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Tiff interviews Endora as an introduction to our Life with Christ series. Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8tZgNC7MZI4 How long have you been coming to FCBC? What did you study in college and what do you do for work? What are things that you enjoy doing or that you're good at doing? Can you share with us a time where you experienced anxiety or depression? How did your faith deepen through it? How did you walk through this time? How did you manage it? How have you experienced friendships that are Christ-centered? What did that look like for you? How are they different from friendships with non believers? Have you experienced loneliness and what has that looked like for you? What has comforted you in loneliness? What does family mean to you? How has your family (both blood family and church family) impacted you?

Community: What Is A Healthy Church Community Ephesians 4:1-16 • FCBC • 01/14/24 Good morning church, it is a privilege to be worshipping with you this morning. If you are visiting with us for the first time my name is Ryan and I am a pastor and one of the elders here at FCBC and I have the privilege of continuing in our series this morning entitled “Our church, it's purpose: who is FCBC and where is she going?” We've been answering that question by going word by word through the name of our church, Faith. Community. Bible. Church. Last week Trent introduced this series to us by looking at that first word in our churches name “Faith.” And he anchored that word to the gospel of Jesus Christ in Romans 3:21-26. We looked at the good news that God in Christ saves sinners through His propitiatory death (that is a death or sacrifice that satisfied God's righteous wrath against our sin rebellion and treason), his glorious resurrection, and his ascension to the right hand of the father where he is reigning and ruling as King of Kings and Lord of Lords until he comes back to earth visibly and personally to judge both the living and the dead and establishes his eternal reign on earth in fellowship with His people forever! We are saved by Faith in His name and by no other way! We are a Faith people or to say it another way, we are a gospel people, a redeemed people, a holy people, a people of the king. In other words, as Trent reminded us from our doctrinal statement, we are a people who hold to: • “The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died a substitutionary and propitiatory death as the once for all sacrifice to God for our sins and overcame death by rising again to life. This sacrifice satisfies the demands of God's holy justice, appeases His holy wrath, demonstrates His mysterious love, and reveals His amazing grace. This free gift of salvation is provided by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, for the glory of God alone." But our doctrinal statement goes on to say that we are also: • We are a community of faith (that is to say, a Faith Community). That is, a group of believers that have been saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. We are believers who gather. • And we gather to proclaim this glorious hope we call the gospel. So we see that this Faith in Jesus Christ, this belief, this giving ourselves to the gospel that has saved us leads us into community. And our goal this morning is to answer the question what is a healthy church community? If we are going to identify as a community of Faith or again, Faith Community, then what is a healthy church community? This morning we are going to look to the book of Ephesians and the apostle Paul to help us answer that question, so I'd invite you to turn to your bibles to Ephesians 4 and were going to read verses 1-16 together. Let's read this and see what the apostle Paul has to say to and about a local church Faith Community. (Read passage) This is in part a bit of a distinctives series and part of the purpose of this series is to get you acquainted with who we are, what we believe, what our name actually means to us, what our doctrinal statement says about us. Our doctrinal statement says this about what a church is: • There is one universal Church, composed of all who in every time and place are chosen in Christ and united to Him through faith by the Spirit in one Body with Christ Himself as the all-sustaining and all-authoritative Head. We believe that the ultimate purpose of the Church is to glorify God forever. • It is God's will that the universal Church find expression in local churches in which believers gather to hear the Word of God proclaimed, to engage in corporate worship, to baptize new believers, and partake in Lord's Supper. Each member of the body is called to exercise his/her spiritual gifts in building one another's faith by encouraging, loving, exhorting, discipling one another, and engaging in evangelism of the lost. Key Texts: Acts 1:8; 2:42; 1 Cor 12:4-11; Eph 2:19-22; Col 1:18; 3:16-17; Heb 10:23-25. And these are the very things Paul helps lay out for us in our text this morning. He gives us the ways in which a healthy church community ought to be defined, established, and maintained. God's blueprint for the church is beautiful. It reflects the very unity, diversity, and fellowship that happens within the Trinity. Recently we went through the book of Ephesians and saw God's glorious plan of redemption on display! In Ephesians 1 we see God's eternal plan is “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (1:10), so that “through this triumphant centerpiece called the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (3:10 word for word). The church is a heavenly hope played out in an earthly reality where congregations of God's people continue gathering people from all nations under the rule of Christ to share in his holiness. So to summarize this thought, Ephesians 1–3 celebrates God's eternal plan: to gather all things in heaven and on earth together under Christ (chapter 1), through the death and resurrection of Christ, which reconciles us to God and to each other (chapter 2), to manifest the triumphant wisdom of his gospel mystery to the spiritual realms through his church (chapter 3). So we come to chapter 4 and Paul explains how his readers and therefore how we must live as a church or a COMMUNITY committed to gathering people under Christ. He does this by outlining three basic principles for us in our text this morning and those are: 1. In Unity 2. Through Ministry 3. For Maturity You see a healthy church community is going to reflect these things. They'll be unified in the gospel, promoting a using of gifts which we're going to talk about here in a bit, for the maturing, holiness, and purity of a church that glorifies God and looks like it's head, Jesus Christ. We'll start with this first principle, UNITY, here in verses 1-6 where Paul encourages his readers to walk in manner worthy of the gospel. In other words, if you are a Faith Community then you'll walk like this. And in verse 2 he gives 3 attitudes crucial for accomplishing this type of unity that supports a healthy church community, and 7 glorious motives for pursuing it. The three attitudes necessary to nourish this sort of community are: 1. Humility 2. Gentleness 3. Patience. If you're truly eager to maintain a spirit of unity in the bond of peace as he says in verse 3, you'll only accomplish that by bearing with one another in love with all humility, gentleness, and patience. And he's saying that ought to be something that you are eager to do. That word eager in the Greek means your zealous for this kind of unity, you hasten to see it happen. It's not passive, it's active, it's a verb it's something you do. In other words, the eagerness leads to action. But if you're like me, that feels like a tall order and can quickly become discouraging. You see humility, gentleness, and kindness don't come easy to us in our sin nature. We by nature are the very opposite of these three attitudes. Instead of humble we are arrogant or self-interested and promoting. Instead of gentle we're harsh, brash, unkind, brutal, and even violent. And instead of patient we are short fused, easily irritable, demanding, and rude. And there is not a single one of us in this room this morning that escapes that indictment because that's the indictment levied against us from the Word of God. We just learned from 2 Timothy that people apart from Christ in their natural state are lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful, and unholy. You might think to yourself, “Well I'm not really like that. I don't treat people like that on the outside or to their face at least. I actually tend to be softer, less combative, even conflict averse.” And I wouldn't deny you that. Certainly, some are more predisposed to being softer than others by nature and therefore maybe more gentle or patient and come off more humble. But there is this tricky little thing called the heart. Remember, God told Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:7, “I don't see as man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart.” I think we could prove that case if there was a running tape of our head and heart that was accessible at any given moment. Perhaps at rush hour on Eagle Rd, or Ustick rd, or Fairview, or in the In n out line, or in conflict with your spouse or children, or simply in the deep recesses of our hearts and what we actually think of people, and the list goes on and on. What's on the inside of us IS what is true of us, in any given moment. But, I don't want to leave you discouraged! You see a healthy church community is really a supernatural community because Paul says it ought to be driven by an eager desire to maintain unity through the very attitudes that we aren't naturally geared or predisposed towards. Which is why it is a Faith Community. Because, through Faith or through the gospel of Jesus Christ we have obtained new natures. That is part of what takes place in the heart transplant of regeneration, we get new life and therefore completely new natures. And with those new natures comes new desires and therefore new ways of living! So it is possible to actually walk in a manner worthy of the gospel with all humility, gentleness, and patience bearing with one another and even eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace… BUT ONLY IN UNION WITH CHRIST AND THEREFORE THROUGH THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT THAT RESIDES IN YOU AS A RESULT OF RECEIVING THE GOSPEL, OR FAITH. We have 3 chapters of rich doctrine saying this is not of your own doing it is a gift of God not of works so that you cannot boast. That's not only a power to save but a power to keep and sanctify and eventually complete good work started in us and to bring us home to heaven. So Paul, gives 7 motivations for the new natured man or women to encourage this kind of living and they all begin with the word ONE: 1. One body 2. One Spirit 3. One hope 4. One Lord 5. One Faith 6. One baptism 7. One God and Father Another way we could say it is we have one “Spirit” who's called us into the one “body” of the church (because this is who Paul is writing to, the gathered church or churches in Ephesus as he says in chapter 1) through the one “hope” of eternal life in the gospel of Christ. One “Lord”, Jesus, is proclaimed in the one gospel “faith” in Scripture, symbolized in our shared “baptism” in the Holy Spirit when we were born again (represented in the ceremony of baptism that symbolizes this cleansing in Christ). One “God and Father” who's the origin, ruler and sustaining presence of everything and everyone in the universe (one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all and in all). Talk about a motivation! A new family to live with you, a spirit to live in you, a hope to preserve you, a Lord who claims you, a faith that saves you, a baptism to identify you, and a God and Father to love, lead, and encompass all of you! And all of this perfectly ordered in unity for the glory of the triune God. Richard Coeken put it like this, • Since God is himself a unity of persons who are different but equal and ordered in love for each other, every church he gathers under Christ is to be a unity of different but equal persons ordered in sacrificially loving roles, serving each other. How exciting