth factor, health factor, pregnancy factor, comparison factor, is the nature of the commitment factor. So the question was framed this way. If a man and woman are committed to one another exclusively, why is premarital sex wrong, at least from a pragmatic standpoint is all we're looking at so far. So what is the nature of we're committed to each other exclusively? You can be committed to someone exclusively for a day and then the day ends and the commitment ends with the day. You can be committed to someone for as long as I have the same feelings for you that I did when I made the commitment. Right? How common is this in our culture? many, many examples I could give. But I'll use this one because I remember growing up as a young person, and my parents were enamored with certain movie stars. And one in particular was one of their favorite movie stars. Her name was Elizabeth Taylor. She's died subsequently. And I don't know the exact number. I don't know her the final tally. But she was married something like, eight or nine times, something like that. Yeah. Multiple times. And her personal description of when she was asked as to why she had been married so often is she fell into love with the people that she married. And then somewhere along the line, and just the difficulty of living with the people that she married, she fell out of love with those same people. And as far as she was concerned, and she was actually getting married. She wasn't just making an exclusive commitment outside of marriage. She was getting married even in the marriage commitment because she had no true heart relationship with the Lord to guide her and to restrain her and to instruct her and to change her really from the inside out. She was approaching those relationships from a purely natural perspective. And so as soon as she fell out of love with one, as far as she was concerned, that was the end of her commitment. And so she left the relationship, and she looked to start others. And it just developed, in her case, in a serial way until she reached such a large number of, quote unquote, exclusive commitments. Now, that's within the context of a marriage. How much more is that potentially an issue when there is no marriage commitment? There's just a declaration of exclusivity between the two people that are entering into that kind of relationship. So the idea of, I'm in an exclusive relationship with you, therefore, You know, I want to enjoy this aspect of physical relationship with you, I think is certainly unwise because it doesn't take into account whether or not that commitment is true and real, and certainly whether or not that commitment is lasting. And if it's intended to be a lasting relationship, my question to that person would be, then why not get married? If you're making an exclusive lifelong commitment to that person, what is the reason why you're choosing not to actually solidify that in a marriage ceremony. All right, so that's just from a pragmatic perspective. But as I mentioned before, only the theological perspective ultimately matters. The reason the theological perspective is the only one that ultimately matters is because we don't live in a purely pragmatic world. We don't live in a purely pragmatic universe. The universe didn't just pragmatically spring into existence on its own. And because it pragmatically sprang into existence on its own, therefore we living in this pragmatic universe are free to define our lives pragmatically however we choose to define them. We live in a spiritual universe. It's spiritual because of its source and because of its origin point. This universe is a created universe. This world that we live in is a created world and the human race is a created race of beings that were created for special purpose. And because of that, we live in a In a circumstance of accountability to the one who made all of those things. So the bottom line is God created men and women and he created them for intimacy. Not excluding sexual intimacy, he created us for the experience of sexual intimacy, but of course within the context of a biblically defined and God-honoring relationship that we call marriage. Now, In the marriage covenant, in the marriage commitment, in the marriage relationship, God intended there to be the experience of physical intimacy as well as other expressions of intimacy, relational intimacy, emotional intimacy. But that experience of physical sexual intimacy was intended by the Lord to be pleasurable and he made it in such a way and designed our bodies in such a way as to be fully capable of enjoying a high level of pleasure in that context. But it's all in the context of how God defines that experience should be enjoyed, not in the context of how we choose to access it and enjoy it. outside of his principles, outside of what he's revealed. I'll just reference Song of Solomon. We won't turn there and read any portion of it. I think you're well familiar with it. It's a love story that has a practical element to it, and it has a spiritual element to it. For a couple of years ago, I went with the women's study through the Song of Solomon. Those are all available on our sermon audio page if you want to re-listen to them or listen for the first time. But the whole point of the Song of Solomon, it's not entirely a song about relational intimacy and the physical, sexual aspect of that relationship but that is a main thread running throughout the book and it just to me is a strong testimony the fact that the Lord caused one of the books of the Bible to be