The only way to break the shackles of lust, the love of money, the love of power, the love of prestige,

is to put something more attractive in their place.

If you try to defeat lust or the love of money or the love of power by simply saying,

don't do that. It's bad, it's wrong. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

And say nothing positive in its place to allure them out of it.

You fail.

Telling ourselves to just stop it doesn't free our hearts, does it?

Actually, far from it.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens chapter 19 of Luke's

gospel to show that the love of money and power is only broken by something more beautiful.

And that's Christ himself. This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on Sunday evening, January 13, 1985.

Let's go to verse 7. And when they saw it, they all murmured, he has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.

Now, why were they so upset?

I mean, what's wrong with going in to be with a man who is a sinner?

What would they answer to that question?

If they were here and we said, hey, why are you murmuring? What would their

answer be? What would a possible answer be? What? What?

What? Hi? Oh, okay. Jealousy. They wanted Jesus to be with them. If he goes with them, it's like a rejection.

All right. What's another possible motive?

Christ is becoming defiled. Same thing. Okay, I bet those two root motives are both at work here. As far as the Pharisees were concerned, and they governed a lot what the Jewish people thought, to be with or to touch one of these people was to become ceremonially defiled.

They were very concerned about washing your hands before meals, not getting near Gentiles,

and those who put them in the class of Gentiles.

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