to realize that our church community reflects our Creator! I heard this example one time that might help us solidify this point. In a sense, each local church is like a symphony orchestra. The different musicians skillfully combine their talents to make beautiful music. But imagine if the string section becomes competitive and starts showing off by playing faster than everyone else, so the brass section gets aggressive and plays so loudly that they totally dominate, and you can't hear anyone else. Then the wind section gets so upset with all the conflict that they stop playing entirely, and the percussion section overreacts and starts throwing their drumsticks at the rest of the orchestra! Their music would sound dreadful, and the conductor would have to rebuke them, or the audience would quickly leave. Church, far too often, God's people have been characterized by self-centeredness, sharp tongues, and an appetite for conflict. People have left their local church never to return and the glory of God gets eclipsed in the eye of those beholding this kind of community. A fighting orchestra would surely be told: “Stop fighting—you're incredibly privileged to have been chosen and assembled in this orchestra to play Mozart so play nicely!” And the apostle Paul wants to remind us: Stop arguing, stop living in disunity—you're incredibly privileged to have been chosen and gathered into your local church to co-operate in God's stunningly beautiful plan to gather people under Christ. So be humble, gentle and patient, and play nicely! Would God give us the mercy to embody that kind of culture and the good news is that through the gospel we can in UNITY. So a healthy church community happens in unity and THROUGH MINISTRY which is the second principle Paul draws out in verses 7-12. So Paul says one of the ways we preserve unity in the bond of peace is through the gifts given to the church for the work of the ministry and those gifts are the gifts of people who were Christ's gift upon his glorious resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. Look at verse 7 (read). What is the measure of Christ's gift? • Paul tells us back in Ephesians 1:18-22 and it's the glorious inheritance in the saints, immeasurable greatness and power (which just like that inheritance, is ours in Christ) and all authority, power, and dominion, a name that is above every name, and ultimately a redeemed people called the church whom he is head over for all time! • Paul then quotes Psalm 68:18 in verse 8 and says that host of captives once enslaved to sin are now his to enlist and repurpose back into kingdom work for the advance of the gospel! • He says the one that ascended to heaven ie Christ was also the one who descended as Josiah talked about a few weeks ago from Philippians 2 to the earth and even to death and the very hell that was God's wrath at calvary (and as an aside there are a lot of interpretations as to what Paul means here in terms of “lower regions” that we don't have time to get into this morning) but suffice it to say experienced the brutal and hellish pain of that descending but didn't stay dead or in that descended state, but rather ascended far above all heavens, that he might fulfill all things! • The check cleared, the payment paid in full, the sacrifice acceptable to God and Christ the rightful head over the church and therefore it's his gift to give, he earned it and he alone! • And that's what he does, he received in order to give, and he earned in order to bestow. And he gives the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, and the shepherd teachers in order to equip the saints for the work of the ministry or in other words to see to it that the priesthood of all believers was being exhorted and admonished to use their gifts. o And we already see this at this point in time of the church. Christ gave the early church apostles, 12 men plus Paul who were charter witnesses of Christ's resurrection and rendered life long and church wide authority over life and doctrine, who penned the New Testament into cannon under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. o He gave prophets like Agubus in Acts 11 and Paul said in Ephesians 2:20 “That the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets” o He gives evangelists like Philip designated in Acts 21:8 o And he gives teachers and shepherds or as we might understand it in this context elders, or ministers of local congregations, overseers to shepherd the flock of God among them as charged to them by the Holy Spirit himself. • And why does he give the church these kind of people? Verse 12 answers that for us, “To equip the saints for the work of the ministry and for the building up of the body of Christ.” In other words these gifts to the church aren't meant to be the only gifts of the church, but rather gifts that keep on giving. The sequential nature of Paul's line of thought here seems to indicate that the immediate purpose of Christ's gifts is the ministry to be rendered by the entire flock. So, the church bodies ultimate purpose is the building up of the body of Christ, the church. William Hendrickson in his commentary on this passage says, o Using our gifts is necessary, for when the church recognizes its unity and strives more and more to preserve it, each member co-operating with all the others, the gospel will move mightily forward among the nations, the church itself rejoice, Satan tremble, and the name of God be glorified. • That's a pretty epic picture but I don't think Christ died for anything less glorious than that. He goes on to say: o And what's more, is that this unity makes allowance for diversity of gifts among the many members of the one body. In fact, this very diversity, far from destroying the unity, will, if properly used, promote it. • Listen, Paul the apostle is his own best commentary on this in 1 Corinthians 12. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7: o “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” • I think one man summed it up really well when he said, o “the real comfort and glorious lesson for everyone must ever be: I have received my gift, be it great or small, from Christ himself. I must use it, therefore, as he requires. The giver will not fail me when I use my gift for the benefit of all as He intended.” Now, there is a lot we could say about the types of gifts and how they are distributed, and what their purpose is, and on and on. Paul certainly spends A LOT of time correcting people that have a distorted or disorderly view and function of their gift. I mean isn't it so much like us as humans to take our gift and make it about us. But we aren't going to get into all of that unless you want me to take us until 4 pm which I'm assuming you don't. But I would like to address one thing I feel like the Lord has put on my heart as it pertains to serving and using your gift in this local body and I have a few examples I'd love to share. Often, when the question comes, how can I get involved here at this local church I'm afraid we're misinterpreting the nature of the question. What I've grown to understand is what's often meant by that is, “How do I get involved in formal ministries of the church organization.” That's not a bad question! We need musicians who love Christ to serve skillfully and sincerely to lead our body in sung worship every Sunday. We need children's ministry volunteers and Sunday School teachers to give our students the nourishment of the Word and gospel in tandem with you as their parent's week in and week out. We need ushers and greeters to serve our body with the gift of hospitality, we need people to help with women's ministries and men's ministries events and studies and programs, we need life group leaders to lead life groups and offer shepherding care that way, we need people gifted with helping those under intense suffering or sin to help provide Biblical counseling in our counseling ministry. Church, the list goes on and on, but there are a lot of us here. I'd say there are more of us than there are formal needs of FCBC. So what if by some miracle every formal need was met and the body was helping the church to meet it's needs functionally on a week to week basis. Does ministry opportunity or our call to use our gifts stop? Do the needs stop? NO, and that's because the gift of Christ isn't the building, the programs, the scheduled ministries that are really good things, the gift of Christ IS PEOPLE. PEOPLE ARE THE CHURCH and PEOPLE ARE HER GIFT from Christ who purchased that gift, ransomed that gift, redeemed that gift to give back to the church! So you might come here, attend here, heck even serve in one of the formal ministries I just listed and not be doing the actual work of the ministry because the actual work of the ministry results in the building up of the body in love. So, here's a really helpful and vulnerable question as it pertains to your meaningful involvement at FCBC, who do you know and who knows you!? Listen we were meant to be covenanted together in union with Christ and therefore in union with one another. Brother sister you are responsible one to another just as I am responsible to you as one of your elders and pastors. I know I've said stuff like this before, but if you want to do something meaningful for the church, you want to be meaningfully involved in serving the church and using your gift, be a Christian and therefore thoroughly invested into the building up of one another in love. Let me give some practical examples of how I see this happening in our church in ways you may not even be aware of: • Andy book studies, Abrie Church incredibly gifted musician who started this ministry called BTB scripture memory to song, Mitchell's adoption support, other foster care support groups, worship nights hosted by the Steins, people committing to get together and pray once a week, study God's Word once a week, and so many other things. • Listen, instead of asking yourself how am I being used at FCBC in a formal sense, start by asking yourself whose life am I meaningfully involved in and who's meaningfully involved in mine? • Listen serving the church in a formal way is a glorious thing and we need all the help we can get but ministry is so much more than that. And this is what is so beautiful about the local church. All of these types of one another's happen within a group of believers called a local church a gathered expression of God's universally gathered church, a microcosm of what he intends for all eternity. And what happens when we are committed to walking in unity, using our gifts through ministry, it results in our 3rd and final principle OUR MATURITY. Look with me briefly at verses 13-16 (read). Church what's the goal of Christ in our lives from beginning to end? Christlikeness. Looking like Jesus. Becoming like the one we love and behold. He is shaping and fashioning us into his likeness so that we can live with him for eternity and one day he'll complete that work he began in us for even when we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot and will not deny himself. I love how Greg Gilbert puts it in his book “What is The Gospel” when he says: • "Do you want to see what the kingdom of God looks like, at least before it is made perfect? Do you want to see the life of the kingdom lived out in this age? Look at the church. That's where God's wisdom is displayed, where people who were formerly alienated are reconciled and united because of Jesus, and where God's Holy Spirit is at work remaking and rebuilding human lives. It's where God's people learn to love one another, to bear one another's burdens and sorrow, to weep together and rejoice together, and to hold one another accountable. Of course it's not perfect, but the church is where the life of the kingdom is lived and showcased to a world desperately in need of salvation." What does a healthy church community look like? Well quite simply, Jesus. A Faith Community is a people committed to one another's maturity, to see one another look like Jesus, so that we can build each other up in love, maintaining unity, though the gift of the church and ministry, for maturity because we actually think the lamb is worth the reward of His suffering. He is certainly worth this community called Faith Community Bible Church.