primarily focused on this aspect and on this element of our lives and our experience of intimacy and relationship is a testimony to the Lord's intention and purpose for us in that context. But the Lord has clearly in His revealed Word, I'll use the term fenced, like creating a boundary for protection purposes. He has fenced that experience within the context of a specific kind of commitment that is greater than two unmarried people saying to each other, we're just going to share this experience with each other, but we can't really know for certain that we're really bonded, really committed to each other. We're just going to say that we are, and then we're going to jump that line, and we're going to enjoy that experience together. So the fence that God has erected around this experience of sexual intimacy is what we identify as marriage, and we identify it rightly so as a covenant experience that creates a covenant bond. Now, there's several passages that we could read along these lines, but let's start in Matthew chapter 19. And this is from the teaching ministry of the Lord Jesus. And this is where he was approached by Pharisees. They weren't really looking for understanding as they approached him. They weren't really looking to learn anything from him as a master teacher. But they asked a question in order to test him. They were trying to, as we discovered in our studies through the Gospel of Matthew, they were trying to trip him up in public to see if they could get him to misspeak or get him to misrepresent the law of God in some way that they could then point fingers at him and say, see, he's no trustworthy teacher. But as often happened in these exchanges, actually every time that they had these kind of exchanges, their intention was frustrated when they asked the question and he answered with a wisdom beyond their ability to comprehend that he possessed. So we're going to read here. This is actually a teaching, a clarification teaching about divorce, because that's what they were asking him about. But the principles apply to this question that we're considering as well. So I'm going to start reading from Matthew 19 verse 3. It says, And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? He answered, Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female. So clearly, Jesus is referencing, He's, they're confronting Him to trip Him up, and He turns the tables and actually confronts them. And he asks a thoroughly embarrassing question of them. The embarrassing question was, have you not read? And then he makes a reference to what they should have read and should have been well familiar with. Now, the reality is what he was referencing was the scriptures. He was referencing specifically, of course, the book of Genesis. And all of these Pharisees that were confronting him that day had certainly read the book of Genesis, most likely had read it many, many times in their life before this conversation. But his question pointed out something that they were blind to, and it exposed them in a way they weren't anticipating. What was it that it exposed? They had read Genesis many times, but what? failed to understand what was actually revealed in the book. So he says, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? So even in his basic response clarifying their question about divorce, he brings it back to the starting point of how I'm attempting to answer the theological component of this question, which is it ultimately comes down to God as creator. Have you not read? He who created them made them male and female. So whatever happens with this male and this female from the point of their creation forward is really a function of what God set in motion. Therefore, to answer any question rightly about this man and this woman, we need to first take into account and consideration the one who made them. Because he made them a certain way, he made them with a certain design in mind, he made them with certain purposes for them in mind, and he made them with a certain pattern of behavior to follow in mind. And to not consider the Creator as we answer even a practical question of morality is to miss the big point, and to fail to understand the right perspective about that question. So he said, have you not read that he created them from the beginning, made them male and female, and said, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." And they said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? This is from a passage later in Deuteronomy 24, where there was an allowance in the law for divorce under a certain set of circumstances. And his answer is, this is why the Lord placed that law in the book of Deuteronomy. Not because the Lord was encouraging divorces. We learn later in the prophets that the Lord actually hates divorce and never intended human beings who marry to get divorced. But he did allow it because, as he explains in verse 8, of your hardness of heart. Therefore, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." All right, so the reason I read this passage, even though it has a primary application to the question of divorce, It also speaks to the nature of any two individuals, whether they know the Lord or not, they're still human beings that were made by God, created by Him for His purposes. And that aspect of the possibility of how they relate to each other in a physical way is meant to be experienced in the way that God defines, the way that God ordains, and the way that God commands. And to disregard His revealed Word and His will and His