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1 Ourselves
2
Our Usual Starting Point

• Reason
• Its just common sense!
• Experience
• I saw it with my own eyes!
• Culture
• This is just the way we do things!
• Community
• Everybody I know agrees with me

3
What We Think About Ourselves

• Basically good
• More often right than wrong
• Can trust our intuition
• Can do almost anything just takes time and
  effort

4
Tracing Our Accomplishments

• The First 6 chapters
• Adam Eve Cain Abel the Flood
• The First 1000 years after Christ
• Crusades Dark Ages
• The Age of Reason
• Explain everything without God slavery
• The Age of Technology
• War Holocaust Race issues Depression

5
What We Think About Ourselves

• Basically good
• More often right than wrong
• Can trust our intuition
• Can do almost anything just takes time and
  effort

6
A Clear and Present Struggle

• 2 Cor. 105 We demolish arguments and every
  pretension that sets itself up against the
  knowledge of God, and we take captive every
  thought to make it obedient to Christ.
• We are to be imitators of God (Eph. 51), and
  must not conform to the pattern of this world
  (Rom. 122).

7
The Christian Affirms

• Humanity was designed to be like God (Gen. 1
  Psalm 8)
• But Humanity has been corrupted by sin
• Sin has affected all areas of humanity (Rom. 3)
• We need Divine intervention, spiritual
  transformation, in order to become what we were
  created to be (Eph. 28-10)

8
Therefore

• We cannot begin our moral deliberation by
  looking inside ourselves!

9
Even Christians May

• Be earthly focused, not heavenly (Phil. 319
  Col. 32)
• Be corrupt (1 Tim. 65 2 Tim. 38 Titus 115)
• Be Double-minded (James 18 48)
• Have in mind the things of men, not the things of
  God (Mark 833)
• All because we continue to start from within!

10
However, Christ Promises

• To put His law in our minds (Heb. 810 1016)
• We can have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 216)
• That He will open our minds (Luke 2245 Eph.
  118ff.)
• That we can be transformed by the renewing of
  our minds (Rom. 122)

11
Reason for Concern

• God has given people over to a depraved mind
  (Rom. 128)
• The unspiritual cannot understand spiritual
  things (1 Corinthians 1-2)
• The natural mind is at war with the spiritual
  mind (Rom. 85-7)
• Satan can (and does) deceive (2 Cor. 44 113)

12
Ephesians 417-24

• So I tell you this, and insist on it in the
  Lord, that you must no longer live as the
  Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
  They are darkened in their understanding and
  separated from the life of God because of the
  ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of
  their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they
  have given themselves over to sensuality so as to
  indulge in every kind of impurity, with a
  continual lust for more.

13
Ephesians 417-24

• You, however, did not come to know Christ that
  way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in
  him in accordance with the truth that is in
  Christ Jesus. You were taught, with regard to
  your former way of life, to put off your old
  self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful
  desires to be made new in the attitude of your
  minds and to put on the new self, created to be
  like God in true righteousness and holiness.

14
This Means

• We abandon our appeal to common sense when it
  comes to moral reasoning
• Common sense is not so common
• Natural sense is not natural!
• We seek Divine interventionoutside of
  ourselvesfor guidance

15
Transformation at Its Best

• Reason use it!
• What is reasonableaccording to God?
• Experience Discern it!
• What are the experiencesin Scripture?
• Culture Weigh it!
• What cultural norms come from spiritual thinking?
• Community Prayerfully Listen to it!
• What guidance is suggested by leaders in faith?
• But Bathe All Things In Prayer!

16
Steps in the Process

• First Question What Does God Want?
• First Assumption I can KNOW What God Wants!
• If not actual choice, reason for the choice.
• Second Question Am I Willing To Do It?
• Second Assumption Virtue Before Knowledge
• All or nothing!

17
Steps in the Process

• How do I know that I am committed?
• Begin all deliberation with as a Christian
• Examine your heart would you break with your
  family, your culture, your community, or even
  your reasonto accept Gods will?
• Examine your motives are you wishing to break
  from family, culture, community, and
  reasonbecause you dont want to listen to
  anybody but yourself?

18
Steps in the Process

• Third Question What Need Do I See?
• Third Assumption God calls through awareness
• If you want Gods will to be done, and you are
  willing to do it, recognizing a need may very
  well be Gods calling in your life!

19
Steps in the Process

• Fourth Question Does my Christian Community
  support this decision?
• Community is not always right (group of humans,
  corrupted by sin)
• But Community is a vehicle through which God can
  (and desires to) work (group of regenerated
  people seeking the mind of Christ)
• Community being of one mind was Gods idea
  (Acts 432 1 Cor. 110 2 Cor. 1311 Phil. 22)

20
Summary

• I am corrupted by sin, thus to be human
  includes skepticism toward my desires, my
  motives, and my beliefs
• I am a Christian filled with the Spirit, thus to
  be Christian includes hope that God can and
  will change my desires, my motives, and my
  beliefs
• I need to constantly seek Divine intervention
  into my reason, experience, culture, and
  communityas I make moral decisions.
• I can find confidence that I am seeking things
  above through the questions I ask what does God
  want? Am I willing to accept it? What need do I
  see? Does my Christian community support me in
  this?