#channel #church #churchonline #newyork #christian #christianity #christ #gospel #hiphop #love #health #latestnews #podcast #viral #motivation Public Figure Cultural Architect Lead Visionary Host @journeytvlive Morehouse Man Omega Mna #BeHuman Watch Online Sundays at fcbcnyc.tv “We are an ever evolving community of visionaries, dreamers, and doers who have been called by God to live the lives we were created to live; commanded by God to love beyond the limits of our prejudices and commissioned by God to serve.” What does it mean to Live? To Love To Serve Favorite songs from the choir Favorite worship song How does it feel to have people from all over the world come to FCBC? Is attendance lower when you're not preaching? Define faith Grace Prayer without work is dead Why are people afraid to give their life to God? Is church trauma real? Prayer to move beyond pettiness Prayer for God to keep moving Prayer to make it well Identity check Bring up notes October 29th, 2017 Message to your younger self Message to the youth

John Tillery spoke on November 17, 2023 Pointing out that Jesus came to those who knew their need. ( John 9:39-41)

JR Hand spoke on November 12, 2023 pointing out that belief is the focal point of these verses. John 9:35-38

Pavan Rajagopal spoke on November 5, 2023 showing how this passage exhorts the listener to accept Jesus as their personal Savior. It also exhorts all believers to become disciples and witnesses of Christ. (John 9:24-34)

John Tillery spoke on October 29, 2023 telling us that we must understand that the Jews (Scribes and Pharisees) had already decided that Jesus was not the Messiah and therefore he must be killed. (John 9:18-23)

John Tillery spoke on October 22, 2023 showing how this passage proves that Jesus is the Son of God, Lord of the Sabbath, and rightful heir to the throne of David. (John 9:13-17)

Susan G. Komen's Worship in Pink is a volunteer-driven breast health educational program powered by local faith-based communities. The program empowers faith communities with knowledge and resources to take an active role in their breast health. Here today to discuss the Worship in Pink program and why it is so important for Black congregations are Desiree Elder, Associate Pastor at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, and Se'Nita Harris, an FCBC church member and Komen's Multicultural Marketing Manager.

John Tillery spoke on October 15, 2023 pointing out that in this passage we observe that the seeing became blind while the blind had become seeing. (John 9:8-12)

Ken Bowman spoke on October 8, 2023 pointing out that this passage contains the sixth of the seven miraculous signs found in the book of John. (John 9:1-7)

John Tillery spoke on October 1, 2023 emphasizing that this passage contains one of the most (if not the most) triumphant proclamation that Jesus ever made. Jesus' timeless presence is in view here. (John 8:48-59)

JR Hand spoke on September 17, 2023 pointing out that this section emphasizes the truth that there is a great chasm between this sinful life and the Eternal Heaven. and that Christ is the only bridge across that chasm. (John 8:21-30)

Benoy Benny spoke on September 10, 2023 seeing four things that Jesus is. He is: God, Judge exposing deeds of darkness, the Savior of the world, and the Light of life. (John 8:12-20)

John Tillery spoke on September 3, 2023 showing us from the text that the focus was not on the adulteress woman but rather on the people who were judging the Messiah in order to arrest and kill Him. (John 7:53-8:11)

John Tillery spoke on August 27, 2023 showing how this passage showed that Jesus was beyond being a great human teacher. (John 7:40-52)

John Tillery spoke on August 20, 2023 seeing that God is the master incarnational teacher as demonstrated in this passage. (John 7:32-39)

John Tillery spoke on August. 13, 2023 showing how Jesus was teaching and proclaiming the Word of God with authority in this passage. (John 7:25-31)

Pavan Rajagopal spoke on August 6, 2023 pointing out three things in this passage. They are: Jesus teachings are not human opinion, we can be sure that His teaching is from God, and an exhortation to stop judging solely by external appearances. (John 7:14-24)

Jon Preston spoke on July 30, 2023 pointing out that the people in this passage were asking the wrong question about Jesus. "Where is He?' They and we should be asking "Who is Jesus?". (John 7:10-13)

Daniel Lopez spoke on July 23, 2023 showing 3 main themes in this passage: Unbelief, Time, and The World's Issue. (John 7:1-9)

John Tillery spoke on July 16, 2023 showing how Jesus wants people to have Eternal Salvation, not just the miracles. (John 6:60-71)

John Tillery spoke on July 9, 2023 imploring all to seek Jesus for the right reason, Eternal Life. We also find Jesus' first major "I Am" statement here. (John 6:22-59)