commands in that relationship is to purchase for yourself consequences that you do not want to experience. And so this is why he uses terminology of command and then the warning toward the end of this section of consequences that will be set in motion when those commands are disregarded. Now, let's turn from there to the book of 1 Corinthians 6, and we'll get a perspective from the apostle Paul now. to add to the perspective of what the Lord Jesus was speaking about. This is a little bit different situation now. Paul is writing to a Greek church that was situated in a Greek city. These are people that were not raised under the understanding of the revealed law of God, the law of Moses. They were raised in a Greek culture that was given over, not to the extent that our culture is, to what is described in Scripture as sexual immorality, as simply any sexual experience that's outside the boundaries of God's ordained commandments and principles. And so this was a city and a culture that was given over to sexual immorality, just not to the same extent that our current culture and society is. But it was an issue in that culture. And the city of Corinth, which is where this church was situated, happened to be, of all of the known Greek cities at that time in those days, happened to be the worst offenders of these sexual principles. to commit sexual immorality became known in Greek culture as to Corinthianize. You know, it would be like saying, I'm trying to think of an analogy from our current culture. It would be like if, because of modern media, because of the influence of movies, for instance, in Hollywood, it would be like saying if two people were having sexual immorality experience with each other, it would be like saying they were They were doing Hollywood, or they were living out the Hollywood lifestyle. That's the kind of circumstance that the Corinthians were living in. And so Paul the Apostle has come to this city. He's proclaimed the gospel there. There are several within the city that have responded to the gospel and believed it, and they've been changed by it. They've been born again. Paul has organized them into a church. He's established the church, and now he's moved on to other cities in order to continue to preach the gospel elsewhere. But he stays in contact with the church, and he's receiving reports about what's going on with the church. And in this case, they've written him questions about some of the experiences that they're struggling with and dealing with living in the Corinthian culture. And one of the big issues for them is this. There was a large, there were many temples within the city of Corinth that were dedicated to various Greek gods, gods with, of course, lowercase g. But the largest and most well-attended temple in the city of Corinth was a temple dedicated to Aphrodite. Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love and sexuality. And so what was happening is some of the men of the New Corinthian Christian Church were going to church on Sundays and proclaiming their allegiance to the Lord, and living the Christian life. But at different times during the week, they would also visit the Corinthian temple dedicated to Aphrodite. And they were saying to themselves, and there were some leaders in the church that were teaching them this, that as long as you don't swear allegiance to Aphrodite, there's nothing wrong with you going just for social connection reasons and participating in the activities of the temple there. It just so happens that the largest activity in the temple was that as you would go and make an offering to the honor of Aphrodite, it was commonplace to pay a fee, which was like giving a financial gift to the temple, and then there would be, you know, a private room that would be set aside for having sexual relations with one of the priestesses of the temple. And so, this was happening in the case of many of the men of the Corinthian church. And so, let's read Paul's addressing of that issue, starting in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 12. He writes, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Now he's going to make a comment here about food, but he's not talking about food. He's using food and the stomach as a way to introduce the principle about sexual immorality that he wants to get across to them. He says, food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food. and God will destroy both one and the other. The body and this is by way of contrast now, is not meant for sexual immorality. He's not saying the body is not meant for sexual intimacy. He's saying the body is not meant for sexual immorality, crossing lines and enjoying the experience without the covenant commitment of marriage as the protective fence around that experience. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies Your physical bodies are members of Christ. Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?" And here he's re-identifying the temple priestesses because they didn't literally identify themselves as prostitutes. They had a more exalted identification. We are priestesses of Aphrodite. Here Paul is is relabeling them and calling their activity what it actually is. It's just an exalted form of prostitution. He says, shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Answer, never, or it should never be this way. