MWYC 2010: I'm the Vine, You are the Branches

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Midwest Youth Conference

Chantee Nebblett

Sean Nebblett

The Battle for Purity

I was sitting there during the last, during Christian's music and there were just tears stinging my eyes as I was thinking about the beautiful things God has prepared for those that love Him.

And to me what is even more beautiful about the whole picture, the whole concept of heaven is the fact that God wants to put heaven right now in our hearts.

He wants our whole life to be an expression, like a little satellite of heaven.

So the people are drawn to Jesus through our testimony, through the simple outworking of our life.

Even as I was drawn there, sitting in that seat, listening to his word pictures, and just letting the Holy Spirit color the picture in my mind.

And that's what other people should feel, should sense when they come into contact with us.

Our very lives should make people long to go to heaven.

And you know if they are, witnessing is made so easy.

You don't have to be arguing, convincing people, no come on, come on, you just gotta, you gotta do this, you gotta love this, you gotta sacrifice for this.

Just their hearts will long, their hearts will seek it.

It's almost like you won't even have to say a word.

But how do we get heaven in our hearts, friends?

Message we're going to be sharing over the next few minutes is called the Battle for purity.

In order for heaven to dwell in our hearts, purity has to be there.

God has to purge us of everything else first, everything else that's in the way to make room for his miraculous grace, to make room for miracle working power.

And purity in our generation, Purity in our society is a lost art.

It's so lost that most people don't even seek for it anymore.

And if we hear the word purity, we think of it in such a narrowly defined, such a confined scope that 90% of the population says, I don't need that message right now.

But Friends, what we have to share with you, yes, there's going to be facets of it that are particular to different ages and stages, but most importantly, purity needs to become precious to each and every 1 of us, no matter how old or young.

So over the next few minutes as we explore some of the aspects of purity and some of the things that we need to do as Christians to guard ourselves and to set up ourselves for success, to set purity as a high priority in our lives.

We pray that your ears will be open, that your hearts will be open, and that all of us, as we open the Word of God and as we look at examples, real life examples, that we will be called to higher ground and called to a deeper love, a deeper appreciation for God and what He has done and what He wants to do in our lives.

Have any of you had the opportunity to visit a real, honest to goodness, medieval castle?

You know, I had always dreamed of visiting a castle, a real castle.

And a year and a half ago, our family had the opportunity to go to England.

We traveled there for a couple of weeks and we were speaking there as a family.

And during the time that we were there, we were able to visit a castle.

It's a very famous castle actually in England.

And it was built back in, well the stone building was built back in 1260 AD.

So it is a very old castle, and it lived through the medieval times.

And I just remember I was so fascinated by this incredible structure that has really stood the test of time.

But 1 of the things that really made a deep impression on me is that We were touring the various areas of the castle and they were portraying different facets of castle life.

And I remember going down this hall, dark hall, you know, with torches lit on both sides, and we began to hear music, battle music, the sound of trumpets.

And the hall kind of opened up into this big room.

It was like a vault where they had armor and horses and wax figurines that were all dressed up ready for war.

And we spent the next little while touring this area in this castle and looking through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy.

Because the Earl of Warwick, who was in charge of this castle, would have these young lads that would ride into the heat of the battle with him and take care of his armor and hold his spear or whatever it was he needed.

And I remember looking at it through the eyes of this 12-year-old boy preparing for the battle, preparing the armor, and what was going through his mind, They really did quite a good job of portraying what it must have been like.

And suddenly the battle was more than a charming portrayal on the pages of a history book.

And as the great Earl of Warwick and all of his entourage, his knights and his squires, and that little 12-year-old boy, would ride out of the gates to go to war, everyone in that castle who was left behind knew that their very lives depended on the outcome of that battle.

Today we're talking about the battle for purity.

Because as Sean said, purity is a lost art.

It's not something that's treasured by the masses around us.

Satan has done everything he possibly can to take away the purity and loveliness that Jesus wants to see painted in his creation.

Purity is not a default setting in the Christian experience.

When I think about purity, I think about various things come to my mind.

I think about innocence, clearness, honesty.

I think about virginity, fidelity, a young person who's saving their heart for their future spouse.

I think about the dictionary definition of purity which is freedom from contamination.

I found that very interesting, freedom from contamination.

You know, we have a lake that's near our house, and lakes are pretty special in New Mexico because we don't have a whole lot of lakes, we don't have a whole lot of water.

And so this particular lake attracts a lot of people.

People will drive even from Albuquerque, which is 2 and a half, 2 hours and forty-five minutes away, to fish at Camado Lake.

Now, do you know what happens when you have that many people fishing in a small lake and cleaning their fish when they catch them and dumping the insides back into the water and all of that, do you know what happens to the lake water?

And we have gone swimming in that lake many times, we actually haven't more recently, But after you swim in that water for a while and you get out, do you feel clean?

The first thought is let's find the nearest shower here.

We are swimming through the contaminated waters of this world.

And so humanly speaking, it is not possible to remain uncontaminated, to remain pure at heart, pure in life.

But, friends, the thing that is so beautiful, our Lord and Savior, the Lord of life and light and purity of whom we've been speaking all day, if we have His robe of righteousness that He imparts to us, if we have allowed him to place that around us, we can stand in this impure, contaminated world and live lives of purity.

And that's what we want to talk about today.

We want to have the kind of purity that's not just a set of actions or standards that we live by.

Although the actions and standards are important, certainly, but only a life that is hid in Jesus Christ is truly pure.

Oftentimes, people think of a message on purity, They think that it has to do with relationships.

And as Sean said, yes, definitely, there's an aspect that has to do with relationships, and we'll touch on that in a little bit here.

But I contend that purity goes so much deeper than just the way that we relate to the opposite gender.

It starts with our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Without that living connection with him, we can never hope to live a happy and pure life.

But with a pure heart, a gift that comes from God, Our lives can literally be a love song to God every single day.

A song that attracts people's attention, a song that catches their interest, that makes them stop and look and listen and say, what do you have?

And we can live lights that are shining lights in this dark world, inspiring others to live for Him and experience the absolute freedom that they see us experiencing.

Purity of habit, purity of life, all starts in 1 place.

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The Battle for Purity

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