So, if Paul is commanding us to walk in wisdom, how do we do that? The answer to our question is that the Spirit empowers us to walk in wisdom. In verses 15-17, Paul lifts up “making the best use of the time” and “understanding the will of the Lord” as examples of wise, Spirit empowered living. To me, both of these things sound nearly impossible. How in the world am I supposed to make the best use of the time in such an evil day, and how does one know the will of the Lord? Here's what we need to understand about this passage. As Paul is contrasting wise living with foolish living, he is giving us specific examples of what it looks like to live wisely - making the best use of the time and understanding the will of the Lord. To do those things, is wise. To not do those things is foolish. So to understand Paul's commands here, we need to understand some of Paul's thoughts about true wisdom. I think that it is abundantly clear that Paul teaches that true wisdom is found in Jesus Christ. Colossians 2:3 says that, “Christ, (is the one) 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In the Son are hidden ALL of the treasures of wisdom. True wisdom is seeing all of life from God's perspective, and we know the Father through the Son. In Ephesians 1, Paul prays earnestly to God that those reading his letter would be given “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of (God the Father).” It is through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ - God the Son incarnate - by the power of the Spirit, that we can know true wisdom. In contrast to the true wisdom revealed in Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit, foolishness is revealed in the fleshly living of those who do not know Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 says, “18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 4 These verses reveal that the wisdom of all the earth is not sufficient on its own to cause anyone to truly see God, and because of this the wisdom of the world is really no wisdom at all. As people, we either have wisdom in Christ or we do not have true wisdom. This walk in true wisdom that Paul calls us to in verses 15-17 is only possible for those who are sealed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. For those of us who are followers of Christ, we used to walk in this world as those who were blind to the wisdom of Christ. Though we could see with our earthly eyes, our spiritual eyes were unenlightened by the powerfully, piercing light of the gospel. But, through faith in Jesus Christ our eyes have been opened to the glories of gospel truth, and we can now walk in true wisdom. If you are here today, and you do not know Christ, our collective prayer is that the Holy Spirit would open your eyes to the true hope that we have in Jesus. Please believe in the Christ who died on the cross, defeated sin and death in His resurrection from the dead, and ascended on high in order to carry out this glorious exchange - blindness for sight, foolishness for wisdom. Application: To those of us who believe, how do we make the best use of our time in this evil day? We, in the power of the Spirit, continue to drink more deeply of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How do we know the will of the Lord? We, in the power of the Spirit, follow the way of Christ. How do we walk wisely? We walk wisely in the power of the Spirit who unites us to Jesus Christ. For some of us, walking wisely will look like taking opportunities to evangelize at the playground with the other moms. For others, walking wisely will look like mowing the grass of a widow in our church. Boys and girls who are in here, what do you think it could mean for you to walk wisely? Maybe for you, it would be something as simple as putting away your toys the first time that your parents ask. 5 For all of us, though, walking wisely will look like obeying the commands of Christ through the power of the Spirit in whatever opportunities lie before us. As we move to verse 18, we're going to see that not only is the believer's walk in wisdom empowered by the Spirit but we will also see that the believer's walk is empowered by the fullness of the Spirit. In verse 18, Paul lays out one of the most crucial commands of the book of Ephesians when he says, “be filled with the Spirit.” Because the fullness of the Spirit empowers our growth in holiness, we dare not live the Christian life without dwelling deeply on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. As we seek to follow all of the commands of Scripture, it is the fullness of the Spirit that enables us to grow in obedience. As we examine this command in verse 18 to be filled with the Spirit, I'm not going to spend much time on the prohibition of drunkenness. While it's a sin to be drunk, and I would sternly condemn drunkenness, Paul's main priority in this prohibition is to contrast drunkenness with the filling of the Spirit as his central command. So, unlike the hyper fundamentalist churches that I grew up in, who usually only focused on condemning alcohol with this passage, I'm going to spend the majority of my time with this passage focusing on what it means to be filled with the Spirit. There are thousands of things that we should not be filled with, but the emphasis here is that we should be filled with the Holy Spirit. When we come to the command to be filled with the Spirit, there are several questions to answer to grasp the topic of filling with the Spirit. The first question that we must answer is “what is fullness with the Spirit?” Because every believer is indwelled by the Spirit at conversion, we must first understand that the fullness of the Spirit is not the initial indwelling of the Spirit. While the Spirit certainly intends to fill the vessel that he indwells, the command to continue to seek the fullness of the Spirit indicates that we are speaking of further growth in the Spirit beyond the initial indwelling of the Spirit. 6 Along the same lines, we must realize that Paul is assuming that the believers he is writing to in Ephesians already have the Spirit, and that they are sealed by the same Spirit. Paul's use of the phrase “filled with the Spirit” is different from the sealing or indwelling of the Spirit. Throughout Scripture, the filling of the Spirit can be explained in three broad categories. I'm drawing from John Stott's wonderful little booklet, Baptism and Fullness as I explain this to you. If you can, get this booklet to help as you seek to engage more thoroughly with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Of the three broad Scriptural categories for the filling of the Spirit, the first is that, in Scripture, the fullness of the Spirit is used to refer to the normal characteristic of every dedicated Christian. We see one example of this in Acts 6:3 as the Apostles were choosing deacons. It says, “Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.” It's clear here that these men were to be characterized as being full of the Spirit before they were ever chosen for service as deacons. Certainly, fullness of the Spirit should be normal for the growing, faithful Christian. Secondly, the fullness of the Spirit refers to a special foundation for a particular ministry or office. An example of this would be in reference to John the Baptist from Luke 1:15 which says, “15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.” Even in the womb, John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit for his special ministry of being the forerunner of Christ. Thirdly, there are occasions when the fullness of the Spirit is given to equip people not so much for special, lifelong ministry as for an immediate task. An example for this comes from the martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 7:55 which says, “55 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” As Stephen was martyred, the Spirit filled him to be able to boldly proclaim Christ and to endure suffering. So, what is the fullness of the Spirit? I believe that in the context of this passage and the broader categories of Scripture that fullness of the Spirit refers to the characteristic pattern of the believer's walk being strongly influenced by the Spirit rather than being strongly influenced by the flesh. 7 In contrast to the way that being drunk causes one to be so influenced by the alcohol that they turn to all kinds of uncontrollable actions, being filled with the Spirit means that a believer is so strongly influenced by the Spirit that their life results in the controlled actions of the fruit of the Spirit. The second question that we must answer when it comes to the filling of the Spirit is “how can I be filled with the Spirit?” To answer this question, in the clearest way, I think that we must turn to the teachings of Jesus. In Luke 11:13, Jesus says, “13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Fullness of the Holy Spirit is something that we must relentlessly and humbly ask the Father for. The Father's desire is for His children to know the fullness of the Holy Spirit, yet so often we do not ask our Father for the fullness of the Spirit. Why don't we ask the Father for the fullness of the Spirit? For some it's because we've never understood what the fullness of the Spirit even is. For others, it's because we're afraid of the dangerous excess and lack of Scriptural foundation of some strains of modern day Pentecostalism. For most of us, though, we do not ask the Father for the fullness of the Spirit because we do not believe in the urgency of the spiritual battle that we are in Christian brothers and sisters, we are at war! While victory is guaranteed through the work of Christ on the cross, Satan still has a foothold in our flesh, and our self-sufficient, proud hearts are all too eager to turn away from the battle for holiness. We must battle this incredible tension that we experience in this age of the “already but not yet - this time between the inauguration and consummation of Christ's kingdom - by the fullness of the Spirit! Because of the constant war with our flesh that we face as believers, it is only through the filling of the Spirit that we can see true, lasting, increasing victory over sin and holiness in our lives. 8 Do you want to conquer sin through the fullness of the Spirit? Ask God to fill you with his Spirit. It is through this empowering work of the Spirit that we can see true victory as we live in obedience to the commands of God. The second teaching of Jesus that helps us to answer our question “how can I be filled with the Spirit” is found in Luke 7. Verses 37-39 say this, “37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” In this passage, Jesus stands up and paints a picture of one who thirsts in a way that only Jesus can satisfy. Those who are separated from Jesus are parched, dry, and panting for water, and Jesus bids them come to Him so that He can quench their thirst. Only those who drink of Jesus will have the thirst quenching satisfaction of a mighty river of living water. But what is this living water? Verse 39 tells us that the rivers of living water are the Holy Spirit. Fullness with the water that is supplied by Jesus is fullness with the Spirit. Application: If you desire to be full of the Spirit, you must drink deeply of the waters that flow from Jesus Himself. Savor Him. Worship Him. Fill your mind with His Words. Oh church, may we never tire of Jesus. May we go to Him time and time again for the rivers of living water, and in doing so, Lord, may we be filled with your Spirit anew. As we move on to the next verses in our passage, we can see that they answer the question “what are the marks of being filled with the Spirit,” and the answer is that fullness with the Spirit empowers the believer's walk in worship. One of the primary identifiers of one who is filled with the Spirit is that they participate in true worship. Verses 19-21 are some of the most powerful verses on worship in the New Testament because they are so deeply connected to the role of the Holy Spirit in empowering our worship. As we look at these verses, we must note that these verses clearly highlight the Godward as well as the corporate aspects of worship in the church. Verses 19 and 21 address the corporate aspects of our worship as Christians. 9 It's no mistake that Paul notes one of the first marks of being filled with the Holy Spirit is addressing or speaking to one another in a way that propels our worship. Now, when Paul says that we ought to address one another in “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,” he is not implying that being filled with the Spirit means that we can only sing at each other as our primary means of communication, even though, as a church family, we often do encourage one another through our sung worship. What Paul is trying to press home here is that the content of our communication, our addressing of one another, whether sung or otherwise, should be filled with the same mingling of truth and emotion that is found in the greatest songs of the Christian faith. What makes great Christian music such an important part of the historic Church? It is the unique blending together of emotion and truth that binds our hearts to each other and to God in singing. Just as our music ought to convey both emotion and biblical truth, so too should all of our conversations with each other cause emotional, truthful worship to be taking place. The second corporate aspect of worship that Paul addresses in these verses as a mark of being filled with the Spirit is found in verse 21. Paul says that we should be submitting to one another. I believe that local churches are the greatest, most tangible displays of the gospel in our world, and I believe that a church that truly grasps living together in mutual submission provides one of the greatest apologetics for Christ in our present day. In a time of polarization due to politics and in a day where genuine connection with others is lacking due to the commonality of online interactions, a church that lives in the unity and connection that comes from mutual submission to each other will help the world to see what true worship looks like. Additionally, there's nothing that inflames the worship of a church more than unity in the gospel manifested in mutual submission. In verses 19 and 20, Paul also addresses the marks of fullness in the Spirit that are displayed in Godward worship. 10 One of these marks is the giving of thanks to God always and for everything in the name of Jesus Christ. The giving of thanks in everything is a God glorifying act of worship, because it is a right response to the truth about our sovereign King. What could be more God glorifying than responding to God's self revelation in His sovereignty over all things with true, heartfelt thanks? While there's genuine evil in this broken, sinful world, and we must not be ones to call evil good and good evil, we can rest confidently in the fact that only in Christ Jesus can “…all things work together for good…” Application: Cling to this promise my dear brothers and sisters and let this promise propel you to give thanks to God in everything as an evidence of the fullness of the Spirit in your life. The final mark of the fullness of the Spirit that Paul mentions here is singing that is directed to the Lord and is done with the whole heart. As I mentioned earlier, the combination of emotion and truth in singing is something that has united the church for centuries, and we get to join in this chorus of all ages when we sing here at church, in our homes, and on our ways to work. While many of us do not have the greatest of voices, I hope that you know what it means to engage in singing with all of your heart for the glory of God alone. Sing out church, because in doing so we are offering pleasing sacrifices to the Lord himself. As God's new covenant people, we are, as it says in 1 Peter 2:5, “a holy priesthood, to offer sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Application: In our singing, we offer, as a body, acceptable worship to God. And, each and every one of us has a part in that. Our worship team should never be the primary worshippers of Faith Community Bible Church on a Sunday morning. Our elders should not be the primary sacrifice offerers. The guitars and drums should not be the primary instruments of praise. The primary worshippers of FCBC on a Sunday morning should be you, the priesthood of believers, using the instrument of your voice to lift praises to God in Christ Jesus with all of your heart. 11 That is evidence of the fullness of the Spirit empowering your walk in worship. Conclusion: If you remember the story about being lost that I told you at the beginning of this message, well, obviously we eventually found the path. The problem, though, was that we still had a ton of miles left to walk even after we had spent all that time wandering in the woods. Eventually we made it to the end of the hike, though, and it felt so good to reach our final destination. Finally, we could rest! The Christian life is a lot like this arduous hike. It's no short jaunt. It's a long walk of obedience in the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, I believe that it is incredibly important that each of us leave here today with a deep understanding that our walk as believers is empowered by the Holy Spirit. In all that comes in life, let us, as followers of Jesus, seek the fullness of the Holy Spirit which empowers our walk. In the parenting of a stubborn teenager, only the Spirit's power can cause you to speak words that He carries to their heart. In the death of your dearly loved ones, only the Spirit's power can enable you to see the hand of a good God at work in every aspect of their life and death. In all of the transitions and changes that our church has experienced, only the Spirit's power can keep us worshiping with white hot passion that displays God's glorious gospel to the rest of the world. In the words of Psalm 95, and in earnest desire for the filling of the Holy Spirit, I say to you Faith Community Bible Church, “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods…Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…”