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute, and he's talking about joined sexually, he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her, for it is written, and here he references Genesis chapter 2, when the Lord brought Adam and Eve together for the first time. For it is written, the two will become one flesh." Now what's interesting about this comment and this reference by Paul is when Adam and Eve were brought together, they were brought together in a covenant bond of marriage and their sexual intimacy created a new condition between the two of them, a new and redefined relationship called a one flesh relationship. But what Paul says here is, interestingly, though that aspect of intimacy, physical intimacy, was only intended by the Lord to be experienced in the bond of marriage, nevertheless, if you separate that from marriage, if you separate the sexual intimacy from marriage, it still produces a deep and lasting impact on the relationship between the two people that are engaged in such sexual activity. So even though these men from the church are not marrying these temple prostitutes, Nevertheless, they are forming one flesh relationships with them. So it's a it's a perversion of the original intention of the Lord for the one flesh relationship. So he says, Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her, for it is written, the two will become one flesh? But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Conclusion, now he doesn't use the word conclusion, I'm just adding that in. Verse 18, flee from sexual immorality. And how do we determine, how do we define what is sexually moral from what is sexually immoral? What is sexually moral is what is experienced within the confines and the protections of the fencing of the covenant bond of marriage. And what is sexually immoral is outside that fence. Any sexual activity outside of that fence is a violate with another person is a violation of that principle. It really ultimately a perversion of that principle that's only meant to be experienced within the context of that marriage bond. And then this statement, flee from sexual immorality. Every, and this is maybe a A not emphasized enough passage for those that desperately need to hear it in our culture today. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God. in your body. And of course, that is the ultimate conclusion of the answer to that question. All right. So there's obviously more that could be said on this. But for the sake of our open study, I think that's enough time spent on that first pair of questions about about premarital sex. Let's move on to our second question for tonight. I think we have just enough time to address that and cover that as well. This one is going to touch the first one. It's not exactly the same question, of course, but certainly for young believers would have a relationship to the first question. But it's just a broader question than the first one was. So the second question is this, how can a Christian help an immature believer develop a taste for holiness. So that the scenario in the question is, You have a more mature believer who's connected to some extent with a less mature believer in Christian fellowship. And the more mature one is desiring to help the younger one grow in the Lord and specifically grow by developing a personal taste for holiness. And I think what they mean by the phrasing taste for holiness is a desire for it. Just like we taste good food and that initial taste gives us a kind of creates a greater hunger to consume more of that food. Tasting God's holiness in such a way as to develop a greater hunger to grow in the holiness that God wants us to grow in. So I'm going to say this. It's a great question. I've never been asked this question before. So I appreciate the opportunity to answer it. I don't think the Bible very specifically answers the question, but it does certainly, the various principles of God's Word do certainly address the question. So I'm going to try to answer the question three ways, and I'm going to connect these three, it's a three-part answer. I'm going to connect it to what I'm going to describe as the three stages of growth in our sanctification. As we are saved, as we're born again, as we've come to know the Lord, the Lord describes, and we've been talking a lot about this recently with Steve's emphasis in our systematic theology study. I did a kind of a mini-series on Sunday morning along the same lines. We've been talking about everything that takes place between the day we're born again and the day We have our last breath in this world and we go to be with the Lord. So everything between new birth and death is sanctification. It's growing in the Lord and it's progressing in maturity to become ultimately by the Lord's purpose more and more like the Son of God. and to make progress in that, to become progressively more and more like him. In the book of 1 John, and I won't turn us to read again, we've studied this in some detail when David took us through 1 John. He covered this in a really effective way. But in 1 John 2, verses 12 through 14, John lays out a perspective in which I'm convinced, David presented it this way, that the Christian life is described using three designations of stages of maturity. And those three designations in the passage are children in the Lord, young men in the Lord, and fathers in the Lord. And when we use the term fathers, don't think gender specific. This only applies to males. Just think of fathers as a stage of maturity. So you enter into the natural world as a child. Then as you grow and develop, you become a young person. And then eventually you grow into full maturity. And full adulthood and all