YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT Part 2 VIRTUE

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT Part 2

“Rhythm of Life” Series

CONNECT One summer Alba and were working to make some extra money. I worked on a potato digger. Now this piece of machinery would be dragged behind a tractor through the field where the upturned potato plants would be harvested, the tops cut off and the bulb dropped on a conveyor that ran between two rows of workers. The workers would pull out rocks, weeds, rotten potatoes and other sundry trash. Things would really get exciting when a rattlesnake that had been napping in the shade of a potato plant would come slithering and mad over the conveyor! I’ve never moved that fast in my life!

TENSION Everything in our life has a source. We may be looking for a harvest but instead we get rocks and weeds and rattlesnakes!

SOLUTION We need to do life from the right sources. You are what you eat. Jesus said that “out of our innermost man would flow rivers of living water.”

TEXT 2 Peter 1:5-8 (NKJV) But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

INSTRUCTION You are what you eat. This 8 course meal starts with faith. The next course is virtue. Just what is virtue?

Virtue. Some other translations have moral excellence, goodness, energy, good character, worthiness, praise. All of these are good synonyms. But I believe it is something more.

I believe virtue is the inward witness of the conscience. It is what we are on the inside.

Romans 7:22 (NKJV) For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

Psalms 40:8 (NKJV) I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.

Something inside me… a little voice inside me…

It really is all about the heart. Not the blood pump, but that part of us that determines who we are from the inside out. This old song says it very well…

I guess it all comes down to where your heart is. It's there your thoughts and feelings all begin; but if you never give your heart to Jesus, you’ll never really have a part in Him.

Luke 6:45 (NKJV) A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Whatever is in the well is gonna come up in the bucket!

Mark 7:21-23 (NKJV) For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.

The problem is we have wicked hearts. 

Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV) The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Matthew 15:8 (NKJV) These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.

Titus 1:15-16 (NKJV) To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

God tells that we can come near to Him with a pure heart. We can see Him with a pure heart.

Psalms 24:3-4 (NKJV) Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully.

Matthew 5:8 (NKJV) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

What is a pure heart? How do we know if our heart is pure? How do we get a pure heart?

First, it is a heart that has no mixture, no contamination, no impurity.

Pure gold… pure white…

So many things compete for our affections today… What competes with God in your life?

Deuteronomy 6:5 (NKJV) You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

Second, a pure heart only sees one vision, one focus.

Single-minded… I only have eyes for Jesus…

Matthew 6:22 (KJV) The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

The root of all trouble in the Christian life is being double-minded.

Luke 16:13 (NKJV) No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

James 1:6-8 (NKJV) But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

In his book, Pigs in the Parlor, Pastor Frank Hammond teaches that all demonic oppression stems from a root of schizophrenia, which literally means “a split mind”. The Greek word literally means "two souls".  I am not referring to the clinical mental illness, but a spiritual root. Paul recognized it. He describes it in Romans 7.

Deliverance comes from a pure heart.

James 4:7-8 (NKJV) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

The good news is that God says that He will give us a new heart. This is how the OT prophets describes it.

Jeremiah 31:33-34 (NKJV) But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

Ezekiel 11:19-20 (NKJV) Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

APPLICATION Learning to listen to the virtue that is inside of us, in our hearts, our spirits is so important to walking in victory.

1 Corinthians 10:12-13 NKJV Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

Spiral of Defeat/Victory

Without - Within

Body - Soul - Spirit

External - Internal Trigger

Thought - Revelation

Temptation - Escape

Sin - Victory

Habit - Habit

Stronghold - Deliverance

Demon - Freedom

Isaiah 30:21 (NKJV) Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.