IMITATORS OF GOD: LOVE, SEX, AND THE GLORY OF CHRIST Ephesians 5:1-14 • FCBC • 07/23/23 Good morning church, it is a privilege to be worshipping with you this morning. If you are visiting with us for the first time my name is Ryan and I am the pastor for worship and counseling and one of the elders here at FCBC and I have the privilege of opening up the Word to us this morning. I want to start by simply reading our passage and then we'll jump right in. This morning we're going to be looking at Paul's exhortation to us to be imitators of God in love, sexual integrity. And the temptation I fought this week was just jumping right into what that might look like for us as believers this practically (to just go right for the implications and applications of this text). But I want to pause pretty significantly to unpack that term “Be imitators of God.” What in the world does it even mean to be imitators of God? I wrestled with this exhortation from Paul all week and I think if you can read right over that and go directly to the application and the “how” behind this call to imitate God without even a second thought (or a small mental breakdown), I want to gently but honestly tell you, you have WAY TO HIGH A VIEW OF YOUR SPIRITUAL CAPACITIES AND ABILITIES. Let's go backwards for a bit. We've spent the last five weeks going through the imperatives of chapter 4. As Steve mentioned at the beginning of the book, Ephesians is really broken up into two parts; chapters 1-3 where Paul puts on display the glorious realities of the of the gospel. This is what we've referred to as the indicatives (declarations) that are so predominate in the first 3 chapters of Ephesians. And chapters 4-6 are what a life lived under those glorious realities looks like. We've referred to these as the imperatives or the commands that are so predominate in the last 3 chapters of the book. And so, before we move on, I just want to jog our memory for a moment and go backwards because I think that will serve us well as we get into the 5th chapter of this book. In chapter 1 Paul breaks down the fact that it takes a work of the entire trinity to bring us to God. The Father chooses a people for himself before the foundation of the world according to the good purpose of His will which brings Him glory and promises that remnant of people to the Son. He then commissions the Son on a rescue mission to save and redeem those people through His own blood giving us the forgiveness of our trespasses and the riches of His grace as an inheritance which Paul says He lavishes upon us (in other words he's not stingy with His blessing of salvation). And then the son commissions the Spirit which we see in Ephesians 1:13-14 as promised in John 14:16 and John 15:26 to seal or secure this promised hope of a people that will one day live with their God forever. The Father makes the promise, the Son makes the provision, and the Spirit guarantees our hope until redemptions done until we join in endless praise to God the three in one… and why does Paul say He does this!? It's as we sing “to the praise of His glory, to the praise of His mercy and grace, to the praise of His glory YOU are the God that saves!” If you've come in here this morning and are wondering, “Why am I here? Why have I come? I am overwhelmed by my sin and have grown weary of doing good, what could possibly happen this morning that would change my life, my outlook, or my circumstances?” It's this, you are beloved! In love he predestined you to adoption as sons and daughters through the blood of Jesus Christ, in love he has called you and given you the forgiveness of your sins and the lavish riches of His grace, in love he has blessed you and called you beloved, in love he is making known to you the mystery of His will which is this great gospel that is making all thing new and right again, in love he has sealed you for the day of redemption despite your ever challenging growth and sanctification he will PERSONALLY see it through!!! That's why you're here this morning because Christ loves you and has called you to Himself! And that's just chapter 1 of the book. Chapter 2 Paul goes on to describe our condition and what we've been called from and called to. We who were sons of disobedience walking according to the passions of our flesh have been saved by grace. Not saved by our own hard work but saved by grace having been given faith as a gift to believe in God. This is not a result of our own doing rather as Paul says it is a gift of God, not of works so that our only boast is in Christ ALONE! This gospel of grace that levels the playing field for all of us, gives us a unity as one body so that you can't look over to your neighbor and say I was more acceptable than you were, more lovable, less dirty, just flat out better. It's so that in Paul's day the Jews couldn't look at the gentiles whom they despised and say “You have no place in this family” rather “this same gift of grace we've received as God's special people has been extended to you through the blood of Jesus, so that you are now as Ephesians 3:6 says, ‘fellow heirs, members of this same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel'.” Over and over and over Paul is hammering away at this simple truth, you were saved by God, for God, and to God. To put it another way from one of Paul's other New Testament letter's “to live is Christ and to die is gain!” This is the most important thing about you, your identity in Christ, because that is what you were created for; to dwell with, fellowship with, and worship your creator! So why do I bring all this up again? Well, as we said at the beginning, we've spent the last five weeks going through these imperatives or these commands that Paul is totally unapologetic about. He's saying if your life has truly been transformed by the gospel it should look like this: 1. Don't lie rather tell the truth 2. Don't sin with anger rather be angry and don't sin 3. Don't steal rather labor with honest work so you have something to share 4. Don't speak corruptly rather use your words for building up and giving grace These are all good things and should definitely characterize the life and living of a Christian! I mean who doesn't want an honest, gentle, hardworking, generous, and encouraging person in their life? I'd even say even non-Christians would consider this type of person to be generally good for their communities, businesses, and society in general. But I want us to consider something before moving on to our passage which contains another (what feels like) weightier imperative waiting for us in the very first verse of Ephesians 5. Consider this: • There are plenty of honest, gentle, hardworking, generous, and encouraging people in the world who haven't been transformed by the power of the gospel. This begs the question, “What's the difference between a non Christian who's life can be characterized by these virtues, values, and imperatives and a Christian who obeys these commands from Paul and bears fruit?” o The power by which you accomplish these good works and… o The purpose for which you accomplish these good works § And that's going to be so important as we look at this next imperative • You see the power by which the unregenerate person seeks to be a decent person ultimately rests in and relies on SELF and the ultimate purpose for which they seek to accomplish these virtues is FOR SELF • But the power by which the Christian can bear fruit of this nature is his/her UNION in CHRIST and the purpose for which the Christian bears fruit is FOR the GLORY of CHRIST The reason why this distinction is SO important is because we get to Ephesians 5:1 and we see this command “Therefore be imitators of God.” That's almost seems like an incredulous statement. “Really Paul, imitate God!? You might as well ask me to swim across the Pacific Ocean or jump to mars.” God is holy, God is perfect in wisdom, love knowledge, and power. He does all things well. He is perfect in justice; he upholds the universe with the Word of His power. He never sins. And yet Paul seems still to implore us to this anyway and I think this is why he can do this Paul summarizes three chapters of indicatives (or declarations regarding your identity) and it's in the three words in the rest of that verse, “As Beloved Children!” You see, if we aren't saturated in the gospel realities of Ephesians 1-3, if we don't have a robust view of our identity in Christ, then we're going to read right over the phrase “As beloved Children” and not believe that imitating God, as Paul is understanding it, is possible. You see this is why Paul spends so much time unpacking the glorious realities of the gospel for us in Ephesians 1-3. He realizes the only power by which someone can imitate God is by the power of the gospel. And we throw that word around here a lot; the gospel, the power of the gospel, applying the gospel to our lives, gospel, gospel, gospel. It can almost become white noise. So, when I say that Paul realizes the only power by which someone can imitate God is by the power of the gospel what I am saying is “Christ's life and righteousness working in and through you, applied to you through the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross, and working in you by the power of the Holy Spirit!” • You see the Greek word for “imitator” of God in verse 1 comes from the root word: μιμεομαι (mimeomai) this is a verb and noun form from where we get our word mimic. • But the actual word used here specifically in Ephesians 5:1 is the word: μιμητής (mimites) which is actually primarily a noun form. • You might be wondering, “Why does that matter, and it matters because if we're going to stay consistent with Paul's line of thought through this whole book, we have to understand that being an imitator of God is not some impossible thing to be accomplished but rather a position in Christ to be assumed that yields fruit! I love how Calvin put it, he said: o This principle is followed out and enforced by the consideration that children ought to be like their father. He reminds us that we are the children of God, and therefore bear a resemblance to God just as an earthly son bears a resemblance to his earthly father. o You see this is as much about resemblance through identity as it is about bearing fruit through action o And that is really good news for us as Paul is about to implore us to do this is primarily in two ways in the text: by imitating Christ's love, and in our sexual integrity So, with all that in mind: let's look at this first way in which we bear a resemblance as children of God and that's through: • Imitating Christ's love • Bears the question what does the love look like that I am supposed to imitate • And how did Christ love us? Well, Paul tells us in verse 2 by giving himself up for us sacrificially. o Twice in this book Paul describes the love of Christ as a giving up of himself to the point of death. He says it again in verse 25 giving husbands an example of how they ought to love their wives. He says “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up” for her. He says something similar again in Philippians 2 talking about Christ's humbling himself to come to His creation and giving himself up for us in obedience to the point of death, even death on a cross. 1 Timothy 2:6, Paul says he gave himself up as a ransom for all. Or Galatians 2:20 where Paul says, “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” o Paul seems to narrow in often throughout his epistles on this unique nature of Christ's love which is that of utter and total selflessness in a spirit of “giving himself up” in sacrificial love for his own people, for sinners like you and me. o And of course he focuses on this, this is at the very core of the gospel. In this act of giving himself up we see Christ's truest display of love which was sacrificing his own life for His enemies. He gave himself up for you and for me. And Paul says to us here in Ephesians 5:2 imitate that. And guess what, you actually can. You can die to self, and live to Christ and sacrifice for others, and give and live selflessly for the good of those around you and even towards your enemy because remember; You are a child of God, you bear His resemblance and the resemblance of Christ. You share the same DNA. Paul says it this way in Romans 8:11: § the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead (and that is the Spirit of God) dwells in you and is right now giving life to your mortal body § And that is not only power to be saved but also the power to look like Jesus in the ways that he loves. It's power to change you more and more into the image of God. o God had Jesus give himself up for you so that through his sacrifice you might be able to give yourself in sacrificial love to others resembling the love of Christ. You see, you can't give what you haven't received but for those who have received the love of God, He has made them children of God who can live and act in the light of His love • He also calls us to imitate God in our sexual integrity: o Verse 3 says not to let any immorality, impurity, or covetousness be even named among you. o Your Bible might say fornication but the Greek word for sexual immorality is πορνεία (porneia) where we get our word pornography and came to mean all forms of sexual immorality including but not limited to incest, prostitution, polygamy, adultery, and any other form of sexual gratification outside of God's good design o Something interesting to note about the word porneia, In the Septuagint, the term refers specifically to adultery and, metaphorically, to Israel's idolatrous betrayal of her marriage to God. I think this is significant because it speaks to the very nature of our sin which manifests in many ways but at it's root is idolatry o And Paul distinguishes sexual immorality from impurity which is the Greek word ἀκαθαρσίᾳ (akatharsia) this is the idea of general uncleanness, or filthiness. It's the idea of loving something dirty or corrupted from it's original state of beauty. Paul uses this word over and over in the New Testament and it's often preceded by the word ἐπὶ (epi) which denotes aim or intention. In other words the intention is viewed as the basis for whatever act of impurity Paul is referencing. It's not just careless or thoughtless falling into uncleanness but rather an intention, pursuit, a trajectory driven by motive and desire. o And then he says covetousness which is not a word we use often in this day and age. It's the Greek word πλεονεξία (Pleonexia) which his often interchangeable with the word greed. As a matter of fact Paul uses this same word in Ephesians 4:19 but there it is translated