of the responsibilities that come with that, including starting your own family and parenthood as a result. So we have these three stagings or these three categories of personal maturity. So in terms of helping a younger believer who would be in what category of those three? The first category. They're children in the Lord. To help them to grow and to develop a stronger, and hopefully stronger and stronger, taste for God's holiness, I think there are perspectives that apply to each one of those three stages. And I'm going to present them. necessarily exclusive. One of them is more than the other two, but these are not exclusively biblical terms, but they are biblical concepts and principles. The first is we're going to focus on the personal benefit of holiness. Second, we're going to focus on the calling that God gives us to holiness. And third, we're going to focus on the relational aspect of holiness. And I think the benefit focus applies to children. The calling focus applies to young people in the Lord who have made some significant progress, but they're not at full maturity in the Lord yet. And then finally, those who are at full maturity, there needs to be this deeper relational focus of their personal relationship to God in His holiness. All right, so the benefit focus means this. When a child is brought into the world, and good parents, we're talking about good parents of course, good parents want to raise that child in the right way. What's one of the first things as the child grows from the very beginning stages of the earliest of infancy, and the child begins now, we're talking about a one-year-old child maybe. maybe a two-year-old child at the most, and they're able to now begin to be taught certain things. What are the first things you teach a child when they're one year old, when they're two years old? You begin to teach them the very basics of right and wrong. You begin to teach them the very basics of do this, don't do that. You begin to teach them using key words like yes and No. And you attach significance to those key words. And the significance that you attach to yes is that when they are doing what they should be doing and what the good parent wants them to do, you attach their good response to that instruction. You attach reward. to their doing the right thing. You give them the experience of a benefit so that you're reinforcing in their very beginnings of understanding the difference between some things are better in life to do than other things. Some things are right and some things are wrong. And to help them to really get it when they do the right thing, you want to reward them in that. The Lord is, for his people, a rewarder of righteous behavior and obedient behavior. And he does that to help us to make progress, to develop a taste for doing what is right in his eyes on a more consistent basis. But what happens when the child does what's wrong? Do you just wait until the next time they do what's right and just reward them even more? What if they cross the line and test the strength and the integrity of your no instruction? And they, you know how a child can be, they can cross that no line and then even look you in the eye to see whether or not you're going to do anything about them crossing that line. Now, a good parent will attach what? to that violation of that no line, they will attach some immediate consequence to that child's experience. Why? Because just like you reward them for good and righteous behavior, you reinforce in their hearts by the strength of the consequence, you have to wisely choose what degree and what kind of consequence for each wrong behavior. I don't think there should be the exact same consequence for every behavior that is violated. But whenever there is a stubborn, disobedient, willful decision by that child to cross that line, there needs to be some consequence that's set in motion. So let me give you just a couple of passages. I'm going to just give a couple of passages for each of these principles. The first one, let's look at Matthew, Chapter 5. And of course this should be well familiar to us, this is from a portion that we call the Beatitudes. It's the great discipleship teaching that Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount, and He introduced it by this set of declarations of how God intends to bless His disciples. And they're wonderful, the Beatitudes. And they all start with the word blessed. But he attaches, or connects, the blessing. And blessing, in this case, is something that God chooses to pour out upon your life that is a favorable thing that he pours out upon your life. You will experience it in your heart. You'll experience it in your mind, and often experience it in your actual practical life circumstances. When does God pour out such blessings upon his people, upon his disciples? When they're good and obedient and walking in righteousness as he wants them to walk. So we've got a whole list of these. I'm not going to read the whole list. I just chose one. Verse 6, Jesus teaching, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the person that is developing a taste, hungering and thirsting. Blessed is the one that's developing a taste for doing what's right in God's eyes, which is an expression of personal holiness. And when we are developing that taste to walk in a greater way and holiness in this world, as the true followers of the Lord, the Lord says, I am going to pour out a greater blessing on that person. And he will choose to withhold that greater blessing from someone