Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the transformative power of God's grace and the necessity of a new heart in his sermon, 'Gentiles Seek Things - Sons Seek God's Kingdom - No Part Darkness - Part 4 - A New Heart.' He highlights that true change comes not from mere behavioral modification but from a deep, inward transformation that aligns our hearts with God's will. The sermon calls for believers to seek a heart of meekness and brokenness, recognizing that only through God's grace can we reflect the character of Christ. Beach encourages the congregation to stop wrestling with outward behaviors and instead focus on the heart, where true change begins.

We thank You, Lord, for the ministry of grace, multiplied grace. We thank You, Lord, that You have so wonderfully and marvelously in Your kindness and goodness sought us out and found us and opened up the eyes of our heart and empowered us and enabled us to call upon You for grace and mercy and forgiveness. And now, Father, You are so eager to take our life and to make it a reflection, an ever-increasing demonstration of the eternal perfections that You Yourself possess, Your eternal character, Your eternal beauty, Lord. We pray, Lord, that through Your Word in these next few moments, You would further that work in our hearts and in our lives. We want to come to You, Lord, and ask that You would give us hearts of meekness and brokenness and You would create hunger and thirst even to the point of desperation, Lord, for You. For we know, Lord, that it's the desperate ones, the hungry ones, that You truly will meet and reveal Yourself to. And as we pray for these kind of hearts, Lord, this morning, for Jesus' sake, amen and amen. We have been looking for quite a while now at a picture of what the ideal son looks like on the inside, the ideal son. We've learned that the Lord Jesus Christ is that ideal son. He's the altogether lovely one. He's the one that our Father from all eternity looked upon and said, There is the one in whom I am perfectly satisfied. There is the one that I am perfectly delighted with. And it's God's purpose through the power of grace alone and the power of the Holy Spirit to reproduce an entire family of sons that look just like His only begotten Son. Not physically, not outwardly, but inwardly. That's the great high and holy calling that you and I are engaged in as a result of God calling us unto the fellowship of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like to invite you as we continue to build upon the foundation that we have been laying for many, many weeks. I believe this is no part darkness, part four. We're building upon the foundation. We're building as God enables and God is continuing to transform us by the power of His truth. Jeremiah chapter 17, Jeremiah chapter 17, beginning in verse number 5. Father, open up the ears of our heart and enable us to hear Your Word. Change us by Your Word, we pray. Make this a living Word, Lord. Make this a Word that penetrates into the depths of our spirit, into the depths of our being, Father, we pray. For Your honor, that You might be satisfied and pleased, Lord. We ask this for Jesus' sake. Amen. Verse 5, chapter 17, the book of Jeremiah. Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabit it. Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the rains, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Ezekiel 36, beginning in verse number 21. But I had pity on mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen where they went. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord, I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them. And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them. Hebrews chapter 8, beginning in verse number 7. For if the first covenant had been full of this, then should no place have been sought for the second. For faithful fought with them, he saith. Behold, the day is come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them out by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant. And I regarded them not, saith the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts. And I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For all shall know me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish. Now turn your Bibles to Ephesians, chapter 4, beginning in verse number 17. We are laying a foundation from the word of God, from which we draw all the truth and all of the life and all of the heart of the Lord that enables us to understand what he is after right now. What he is after in your life and my life right now. The exceeding abundantly above all that we could think or ask promises that God is asking his beloved church to begin to pray for and claim and ask Father to make them good in our life. This is a holy, awesome, incredible, unspeakable, and full of glory revelation that our Father is giving us from his word that he is bearing witness to by the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He is literally wanting to transform our lives and empower us. He wants to transform our lives and empower us. You may be struggling right now with some kind of ungodly behavior. You may be struggling with some kind of ungodly attitude. You may have been telling the Lord for five years, God, I know that I'm not spending the time with you that I should. I'm not spending the time that I want to, Lord, in your word. And you have made promise after promise after promise to God and you have found a consistent record of failure in your