greed and not covetousness. And yet even in that passage was tied closely to sensuality. It's the idea this intense desire for something that's not yours and you'll stop at nothing to get it. It's this insatiable lust that tricks you into thinking you should have something that God never intended you to have, and you'll do whatever it takes to get it. o Paul is saying let none of this be a part of you don't even let it be named among you. He says in verse 4 don't even joke about or talk about it or take it lightly. o And then he says God is so serious about His holiness that anyone who is sexually immoral, impure, or covetous (which is ultimately idolatry) has NO INHERITANCE IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST AND GOD. NOW HOLD ON A MINUTE!!! Let's get really honest, you might be asking yourself and rightly so, Ryan, what does this say about me and my condition. I've been sexually immoral. I've been impure or unclean. I've coveted and lusted after things or people that aren't mine. Maybe the scarier thing is, if I'm honest my flesh still does at times!? I struggle. I'm a sinner. I've looked at porn or am currently looking at porn. I find myself as the psalmist says devising evil or ungodliness in my heart. There are moments in the idleness of time I find myself drawn to sin in my thinking, wanting, and lusting. What does this mean for me! That's makes sense! • We'll look at two ways which we might be tempted to interpret this passage that we ought not to and one way in which I think we have an answer from Paul: o Ignore it: We might be tempted to make light of this warning and say, “God is benevolent and would never actually intentionally reject someone from his kingdom who sins like this. Who in the world could stand, everyone is a sinner which means no one would have access to his kingdom and his fellowship.” And while I understand why we as sinners feeling the weight of our guilt and shame might be tempted to think that; I don't think Paul is lightening up here in regards to sin. He's not apologetic over God's standard and holiness. This isn't the first time Paul has said this in regards to these sorts of sins. He gives a similar list and warning in Romans 1, I Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 6, Galatians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Timothy 1, 2 Timothy 3, and Titus 3. He obviously is trying to make a point about who inherits the kingdom of God and who God's people are throughout the majority of the New Testament. God doesn't capitulate with sin. You don't brutally kill your only son in order to make a deal with the devil. No, God sent His Son to die not to make amends with sin but to destroy it once and for all, defeating Satan and his enemies, overturning the fall and to establish a people and a kingdom where righteousness, love, and holiness is the very air we breathe. Let's not think Paul doesn't mean what he says here because he obviously does as does God who inspired Him to write it. o Earn It: The other thing we may be tempted to think (and some certainly have pressed into) is that this is some beckon call to perfection and that any struggle with sexual immorality, impurity, or covetousness (especially in seasons of intense struggle with sin) is evidence of disqualification from the kingdom of God and Christ. Oh church how we have such a limited view of our sin and depravity. We are so quick to measure our holiness by how much we are or aren't actively sinning but we forget that Christ didn't just die to atone for sinful acts, he died to atone for sinful natures. Inevitably in a body this size there are degrees to which some are wrestling with sin. Just because you aren't in the heat of the battle regarding sexual sin or perhaps other sins doesn't mean you are any less in need of a Savior than those who are. If that's the case for you praise God that He by His grace is giving you victory in certain areas of your life, He promised he'd continue shaping you into His image. But don't be deceived sin is deceptive and our enemy is smart and knows how to gain a foothold in our affections so take heed lest you fall. Continue to see that your nature is always in need of a Savior. But perhaps you are in here and struggling with sexual sin and temptation and are in the heat of the battle right now. § And listen just as an aside, let's not just reduce our sexual brokenness down to pornography only. Yes, that is a massive issue in our culture and not just in our culture but in the church. But there are so many other ways in which we fight against sexual brokenness in our lives. Remember Satan's strategy always is to take God's good gifts and distort them by telling us that there is a better way to enjoy what God intended; and there is no limit to that line of reasoning. He is crafty, he is a liar, and he'll say and do whatever is takes to convince you otherwise that God is good, His ways are good, and He is to be trusted. Marriages are broken sexually, single people are broken sexually, our children are broken sexually, the way men view women and women view men is often distorted and fueled by the enemies tactics. So, let's not kid ourselves. Yes, our sexual sin isn't less than pornography but we are complex beings so it is certainly more than that as well. o So you might be in the heat of the battle as we speak and saying “what is wrong with me, why can't I just stop!” I read my Bible and pray but it doesn't seem to be working. Listen don't stop reading your Bible and certainly don't stop praying because those means of grace will eventually bear you fruit, but you aren't alone in that feeling of failure. Listen to these words from Romans 7:21-25: § [21] So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. [22] For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, [23] but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. [24] Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? [25] Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. o This is Paul talking here, the very person writing this letter to the Ephesians and giving this very warning. He seems to be well acquainted with the deep struggle against sin and he's honest about it. He says “my sin is so intense it seems like there are two natures at war inside of me and that's because there is.” We often say that God has saved us from the power of sin through the cross but he's left us in sin's affect here on earth until he comes again eradicating the very presence of sin and Paul's just honest enough to call that reality out. He says I want to obey the law of God with my mind but often I end up serving the law of sin with my flesh!? o And notice, he doesn't say, therefore I'm going to do better and try harder and fix myself. He literally just throws up a cry to Heaven in verse 24 of Romans 7 “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death!?” And he has an answer to that question which will lead us to our final point today. If the answer to our question of, “What do we do with this warning from Paul regarding our future hope and inheritance” isn't just ignore it and live with our sin and the answer isn't we have to earn our spot in the kingdom of God and Christ by waging war on our sin and doing better and trying harder than what are we left with!? • Expose it: This would be terrifying if it weren't for the nature of our relationship to God in the gospel! This is why we spent SOOO much time in understanding our union with Christ before we jumped into this passage. Remember Paul's words “As beloved children?” Because you are a child of God you've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the beloved Son where you have redemption and the forgiveness or your sins. And you might say “yea but I still struggle with my sins…” and I'd say “I know and so does everyone else in here this morning who has a pulse.” But, you've been transferred from darkness into light. You've been given the forgiveness of your sins not the absence of them, at least not yet. Look at what Paul says in the following verses. The wrath of God (which is the rejection of those identified by their immorality, and impurity, and covetousness into His kingdom as we've just talked about) comes on the sons of disobedience, those still living in darkness and rejecting Christ and his reign completely. But he says to these Ephesian believers and he is saying to you today, that's not your identity anymore! You no longer walk in darkness. At one time you were darkness but you are now light and get to walk as children of the light. What does this mean? It means you no longer have to hide your sins from the wrath of God but instead you get to expose your sins in the light of His love and watch Him forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. The vehicle we have through the work of Christ that continually draws us to Christ is repentance. Yea but Ryan, what if I sin again today, repent! What if I sin again tomorrow, repent! What if I keep struggling with this sin, then keep repenting! Repent to God, give your sin to Christ and confess your sin to one another! Exposing your sin to God isn't cause to run away from God, it's cause for God to draw near to you and cleanse you from all impurity. Don't get me wrong you can spurn and quench the Holy Spirit and create distance in your fellowship with him but only by not repenting of your sin. God didn't kill his own son for sin to create distance between you and Him rather He killed his own son so that you could have an advocate to the father despite your sin and that advocate is the man Jesus Christ! This is the beauty of the gospel, the beauty of your union in Christ, and the beauty of the Pauline epistles, you can be free from sin because you are free from sin because you belong to the family of God, through the grace of Christ, and the wok of the Holy Spirit in you and that's where Paul started this whole book and where we started our message today. Be imitators of God in imitating the love of Christ and in your sexual integrity not in order to be children of God but “As Beloved Children of God.” The kingdom of God and Christ is made up of those who resemble the Father and look like Jesus and they resemble the father not by not struggling with immorality, impurity, and covetousness, but by repenting of their immorality, impurity, and covetousness and repenting often! • In other words the kingdom of God is made up of repentant people because repentant people reflect His holiness and want God. Unrepentant people don't care if they resemble God because God and an eternity with Him in His kingdom is not what their hearts truly long for! • Church can we start normalizing our sin nature? Not normalizing sin but normalizing the fact that we are all in the same battle the apostle Paul was in wherein two natures diametrically opposed to one another are waging war over our affections. BUT, through the work of Christ and the gift of repentance we can walk alongside each other and encourage each other to be imitators of God. That means we can't gasp in disbelief when one of our brothers or sisters confesses sin to us as though we can't believe that their first father and mother were Adam and Eve like the rest of us. But instead, gently yet unapologetically come alongside one another and say, “Hey you're a beloved child, a child of the light, you can take that sin right to the cross of Christ and be freed from it right now. So, let me help you in your growth and fight to kill that sin or idol.” And Lord willing they'll do the same for you! • This requires us to be honest about our sin and to be vulnerable. Church, listen I am one of your elders and pastors and I am constantly fighting against my flesh. I have to fight the sin of sexual immorality with the help of my amazing, wise, and Godly wife in our marriage and with brothers who care for my soul. I have to fight the sin of impurity and carelessness over uncleanness. I have to fight the sin of covetousness and idolatry lusting after and wanting what I don't have. I have a great need for a Savior but I have a great Savior for my need and so do you and I'd rather you know that and glory in a God who saves then pretend that's not true for some false sense of piety. There are three things we can do this morning and today as we close: 1. So often I hear the question how do I get involved in ministry at FCBC. We'll I'm going to give you an answer. Look at the person next to you or around you and commit to saying, “Hi, I'm so and so and I am committed to your growth in Christ and would love to get coffee this week and ask you how I can pray for you and where you're struggling and how I can encourage you in your repentance. And then say, “Would you do the same for me?” There are roughly 1200 of us here at FCBC and there are 9 elders. Could you imagine if our entire church bought into the idea that each of us are responsible for and to each other as a family, could you imagine the affect? That's doing ministry in the local church, that's always what “doing ministry” in the local church has looked like! 2. Tonight we'll be coming back to continue the conversation on how we fight for sexual integrity in this church. If all we do tonight is encourage the conversation towards what God intended for sex and sexuality in His good design and how we so often fall short of it but have an avenue to freedom and joy despite our brokenness, then it will have been a success. 3. Start now. We are going to close with singing “O Come To the Alter” and while it is a beautiful song of repentance and salvation we want it to move from our heads to our hearts and act on it. So I'm going to ask you to do something a little uncomfortable and say, “If you're hurting and broken within, overwhelmed by the weight of your sin, Jesus is calling” so come up front during this next song and pray with someone. We'll have members from our sexual integrity ministry as well as members from our prayer team up here who would love to pray with you and minister the gospel of repentance and redemption to your soul. Maybe you've realized this morning I'm not bothered by my sin. Or maybe you've discovered that the power and purpose by which you try to live your life is ultimately self and not Christ. Then come, repent of your sins, confess Christ as Lord, become an imitator of God “As a beloved child” and find true and ultimate freedom from your sin in a Savior who loved you and gave himself up for you! Paul's final words to us this morning: a. Ephesians 5:14: for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” b. Listen, do you want the warmth of the light of Christ to shine upon you, come, repent, and believe