that is not hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Now, to combine with that, let's turn over to Romans chapter six. And these passages I'm giving, they should be well familiar to you, but it maybe will strike a little bit differently now in the context of our study. Romans 6, a single verse, 23. For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The wages of sin, what's the imagery created by this phrase, the wages of sin? That means that when you sin, it's like you're going to work. You're just working on the wrong thing in the wrong way for the wrong reasons. But when you go to work, you expect to get paid, don't you? Whenever you're working for someone, you are expecting at the end of your work time to have a remuneration, to have a reward for your work that is appropriate for the work that you've done. What the Lord wants us to know from Romans 6.23 is that when we sin, we're working, we're just working, again, doing the wrong thing in the wrong way for the wrong reasons, and there is a wage, there is a reward, But it's a negative reward that's attached to that effort, to that work of sin. And it is what we call consequence. So when we do what's right in the Lord's eyes, developing a taste for holiness, the Lord blesses us. He causes us to experience a greater benefit so that we're more motivated to want more of that. And when we cross the line that we shouldn't cross, he then brings consequence upon our lives so that we learn from what is called in psychology, this isn't a, first and foremost, it's not a psychological principle, it's a spiritual principle, but in psychology it's called negative reinforcement. where there is this experience that is negative at the moment you're crossing the wrong line. And as a result, you learn things about the choice that you previously made. The whole story of the Garden of Eden and the crossing the line with the tree that should never have been crossed. And then as a result, the Lord shows up and holds both Adam and Eve and the serpent accountable. And then there is a consequence. a permanent consequence that's attached to their violation, and they're ultimately ejected from the garden into a changed world experience. Their entire life experience because of one violation because it was such a significant violation, has permanently been changed. And not just for them, but their children's experience of the world has changed, and their children's children's experience all the way down to you and I, and that is negative reinforcement at the highest level. So, the first thing I would do with a young believer to help them to develop a taste for holiness is to just teach them the principle that God rewards righteousness and he brings consequence upon sin. And it's to your enlightened benefit to commit to the one and avoid the other. All right, second principle, as they're growing in the Lord, they're becoming well established in that first principle. There's a higher level, though, of our appreciation for the holiness of God. And that higher level is what I'm going to call a calling focus. And that is that we are called by the Lord to live a life of holiness from the standpoint of we have a spiritual duty to do so. And those that are righteously motivated by a sense of the responsibility God has placed upon our shoulders. And this is ultimately tied to our creation. It's tied to the purpose of the Lord in creating us. We were made as human beings to be bearers of God's image. representing his likeness in the world. And of course, his image is an image of holiness. His likeness is a likeness of holiness. And so we are called to that. Let me give you two passages and I'm going to read these with a little bit less explanation because I think this is a little bit more obvious. Exodus chapter 19. Key moment in Israel's history, they were, as we're about to read, they were just delivered by Moses under the Lord's direction from the land of Egypt. They've crossed the Red Sea. They've experienced the miracles of the Lord. The Lord brings them to the foot of Mount Sinai. Moses is about to go to the summit of Mount Sinai. and meet with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights to receive the revelation of the law. But just before he leaves the camp at the foot of the mountain to go to the summit, the Lord reveals this. We're going to read from Exodus 19, verse, I'll start in verse four. This is the Lord speaking to Moses. You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians. and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession." Meaning that which is most precious to him in all that he possesses. And what does the Lord possess? What does the Lord own? He owns everything. He created everything, therefore He owns it all. But of all that He owns in the entire created universe, His covenant people will take on a new identity as His most cherished possession. But it's an if-then kind of statement. There's a condition attached. He says, If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. He's redefining their identity as a people. He's redefining their identity as individuals. And he's saying, you will be. I'm calling you to be. I am appointing you to be. This is my great purpose for you. You're going to be. my treasured possession, you're going to be a kingdom of priests, meaning you have a special assignment within and under my authority, and you will be a holy nation." So that their core identity, the first thing that they think about when they think about themselves as a nation is a holy nation. Every nation on the face of the Earth has some way of identifying itself. among and distinguishing itself among all the other nations of the earth. And different things are chosen by different nations to focus on. The one thing that the Lord wanted his holy nation to be identified with is this concept of holiness, a developing understanding of the significance and importance of holiness above all other spiritual qualities. If we are going to walk as the true people representing the Lord in this world. A second passage along those same lines, 1 Peter. I think we'll have just enough time to finish this here. 