life. And with that failure comes guilt. And with that guilt comes a feeling of, oh God, is there any hope? Is there any hope? And then when you feel hopeless, you know what happens? You just forget about the thing in your heart because you've tried over and over again. Well, brothers and sisters, there is hope this morning. And here's the hope. You will not correct your behavior. You will not correct your behavior by making another promise. You've got to get to the root of the matter. Your problem and my problem is not at its root a behavior problem or a lack of commitment or a lack of resolve. Our problem goes deeper than that. And it's as the Word of God and as the Spirit of God and the grace of God and the mercy of God and the truth of God sanctify them by Thy Word. Thy Word is truth. By the washing of water by the Word. It is the washing of our hearts, the washing of our minds, the washing of the depths of our being with the truth and Word and Spirit and grace of God that will affect a change which will result in a change in behavior patterns. Our ungodly behavior and weak commitments and vain promises to God oftentimes fall short because we're trying to deal with the problem on a surface issue. But through the Word of God today, we see that God is after something deeper. And the Word of God today wants to impart faith to us. Faith. A faith that will enable you to begin to cry out and say, Oh God, I see the symptoms of my problem. I see the symptoms manifesting in wrong behavior and broken promises and the inability to do what I know You want me to do. And I can no longer try and deal with these in an outward way. Another resolve, another promise, another method, another system of practice. Lord, I have got to come to realize that these outward things will only change as You make good in my life the promise of Your Word which says, You will write Your laws into my heart, into my mind. You will change my heart. And as my heart is changed and freed from trusting in flesh, trusting in man, trusting in oneself, and is turned to where it's trusting in God alone, and the Word of God and the promise of God, your behavior will change. Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 17, This I say therefore, that is in light of the glorious truth that God has chosen us and saved us and given us His Holy Spirit and united us with Christ and caused us to sit down together with Christ in heavenly places and now intends to fill our lives individually and corporately with the full manifestation and glory of the living Christ in order to display His beauty to all the earth. In light of this calling, in light of the fact that you have been called by God to become His temple where He dwells, where His lordship and His reign and His heart is motivating you, in light of the truth that we are living stones now, a people called out of darkness to show forth glorious light of the Lord Jesus Christ. I therefore, verse 17, say unto you and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling or who having ceased from having a conscience, having ceased from being able to sense what is right and wrong, they've ceased, they've given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ. If so be that you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. Let's read that again, verse 22. That you put off. That you put off. That was both a once and for all thing that happened when Christ became our life and it is a continuous reckoning that we are to be engaged in every day. A once and for all thing and a continuous reckoning. That is a thing that we are continuously to be doing as we are immersing ourselves in the Word of God and in the Spirit of God, reminding ourselves, thanking God, acknowledging to one another that we have put off, that we are putting off, that God's Spirit is working in me for that very purpose, to empower me and strengthen me. To put off. To put off. To put off what pertains to the old. The very reason why the Spirit of God has been given to us is to empower us. To be transformed from a life controlled by hearts that are dark and captured by idolatry to a heart that is controlled by a single drive to know God, to love God, and to obey God. That's why we have the Holy Spirit. Now, notice what it says here. That ye put off concerning the former conversation or your entire way of life. That word conversation is a word used to refer to our behavior. It refers to our way of life. It refers to the overall entire way that we live. We've put off the old way of life in Christ. And be renewed in the Spirit of your mind. In the Spirit of your mind. Now, being renewed in the Spirit of our mind will what? What will it do? It will affect the way we think. Exactly. And so, the heart and the mind are connected. Remember what it says in Ezekiel? It says, I'll what? Write my laws in your where? In your heart. But then, where did it say in Jeremiah or in Hebrews, which was a quote from Jeremiah? He said, I'll write my laws in your where? In your mind. So, we've got the heart now, and now we've got the mind. And what do we have God doing in the heart and mind? We have God writing, etching, inscribing. That is incredible language. What that is indicating is that we're making the transition, brothers and sisters, from the old covenant to the new covenant. You see, the old covenant was the law of God was written where? On tablets of stone. And God wrote His law, and God taught us the things that we are to be and the things that we're not to be. And He wrote