John Tillery spoke on July 2, 2023 realizing that sometimes we all are overburdened with fear. Jesus is our "safe place" as revealed in this passage. (John 6:15-21)

JR Hand spoke on June 25, 2023 showing that in this passage Jesus: confirmed that He was God, clarified that He was the bread of life, and called the new testament church to spiritually feed each other. (John 6:1-14)

HOW TO BE GOOD...AND MAD! Ephesians 4:26-27 • FCBC • 6/25/23 Intro: We live in a polarized world. Put a Democrat and a Republican together and you'll likely see an argument or a fight. Post anything remotely controversial on Facebook and you'll probably get called a name or have your motives impugned. Even in your car you'd better buckle up because if you go any distance with any traffic there's a better than even chance someone may anger you or you may anger them. We're fast losing civility in our civilization. And it gives all of us a great opportunity to grow and highlight the transformation God is working in us. And in fact, if anyone ought to be distinctive in their attitudes, reactions and behavior, it ought to be people who say they know the Living and gracious God. We should think differently, and see things differently, and behave differently, than if we had never put our lives and futures in Jesus' hands. Remember the [insight] about those who know God? “You are not the person you once were, so you must no longer live as you once lived.” Salvation isn't merely adding something new to your old life, but becoming someone new, replacing an old life with a new one. •So, precisely what should change in my life? Paul doesn't leave anything to the imagination: he points out five critical exchanges. Last week we were first challenged to replace all forms of lying & deception w/truth. (So how did Truth Week go? Catch yourself in any lies? I hope we all have a stronger hold on the truth as a result of Truth Week.) •This week we're about to hear a second challenge: When God wants to expose areas that distinguish our new lives in Christ from how we once acted/reacted, He also points to our temper, and commands that we replace sinful with righteous anger: NB: (4:26-27). “Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” •“Wait a minute! Are you saying I can be angry? I thought Bible taught us NOT to be angry at all? Isn't anger a sin?” This is one of the more misunderstood & mishandled areas of our lives—how we think about and deal with our anger. So: I. [WHAT IS ANGER?] [A. It is an internal emotion:] Websters: “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility.” Want a clearer picture? OT/Hebrew word for anger literally means, “to get red in the face” or “to see nostrils flare”. It's an accurate picture because physiologically, when we become angry, adrenalin pumps into our bloodstream (we feel a rush); our blood pressure rises & our pulse accelerates; our pupils dilate & our muscles tense. It happens whether we like it or not/whether we want it to or not. It's an emotion. We feel angry. How we respond may also be seen as anger: [B. It is an external reaction] We respond in anger—and here is where we can have some control over our anger—in its expression. “But I can't help it–when I get mad, I react.” Really? Have you ever been mad and the phone rings, and you answer it and say sweetly, “Hello?” Apparently, you do have some control. • The OT Hebrew language doesn't distinguish between kinds of anger—good and bad; just pictures it. But the NT Greek language is far more specific; it IDs 3 kinds of anger: II. [WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?] [A. There is a slow–burning anger]: (vs. 26a) (“anger”/orgh) the most common term for anger can be described as getting hot under collar, we set our jaw, our eyes ablaze, fuming. Interestingly, it can describe both sinful OR righteous anger. But it's not the only kind: [B. There is a seething anger]: (vs. 26b) (parorgismoß) This is the deep-seated, unforgiving, unrelenting resentment. It is anger that has been nursed, fueled, and coddled over a period of time. It's always sinful. [C. There is an explosive anger]: Never used of the righteous human anger. You've known people with hair-trigger temper. Like Mt. St Helens erupting, or a bomb exploding—you blow up. If you were in terrible 2s, we'd call it temper tantrum. It's translated in vs. 31 as “wrath” (ESV) or “rage” (NIV). So: III. [IS ANGER ALWAYS WRONG?] Not at all. God created you with the capacity to get mad. It's as legitimate as your capacity to laugh/cry. Need to ask yourself, “Is anger an emotion designed by God, or it is a sinful short-circuit in our emotional system? Check out: [A. A Few Examples:] [1. God does get angry] [Exodus 34:6-7/x] (repeated 9x). God doesn't anger quickly, but in time, if a matter is not resolved, his anger can be great as Moses predicts: [Deut. 29:28/x]! The Bible never blushes to portray God's anger; but his anger is not the result of his being touchy or bad tempered; it is the expression of his holiness and righteousness, and directed toward evil in his creation: [Rom. 1:18] God is angry with anyone who suppresses the truth about Himself. [God] does get angry. But what about Jesus? [2. Jesus became angry], even though never sinned! He was angry at people who sold the right to worship [Jn 2:13-16]. Yet he was never explosive nor out of control. NB it took him a while to make the whip of cords. Not an emotional, spontaneous outburst, but a controlled, careful and determined response to a situation. He was angry at men in the synagogue [Mk 3:1, 5]: they were using a handicapped man as bait to catch Jesus! [x] And what about us? [3. Believers should get angry!] Bible never forbids anger, just qualifies it. NB vs. 26: “Be angry and do not sin” — it is assuming you will and even should get angry at times. Anger not always wrong, like lying or casual sex; rather, it depends upon why you're angry, & how you respond when you are angry. EG David: [Ps. 119:53/x] In face of blatant evil, we should be indignant rather than tolerant; angry, not apathetic. What other reaction can wickedness be expected to provoke in those who love God? [Beecher/x] So how do I know if my anger is right or wrong? [B. A CLOSE COMPARISON]: [Chart: Sinful vs. Righteous Anger] •Anger is sinful when it's [selfish]: when our desires, our needs, ambitions are frustrated; when our demands not met, our expectations not realized, our well-being threatened, our selfesteem questioned, when we're embarrassed, inconvenienced. (e.g “you're in my way, bothering me, hurt me...); but it's all about me. That anger is sinful, defensive, full of pride, resentful of what happened to you. But righteous anger is [unselfish]: Can be angry in behalf of God: angry at unbelief, at dishonoring God, at warping the truth, or hurting others. •Anger is sinful when it [controls us]; it causes us to say/do things to hurt another. Looking back on our anger, we realize had we been in control, we never would have said/done that! You had a bad day, kids getting wild, bills thick and wallet thin; and you explode at the person you love most/closest to. If you lose control, it's not righteous. But righteous anger is always [controlled]; it never short-circuits a person's thinking or blinds a person to the truth; it never makes a person do what God would never want him to do. •Anger is sinful when it seeks [revenge], when it breeds malice, resentment. Righteous anger seeks [resolution]. Righteous anger vanishes when a person really repents; or when justice is done. You don't make a person pay at your hands to your satisfaction. It has limits how long it lasts. [C. A Key Insight]: (Pr. 22:24-25) [Anger is a learned response] Which means, however you learned to be angry, you can unlearn it. What you have seen modeled/been exposed to is probably what you've picked up. With God's help, you can learn the respond better, differently! So: IV. [HOW CAN I HANDLE MY ANGER?] How can I be good & mad at the same time? 2 unbiblical, unhealthy ways of dealing with our anger: [A. Don't:] [1. Blow up] (Prov. 29:11/x): Slow down! Don'tlet loose. When you blow up, it's usually destructive. The energy of your emotions is released not toward the problem, but toward another person. The classic example is in sports—e.g. hockey fights, baseball umps & managers. Some psychologists have advocated unrestrained expression of anger; they encourage angry person to fully ventilate the anger against a punching bag, or a pillow, or golf ball. Not wise because you're cultivating a learned response. What you may be doing is encouraging a spirit of murder in your heart; all you need now is an opportunity. Not to mention that merely expressing anger doesn't get rid of it; in fact, anger breeds anger (Pr. 29:22)— apparently not only in you, but in others around you; angry people make people angry. AND it clouds your judgment, making you less able to respond clearly, thoughtfully. You're increasingly enslaved to your own responses. (So don't blow up. On the other hand, you don't want to just:) [2. Clam up]: We clam up for a couple of reasons: We may be trying to: 1) deny our anger. When I see anger, I point it out (“you seem angry”). Common response: “NOT angry. I'm concerned, I'm hurt, I'm upset, I'm disappointed.” Uh huh (you're angry!) Even those who come to admit their anger sometimes try to do 2nd thing: 2) we may try to suppress our anger. We bottle it up (“keep a lid on it”) You let it simmerinside. When clam up, like a can of pop shaken up–when opened, spews out all over. People become angry, bottle it up, then go home and yell at kids, or snarl at wife, snap at others. Makes person irritable, sullen, tense, miserable, even depressed. Best way to ensure that when you do get angry, it will be a blow up. •EG: Boy Scouts/snow camp. Tenderfoot dropped can of corn into fire. Wearing poncho, sat on log shivering, waiting for dinner. I heard “shotgun” blast,ran over to noise; found blackened pit where once was fire, kid on his back, dazed, and splattered with million niblets of corn. Toss the can of your anger on the fire, & when it blows, it won't be pretty. So what's the alternative? B. [Do:] [1. Face it.] (vs. 26): “Be angry.” Don't deny it. Admit you're angry and accept full responsibility for it. Not “you make me angry!” Just say, “I am feeling angry when you said/did that.” No blaming, no sarcasm or put downs; just the honest statement of fact. Me: “Honey, I'm feeling angry & touchy right now. Not even sure why. I don't like it when I feel like this, but I am. Amazing how quickly anger is diffused when you admit it. [2. Evaluate it.] “...do not sin.” Idea isn't to count to ten before getting angry; if you have to do that, probably already are angry! Now you're simply deciding if and how you'll express it! Instead, think. Are you certain you know the facts? Some people get angry over a perceived but unreal situation (Prov. 18:17/x). Getting the whole story might change your feelings. Then, consider your motives. Righteous anger rarely spontaneous: requires you to examine the cause before choosing to express it. What has set you off? Is it selfish or is it something that hurts you because it hurts God? Make certain anger isn't from injured pride, malice, revenge, resentment, self-righteousness. Need to know if it's right or wrong so you can deal appropriately with it. May help to take time out or do something physical. Anger releases all kinds of adrenalin in bloodstream, so good walk may be effective in reducing the initial tension of anger. Yet if problem isn't dealt with, only temporary. More you think about it, it may increasing the churning inside. But whatever you do, ponder, & evaluate before speak! James' advice is very good: [James 1:19-20] Anger may be short-circuiting your ability to hear what God is telling you; and even if you are angry over something legitimate, you still have to ponder your response, because simply being angry isn't enough. Just being angry won't accomplish what God desires. Have to do something more. {Then] [3. Deal with it]: vs. 27: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Don't let it fester. Don't nurse it. It's never safe to let it smolder. No anger (righteous or otherwise) must be allowed to continue. Deal with it, ASAP. The limit is one day. Terminal point is bedtime. The same day you get angry is the day you deal with it. The sun which rises to mark a new day must not be a witness to yesterday's outburst. Left-over anger sours in a person. (So I should deal with my anger. Precisely how do you suggest I do that?) •[You can overlook the offense] (Pr. 12:16, 19:11/x) Just drop the matter. Not man's glory to win, but to overlook an offense! •[You can short-circuit the anger:] [Pr. 15:1, 18/x] You shortcircuit anger through a gentle answer or through patiently trying to understand. The other person may be well-intentioned, or spoke/acted out of mood, or was completely oblivious to the fact he hurt you. •At the theater, we were watching a particularly tense movie, when the guy in front of me turned around and said, “If you touch the back of my chair again, I'll take you out and kick your behind.” (But he didn't say, “behind.”) Shocked, my immediate response was...like to see you try it, bub. Instead, I took a breath, realized I might in fact have been kicking his chair (& who likes that?); so I leaned over to his side and whispered, “I'm really sorry. I didn't even know I was doing it. I'll be more careful.” After the movie we all stood, he turned to me, apologized, embarrassed, and told me he had had a very bad day. Then he asked me, “What do you do for a living?” (*!) •[You can confess it to another.] One of the very dark memories I can't forget is when my daughter was trying to help her frustrated father with his computer, and he got angry, snapped and said something brutally unkind to her. She quietly left, teary. Somebody once pointed out, “Temper is what gets us into trouble; Pride is what keeps us there.” I instantly knew I had stepped in it, and knew what I needed to do. I went down to her room. I felt like I had lead feet & a swollen tongue, but when I began to apologize, the anger evaporated. God says there is one way you can be sure to always have the last word when you're angry: Just say, “I'm sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?” •[You can confront the underlying problem.] (Prov. 24:26/x) Express your wishes openly. What do I want? Do I want to be treated right? Or shown respect? or loved? Or to be listened to? Say it plainly. “Sweetheart, I would like you to turn the TV off and talk with me about your day...throw your own clothes into the dirty hamper...kiss me and take a few minutes for me as soon as you get home... (Many wives furiously writing...) Jimmy, when you use my coffee cup for your earthworm collection, I really have tough time drinking out of it. How about if we get a jar for you to use?” You may be tired, troubled, or worried; need to pray. •(Wait! What if I can't resolve everything quickly? What if the person isn't sorry, or won't reconcile, or situation is beyond my reach? Do I have to forgive and forget before sundown? No. Lifeisn't a half-hoursitcom that resolves neatly from episode to episode. But God forbids your angers to continue...So—) [4. Let go of it]: “...give no opportunity to the devil.” (4:27) •Negatively: Anger can give Satan an opportunity—lit. a foothold in your life. Don't help him by staying angry. If we follow these instructions, Satan would have no room to maneuver, no way to leverage our anger against us. Satan knows there is a fine line between righteous & unrighteous anger. Knows we have difficulty finding that line, and do poor job of responsibly handling anger for very long. What might start off as righteous anger may quickly degenerate into unrighteous resentment, or self-righteous pride. (If I keep it, Satan uses it; but how do I let it go, to whom? •Positively: [Rom. 12:18-19/x] Entrust to God your hurt. Let Him be the Judge. He's a whole lot smarter, wiser, righteous. What if you don't? Cherish and coddle your anger and it will someday consume you [Buechner]. Concl: 2300 years ago, Aristotle rightly observed, [quote/x] But the Master clearly points the way (4:26-27). “Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