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 14. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy. in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy." This is the emphasis that Peter makes for those who are growing in their relationship to the Lord. He's saying this concept of God's holiness is now a calling that's upon your life. It's not just that the people of God have a relationship to a truly holy God, but they live continuously flawed lives in this world. And the truth is we are flawed, but we are called to a greater and greater expression of the holiness that God himself lives in by nature. That is to be to greater and greater degree and extent progressively imprinted upon us so that we more and more reflect that in the way that we live. And as Peter describes it in all of our conduct. So that's a that's a broad category. Holiness applies to every way that we conduct ourselves in this world. Alright, the last principle, as someone is truly, truly growing in the Lord, and they're reaching full maturity, it's not that, okay, we leave the concept of holiness behind, and that's just for immature believers to focus on, or young people in the Lord to focus on. The more we mature in the Lord, the more important holiness should become in our perspective. The whole emphasis Peter makes in the passage I read is that he calls them to holiness, but only by first highlighting that he who called you is holy. It's as we grow in our relationship with the Lord, we grow into a greater appreciation and understanding of how significant God's holiness is as identifying and defining His Divine nature. Now, I think this is beautifully, I won't take the time, we're out of time. I won't take the time to take us back to Exodus, Chapter 3, Verses 1 through 6, when God first appeared to Moses in order to call him to the great assignment to deliver Israel from Egypt and bring them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. You know the story as the Lord appeared to Moses in the miracle of the bush that was burning with the glory presence of the Lord, but not being consumed because the Lord himself was in the midst of this burning bush. And the Lord called to Moses from this burning bush as he turned aside to see the sight of its burning. And what did the Lord say to Moses? Take the sandals off of your feet. for the place where you're standing is holy ground. Now, why was that place holy ground? That place was holy ground for one reason and one reason only. It was holy ground because the Lord was making himself known in that place, and the Lord himself is an entirely holy being. The more we grow in our relationship and our understanding with the Lord, the more our perspective is going to focus on the holiness of God, and hopefully there will be a corresponding development of an even greater taste for God's holiness. My favorite expression of this, and we've studied this in detail, so I don't have to take us back to the passage, but from Revelation chapter 4, when John is first brought into the heavenly throne room and he first sees the one who sits upon the throne in heaven, and he sees the living beings that are flying around the throne of God, the cherubim, and they're full of eyes, and they're beholding, because they're full of eyes, the glorious one that's sitting upon the throne, and they're making a specific declaration, and this is their job, and they declare this day and night in an unending way, not repetitive in the sense of, you know, I'm tired of saying this, but repetitive in the sense of each time they look with their bodies that are filled with eyes more fully at the one who is sitting upon the throne, they're stirred in a fresh declaration that has new meaning each time they say it. And what they declare is what? About the one who sits upon the throne. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the one who was and who is and who is to come. There is this declaration in the fullness of the revealed presence of God enthroned in Heaven that His holiness is a quality that in one sense supersedes all other qualities of His. I don't want to set one quality of the Lord against the other, because they're all divine qualities, but it's the one that is highlighted, and it's the one that God causes those beings to see and to responsibly declare. And so, that's the fullness of maturity, and even someone that's been walking with the Lord for many years, can develop an even greater sense and a greater taste for God's holiness by considering the one who sits glorified upon his throne in the same way that those heavenly beings see him. So I hope that helps to understand how we can help immature believers develop an even greater taste for God's holiness. I hope that was helpful to you. And again, next Thursday, no Bible study. We'll hope to see you in two weeks from today as David gets back to our study through the book of Esther. God bless you.