those laws on the tablet of stone. But the problem with the old covenant was our heart was what? Hard. Our heart was what? Full of sin. Our heart was what? Our heart was deceitful. Our heart was wicked. So, the problem that we have in the old covenant, and this is the transition that we're making now, is that God told us what He wants. God showed us in the law His moral perfections. We saw in the law God's moral perfections. But our problem was that our behavior, springing out of the wicked heart, was causing what kind of behavior? Lying. Cheating. Adultery. What other kind of behavior springs out of a heart that is fleshless, a heart that is wicked? Murder. Greed. Covetousness. Other gods. Profaning the Sabbath day. And so, our problem was that God, in the old covenant, revealed on tablets of stone. Listen, He revealed externally to us what He was like and what He was demanding of us. And our problem was we have a wicked heart full of sin, which produces all kinds of horrible behavior. And so we look with this wicked heart at what God wants, and we say, oh my, what are we going to do? Well, there's two responses. There's two responses. The first response is we humble ourselves, and we acknowledge and we say, oh dear God, I see what it is You're after. I see Your holy law. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Honor thy father and thy mother. Disrespect is running wild in this generation that we live in. People will disrespect you. They'll disrespect their mom. They'll disrespect their dad. They'll disrespect governmental authority. You ever drive down the street and you've got some teenagers near the road and you beep your horn just so that they might know that you're coming? And they look at you as if they're going to jump on you. They get very angry. Disrespect is running wild. What about war and murder? It's just running wild. Where's all this coming from? It's coming from within the heart. It's coming from within the heart. So the one response is the humbling of the heart. Oh God, I see what You're after. I see that I'm to have no other gods before You. I'm seeing, Lord, that I'm to honor my mom and my dad. And I see what You want me to be. But, oh God, my behavior is full of the things that You tell me not to do. And so I humble myself and I acknowledge my sin. I acknowledge my sin, Lord. I acknowledge that I, in heart and in behavior, am not what You expect me to be. The continuous controversy that the prophets had in Israel of old revolved around one statement that was said a hundred different ways. Only acknowledge your sin. Only acknowledge your iniquity. Only admit, God was saying through the prophets of Israel, simply admit that you have sinned against me. You have sinned against one another. You have made a mess of your life. Your religion is full of hypocrisy. I don't want to hear the noise of your songs anymore. I get sick to my stomach when you come together for your holy complications. God was saying, I just want you to admit and acknowledge that you stand before me as guilty, deserving of my judgment. That's all God wanted Israel to do. But instead, their eyes were blinded. And they refused to turn. And instead of humbling themselves and acknowledging their sin, they continued in a life inwardly that was full of sin and full of behavior that sprang out of the heart that was displeasing to God. And what made it horrible is they built an entire religion around this whole mess to try and hide the true state of what they were on the inside. An entire religion. And God condemns that entire religious system that Israel lived under through every single prophet that ever spoke in the Old Testament. Every single prophet was condemning the system that they created in order to hide behind. Verse 22. That you put off concerning the former way of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you put on the new man. Put on the new man. Which after God. Which after God. Which in God's likeness. In God's nature. Which in God's character. Which after God is created. Created. Created. What does it say in 2 Corinthians chapter 5? If any man be in Christ, he is what? A new creation. So you see, God's idea here is it's not for us to look with a heart full of sin and behavior springing out of that sin at God's holy law that's written somewhere out there and say, Oh God, I've got to try and stop doing this. I've got to correct my behavior. I've got to create a religion that makes me look like I'm obeying your holy laws. That's not what God is doing in the new covenant. And that's not what God intended for the old covenant. The old covenant was intended by God to reveal sin. It was intended to show Israel their sin so as to bring them to their knees so that God could have mercy on them, like David. David was an old covenant prophet that lived in the new covenant grace. Paul used David in his epistle to Rome in order to describe the blessedness of a man who sought justification by what? Faith and grace and not by works. But when did David live? What covenant was operating? The old covenant. But the oath was before the old covenant. The oath was the promise of grace. That was made before. And the coming of the old covenant didn't do away with the oath. God had to bring the old covenant because people were so full of sin, and they were losing sight of who God was. So He brought the old covenant, which is the law of God written on the stones, in order to show us our sin. So that would lead us to grace. You see, it would lead us to grace. It