Topic: Purity a study on the whole aspect of purity in the Christians life.

. Purpose: To equip the body of believers to combat the attacks of Satan and therefore live a victorious life enabled by Jesus Christ. Outline to accomplish the task: 1. What does purity mean? 2. What does purity cover? 3. What are the enemies of purity? 4. How does one accomplish purity on the whole? To cover this topic, we will need to: A. See what the Bible and others have to say about it, B. Who the internal and external enemy is, C. Find out what parts of our life does it effect and D. Find what tools or resources are available to meet our goals.

Part One What Does Purity Mean?

Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary, 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1. The quality or condition of being pure. 2. A quantitative assessment of homogeneity or uniformity. 3. Freedom from sin or guilt; innocence; chastity: Teach your children... the belief in purity of body, mind and soul (Emmeline Pankhurst). 4. The absence in speech or writing of slang or other elements deemed inappropriate to good style. 5. The degree to which a color is free from being mixed with other colors. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. The condition of being pure. Specifically: (a) freedom from foreign admixture or deleterious matter; as, the purity of water, of wine, of drugs, of metals. (b) Cleanness; freedom from foulness or dirt. ``The purity of a linen vesture.'' --Holyday. (c) Freedom from guilt or the defilement of sin; innocence; chastity; as, purity of heart or of life. (d) Freedom from any sinister or improper motives or views. (e) Freedom from foreign idioms, or from barbarous or improper words or phrases; as, purity of style. From what we see in even dictionary definitions, purity is first of all FREEDOM. This freedom protects from: 1. Guilt 2. Defilement And allows us to experience: 1. Innocence or cleanness 2. Chastity in heart and life body, mind and soul. Dr. Ryan Nielsen Page 1 2/6/2012

3. A great reputation in the world.

Part Two What does Purity Cover?

Most people only talk about sexual purity when the topic comes up. But purity in our study covers a whole lot more than just that. In this lesson we will look at four aspects of purity, or to put it another way, the areas of purity. 1. Mental Purity 2. Spiritual Purity 3. Relational Purity 4. Physical Purity 1. Mental purity involves our thought life. This is, again, not just sexual thought. Jesus said in Mark 7, verses 14-20: Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. All of you listen, he said, and try to understand. You are not defiled by what you eat; you are defiled by what you say and do! Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowds, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the statement he had made. Dont you understand either? he asked. Cant you see that what you eat wont defile you? Food doesnt come in contact with your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then comes out again. And then he added, It is the thought-life that defiles you. For from within, out of a persons heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, eagerness for lustful pleasure, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you and make you unacceptable to God. The confusion the disciples displayed came from their upbringing. They had been taught to ceremoniously wash the hands to be clean. The Pharisees used outward things to make them selves look clean. Jesus put this into perspective for them all. They should have remembered Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do Also Titus 1:15; 1 Peter 1:22 Phillipians 4:8; Matthew 5:8; 1 Timothy 5:22 as well. Spiritual purity is directly connected with the mental purity. If your thought life is not right, your spiritual life is not going to be right as well. Many people have harbored bad thoughts against another person and found out it was affecting their spiritual walk with God (1 John 2:9,11; 3:15; 4:20). If we keep these evil thoughts in us, we run into danger of damping the Holy Spirits work in our life (1 Thessalonians 5:15). In the general sense common to the NT, and to the devotional literature of the OT, purity indicates a state of heart where there is complete devotion to God. As unadulterated water is said to be pure, and gold without alloy is pure gold, so the pure heart is the undivided heart where there is no conflict of loyalties, no cleavage of interests, no mixture of motives, no hypocrisy and no insecurity. It is whole-heartedness God-wards. This is probably the sense in which our Lord used it in the Beatitudes (Mt. 5:8). The reward of the undivided heart is the NT New Testament OT Old Testament Dr. Ryan Nielsen

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vision of God. No vision of God can come to the heart that is unclean because it is out of harmony with the nature and character of God. 1 2. Relational purity is affected by our mental and spiritual purity. a. Relation with others - That was the basis of the 10 Commandments in Exodus chapter 20. Let us turn there and read what they entailed. The first set is our relationship with God, the second part is our relationship with our fellow man. Also see Matthew 5:4348 where Jesus is talking about how we should treat others, even if they are mean to us. b. Relation with the world - Along with this 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 says Dont team up with those who are unbelievers. How can goodness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the Devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? And what union can there be between Gods temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from them and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Dont touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you. And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Compare with John 15:19; 17:14-16 as well. c. Relation to our reputation in the world Proverbs 20:11 Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right. Luke 6:43-45 A good tree cant produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cant produce good fruit. A tree is identified by the kind of fruit it produces. Figs never grow on thornbushes or grapes on bramble bushes. A good person produces good deeds from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil deeds from an evil heart. Whatever is in your heart determines what you say.2 3. Physical purity a. Our Body, Acceptable in Gods sight - In Romans 12:1-2 it says And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrificethe kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Dont copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. When we give ourselves totally to God in mind and spirit our relational and physical relationship will be pleasing to Him as well. b. Our Body, a Dwelling Place for God 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 Dont you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which belongs to Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And dont you know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, The two are united into one.(Gen. 2:24) But the person who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Or dont you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in 1Wood, D. R. W., & I. H. Marshall. New Bible Dictionary. 3rd ed. /. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996. 2Holy Bible : New Living Translation. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1997. Lk 6:42. Dr. Ryan Nielsen Page 3 2/6/2012

you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.3 c. Our Body, Free from the Worlds Defilement - 2 Timothy 3:1-9 describes the physical and spiritual defilement that the world experiences. You should also know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no selfcontrol; they will be cruel and have no interest in what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act as if they are religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. You must stay away from people like that. They are the kind who work their way into peoples homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by many desires. Such women are forever following new teachings, but they never understand the truth. And these teachers fight the truth just as Jannes and Jambres fought against Moses. Their minds are depraved, and their faith is counterfeit. But they wont get away with this for long. Someday everyone will recognize what fools they are, just as happened with Jannes and Jambres.4

3Holy Bible : New Living Translation. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1997. 1 Co 6:14. 4Holy Bible : New Living Translation. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1997. 2 Ti 3:1. Dr. Ryan Nielsen Page 4 2/6/2012