LESSON NOTES from Mike Dickinson
For info about the combined Kids & Parents time, go to https://tbcgrkidz.blogspot.com/2024/07/july-14-combined-sunday-school-purity.html
"To pursue moral purity means choosing to live by the highest moral principles in both speech and physical relations despite your own desires to do otherwise and despite any external pressures to compromise." From Time for the Talk
Mike Dickinson did a great job of breaking down some key parts of this definition.
Choosing—There are multiple "choices" every day. As each of these choices comes up, do you choose purity or compromise?
Highest - Not just the minimum, but rather, what is the best? Often we have it backwards. We talk about the limits of what is proper for a Christian - what you can do and what you cannot do. Purity is about the heart - taking a new, clean self and wanting to keep it clean.
Two Key Forces -
Your own desires - We need to recognize that desires come up within us that can make us want to do what we clearly know we shouldn't.
External pressures - These external pressures can be peer pressure and the pressures of circumstances.
Some of the key passages the class looked at were:
- Matthew 5:8: "Blessed are the pure in the heart, for they shall see God."
- 2 Timothy 2:20 - 22: "Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
- Genesis 39:6 - 12: Joseph's example of fleeing temptation because he understood the seriousness of sin. It is against God.
- Psalm 119:9, 11: "How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word... I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."
The steps of purity:
- Get clean (or get reclean)
- Prepare/study/get equipped
- Resist
- Flee Sin
- Lather / Rinse / Repeat
For Kids/Parents notes, go to tbcgrkidz.blogspot.com/2024/07/july-14-combined-sunday-school-purity.html
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
The Desiring God article entitled "More Than Sexual Purity" contains a great challenge for Christian men.
Where would you look in the Bible to build a stronger, fuller vision for Christian men?
First Timothy 4:12 is a familiar, yet strangely overlooked, map for men. The apostle Paul writes to his spiritual son, Timothy, a young man (not child) and elder in the church,
Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
In your Christian living, do you consider how you speak, how you spend your life, what good you are to others, how passionate you are for God, how you live a pure life?
The same article states that "worldliness - overt or subtle devotion to pop culture, sports, movies, shopping, social media, or whatever lures you must - can be every bit as spiritually polluting as sexual temptation (James 1:27)."
A godly, pure life is not lived in our own strength. It must be lived in dependence on the holiness of God the Father, the work of God the Son, and the power of God the Holy Spirit.
"The battleground of a Christian war is your heart... This is a war for your soul. And, like most wars, it is fought to be won or lost. There is no peacekeeping treaty. God is jealous for your heart, and he is not going to concede this territory to the devil (Jer. 31:33)." Reju, Deepak. Pornography: Fighting for Purity
Remember, Purity is a Heart Battle.