would lead us to change. And so we're not Christianity. Christianity is not trying to correct behavior by looking at God's holocaust on tablets of stone and then trying as hard as we can to be good Christians or trying as hard as we can to come up with a code of rules. Let's come up with a code of rules for our church, okay? How should we live? Let's come up with a code of rules. You shall not do this. You shall not do that. You shall not do this. You shall do this. You shall do that. You shall do that. Now everybody who agrees with these codes of rules and obeys them, all of them are worthy approved. We're accepted before God. That's just another version of the old covenant. None of that works. Because what does that do? It only deals with outward looks. And God said, I want truth where? On the inward parts. The inward parts. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you put on the new man. The new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. True holiness. What's false holiness? Here's false holiness. False holiness is recognizing my heart is full of sin. It's full of lust. It's full of selfish ambition. It's full of greed. That's what sin is. My heart is full of all these things. It's causing all kinds of ungodly behavior. So here's false holiness. I'm going to take this behavior, whatever it might be, and I'm going to somehow cover it with different kind of behavior. The illustration that Ted Tripp used was your child is unkind to her brother or sister. So you say, say you're sorry. Sorry. Say it nicely. I'm sorry. That's not nice enough. Say it the Christian way. I'm sorry I hurt you. That's better. What did that do? Huh? What did that do? Did that trace the problem back to the heart? No. What it did is it just taught the child how to externally or outwardly appear like things changed when in fact the heart is still full of what? Unkindness. The heart is still full of the thing that caused him or her to be unkind to begin with. That's false holiness. That's outward holiness. But here we're looking at the new covenant which produces what? Righteousness and true holiness. True there means truth. That means that it is a holiness that is truly holy in substance at the very root. It's an inward holiness. It's a change of heart. And then, of course, it goes on to say, wherefore put away lying. Speak every man truth. But do you see what the Apostle's doing here? He's working from the inside out. He's not saying put away lying, stop stealing, and treat one another correctly without dealing with the inner issue. He starts from the inside. He starts from the new man. He starts from the truth that the new covenant is a change of heart. And then out from that new heart, out from that renewing process, out from that continuous work of sanctification and transformation, our behavior starts changing. The way we treat one another starts changing. Now, let me ask a question. What is God's goal? What is God's goal in introducing the new covenant to us? What does He want to ultimately do in our lives as Christians and as the church? What is the new covenant intended to produce? Let's turn our Bible to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4. This is very, very important that we understand this. Ephesians 4. Beginning in verse 11, "...And God gave apostles and prophets and evangelists, pastors and teachers..." Now watch this here. Listen carefully. This is the ultimate intention of the new covenant. For the perfecting of the saints. Now let's stop right here. You can look at this either from an old covenant perspective or a new covenant perspective. What would be an old covenant perspective way of looking at perfecting of the saints? Right. An old covenant perspective, an old covenant way of looking at this word here, the perfecting of the saints, would be an attempt to try and fulfill the law. An attempt to try and see what God expects and then try to imitate or act the way God wants us to act. And it would probably be nice if we created some kind of a religion that would make us look good outwardly. That would be an old covenant way of looking at this word right here. For the perfecting of the saints, that must mean that everyone has to witness at least to 25 people a week. I think 25 would probably be a good number that would indicate that we're being mature. What do you think? Anyone think maybe 30? Yeah, maybe 30. Let's make it 30 souls a week. Now how many hours a day should we spend in the Bible for the perfecting of the saints? I think at minimum an hour. I mean, that's probably not really a mature saint. That's probably an adolescent saint. A mature saint would spend at least an hour and a half in the Bible a day. Okay, so we're witnessing, we're spending time in prayer in the Bible. What about almsgiving? Oh my, yes. What about giving your clothes to people who don't... And see, what we try and do here, if we look at this from an Old Testament perspective, is we create an entire outward system of religion. And we all attempt to conform our actions to the outward code. That would be an Old Covenant way of looking at this. And brothers and sisters, many, many people are doing this very thing. Many people are doing this very thing. It's in the church. But that has nothing to do with the spirit of the New Covenant nor the intention of any of the apostles who were instrumental in writing the New Testament. So the New Covenant is intended to what? For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. Now, you look at that work of the ministry and immediately an Old Covenant, Old Testament, man-centered interpretation of that Well, the work of ministry. We have to be involved in ministry. We have to be involved in ministering to people. Professional ministry. Ministry to nursing homes. Ministry to prisons. Whatever you might imagine ministry would be. But that's not what Paul's talking about. The work of ministry is defined in the New Covenant. What it is. And it's not essentially in its nature an outward thing. It's not us trying to minister for God. We'll see what it is in a moment. But let's just go through this list here because this shows us where we're heading. For the work of ministry. For the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge, the recognition of the Son of God unto a mature man. Unto a perfect man. Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things, even Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual work in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. What is the Holy Spirit? What is Paul here trying to say to you and I as the body of Christ? What is the intention of the new covenant? The intention of the new covenant is to take the heart. Now listen carefully. And the law of God, which was written on tablets of stone through the new birth and through being born from above, the law of God would be taken from the stone, the tablets of stone, and through the power of new birth, through the miracle of regeneration, by a new creation, by a creative act of God, is the living representation of all that God's law stands for, all the moral perfections of God's law. Right there. It's in the Lord Jesus. But what is the Lord Jesus doing in the new birth? What's He doing? He's communicating to those that He saves a new heart and a new mind. What kind of a new heart and a new mind? He's giving His own. See, Christianity is not me trying to act like a Christian. It's not me trying to be Christlike. But it's God. See, it starts with God. It's not me. It's not the creature trying. God says, I will. So it starts with God. Oh, blessed freedom. When we get our eyes off ourselves, when we get our eyes off our efforts, when we get our eyes off all the trying, all that resolution, it's God. I will. What? I will come and invade your being with supernatural power. I will put in you the life of My Son. I'll make clean the inside so that your behavior will reflect the change that happened on the inside. See, Christianity is God taking the life of His Son, the righteousness of His Son, the heart of His Son, and putting it into a company of believers and He calls them the church. And that life by the Spirit of God grows and grows and grows. That's what Christian maturity is. That's what Paul's saying here now, see? For the perfecting of the saints. The maturing of the saints. So what is he saying? The perfecting? Just bear with me here, please, brothers and sisters. We lay this foundation, and then the Word of God suddenly becomes real, and we realize what John meant when he said the commandments of God are what? Thank you. Thank you. They're not grievous. Oh, but there's so much grief when we come to the commandments of God in the Christians. So much grief and so much trouble, so much effort. Oh God, Your commandments are so hard. How can I ever do this? It's because we're not understanding God's commandments are not grievous because God is not expecting us in ourselves to try and conform to Him. He's transforming us to fulfill the requirements of the law through the Lord Jesus Christ living His life, etching His life, etching His very identical heart into His body, which is the church. The fullness of Him that filleth all. So what is the perfecting of the saints? Watch this now. This is a big heart, but this does not represent one person. This represents the church. Okay? That's the church. The perfecting of the saints within the church, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, inherent within Christ, all His eternal perfections. Whose are they? They're His. Where are they? They're in the church. The perfecting of the saints is nothing more, nothing less, than the increase more and more and more of Jesus Christ, the Head, and His nature, His character, and His moral perfections. More and more and more being expressed and demonstrated through the church corporately so that it is His perfections, His beauty, that is ever being seen. As we look at the church, we see Christ. The intention of the new covenant is the perfecting of the saints for the work of ministry. Ah, so the work of ministry takes on a whole new idea. Is it just this saint here doing his own thing and this saint doing his own thing or this here? No. It is the work of the ministry. It is the ministry of Christ. 2 Corinthians 3, Paul tells us what the new covenant is all about. It's the ministry of life. It's the ministry of Christ, the ministry of life out from the church to one another and to a lost and dying world. It's the ministry of Christ. And so we see the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ, the building up, the encouragement of the body of Christ, and the intention that we all might come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. Here it is. To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Turn your Bible to Ephesians 2. One page over. Verse 22. And hath put all things under his feet, Christ, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church. Watch verse 23. Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. The body of Christ. The church. The fullness of Him. The place where God wants to make known the fullness of His Son. The splendor of His Son. Now turn to Ephesians 3. Verse 16. That He would grant to you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints. Here it is. What is the breadth and length and depth and height. And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. Watch this. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. There's your new covenant. The church would become the depository. And corporately together, would display in ever-increasing measure the eternal beauties and perfections of her Head and Savior and God, the Lord Jesus Christ. All of Him. Now, you want to tackle the whole subject of behavior? Changing your behavior? Changing what you do? Put it in perspective to this revelation. If you don't, in vain will you try and change your ways. You'll never change your ways. You'll never change your children's ways. Even if you get the right teaching, you can't teach it into them. Our behavior changes when we see and understand that Christ is now my life. And that Christ has promised to change my heart, my mind, my will. He's promised to write His law upon the very centers of my being. And that will result in Christ's behavior. God wants Christ to behave through the church. But you know what that means? If any man come after me, what? Let him deny himself. Let him take up his cross. He that seeks to save his life shall lose it. You see, true Christianity, there's no place for selfish ambition. There's no place for pride. There's no place for I want to do my own thing. True Christianity devastates us. And we recognize the claims that God has. He is preeminent. He is our life. He is our Lord. He is our Master. True Christianity demands that the creature accept the claims of the cross, which are I have died and now Christ is all and all. It was a one-time thing, but it's a continuous thing that ye put off, that ye put on. That ye put off, that ye put on. That ye put off, you remember, you affirm it, that now that you're a Christian, you don't belong to yourself. It's all about Christ, right? Put off the old and put on what? The truth, that Christ is now my life, invading my being with truth and changing the behavior of sin, which works all kinds of ungodly actions to the behavior of Christ, which works righteousness and that which is pleasing in the eyes of God. Okay, brothers and sisters, we're going to stop now. And next time we get together, we're going to look again more fully. And we're going to begin to see how does a new heart, how does Christ's heart behave in the world in relation to money, possessions, time, and how does a Gentile behave in relation to those things. And that will help us see our need to pray, Oh God, keep changing my heart so that I can properly relate to the world and everything that I am currently involved in in the way that is pleasing to You. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You, Lord, for the new covenant. We thank You, Lord, that You are truly, truly an awesome God. And we ask, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would go deep into our hearts and give us more and more the heart that looks like Jesus Christ. We confess our sinful behavior and our inclination toward trusting in flesh and ask for Your forgiveness. Give us the power to repent, to turn, and the grace to continue to be changed, Lord. Now I'm just asking the Holy Spirit to show us that behavior in our life right now. Behavior that is ungodly, that's not right. Stop wrestling with that behavior, right? Stop wrestling with it. Stop trying to do something outward with it. You who have made 101 promises to try and be more spiritual, stop it. You know you're neglecting the Word of God. You're neglecting prayer. You know it. But you've tried so hard and you keep failing. Now take it to the heart level. Say, Lord, I'm failing in this area because I see what You want me to be, and I have forgotten that it's got to start from a changed heart. Change my heart, God. Write into my heart a passion for You, for Your Word, and that will change my behavior and empower my will. Please, God, struggling with unkindness, ungodly deeds, go to the root. Lord, it's a heart problem. Change my heart. Change my heart. I claim the new covenant, Lord. Change my heart. Brothers and sisters, this will change your behavior. We pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, our Savior and our God. Hey, guys, stop dealing with outward issues with one another. Stop. Stop dealing with outward issues when you're dealing with your husband and wife, when you're dealing with your children. Stop dealing with outward. Don't ignore them, but stop dealing with them only. I'm challenging everyone here today, everyone that's listening to this tape, I'm challenging you. Every time you recognize something is not right, ask God to help you to get to the heart of the matter. This is how we need to help one another. We need to speak into each other's life when we see something outward that's not right and say, what's wrong? Where in the heart? What is this behavior revealing about the heart? Let's apply the truth of God's Word and ask Father to change the heart. Stop dealing with external issues and we're going to really experience change in our marriages, change in our ability to deal with our children, and change in our ability to fellowship with one another. God bless you. May the Lord continue to do this in our hearts.