Ken Bowman spoke on June 18, 2023 showing how this passage contains five reasons people give for rejecting Jesus. (John 5:40-47)

John Tillery spoke on June 11, 2023 showing that there were more than 3 witnesses to His Messiahship in this passage so that we might believe in Him and His finished saving work. (John 5:31-40)

John Tillery spoke on June 5, 2023 showing that you cannot accept Jesus as a good moral teacher and at the same time reject Him as the Messiah. (John 5:21-30)

Roy Huddle spoke on May 28, 2023 showing how this passage reveals something of the working relationship between Jesus and HIs Heavenly Father. (John 5:16-20)

John Tillery spoke May 21, 2023 showing how there are two examples of tunnel vision in this passage. (John 5: 9-15)

John Tillery spoke on April 30, 2023 teaching that there are six specific signs in John pointing to the person of Jesus. The seventh is found in Matthew 16: 1-4. (John 4:54)

John Tiller Spoke on May 14, 2023 pointing out among other things that even in the desert God can provide water and that God is faithful even when we are abandoned by others. (Genesis 16:1-16)

Pavan Rajagopal spoke on May 7, 2023 pointing out that we all have to make the choice whether to obey or reject Jesus. (John 5:1-9)

John Tillery spoke on April 23, 2023 pointing out that only real risks test the reality of our belief. (John 4:46-54)

Ken Bowman spoke on April 16, 2023 showing how this passage could be outlined into three parts: the Background, the Amazing Statement, and the Reception. (John 4:43-45)

John Tillery spoke on April 9, 2023 emphasizing how important it is to understand what the text really says. (John 4:27-42)

How can artists use their talents to glorify God? In this episode, Leslie interviews Shirley, FCBC's children's Sunday School teacher and art teacher, about her journey from making crafts in Panama to teaching art classes as an outreach opportunity to share the gospel story. Shirley talks about her mom's creative influence while growing up in Panama, her passion for integrating culture into her art pieces, and the importance of prayer and faith to guide the creative process. One of Shirley's favorite verses to exhort every member to step out and use their spiritual gifts is Romans 12:6-8. "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness." Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Neq-RFNMCyg View all Walnut Women episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_vN-vM53O-_UbUOj7yUF2pyVYZryDmwZ Links: Visit our church website: http://fcbcwalnut.org Connect with us on social media: https://linktr.ee/fcbcwalnut Subscribe to our social media newsletter: http://eepurl.com/b5qHlj Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/fcbcwalnut?sub_confirmation=1a

Introduction James 5-1 Peter 1 Well today is three things. It's 1. Easter Sunday, it's 2. the last message in the book of James and it's 3. my last message as preaching pastor here at FCBC. This is a hard message for me to preach. Because on the one hand I have deep, deep, deep sorrow that this is my last Sunday with you all in this way. I mean my heart is bleeding on the inside. I was talking to my dad this week about what I was experiencing. I was like, “Dad, I don't know what's wrong with me.” And he said, “I know what's wrong with you; you're grieving.” He's not wrong. I am. There's tremendous loss in my soul. 17 years of my life is invested here. So many relationships, so many fun times together in God's Word, so many great times of worship, so much truth discovered. And so I'm bleeding out on the inside. This is not exactly what I would call a "formula for joy." Half of me is like, “Are you kidding? You're in no condition to preach this Sunday!” But then over here, there's this incredible love for resurrection Sunday which has always been the high point of the Christian calendar and it's always been my favorite Sunday of the year. I just absolutely love Resurrection Sunday. Because the resurrection is the central point in Christian theology, It's the evidence that we are freed from the power of sin, It's the proof that the penalty of sin has been erased, It's the great hope that every Christian has as he approaches death and the grave. The resurrection IS THE defining cornerstone event in all Christian history and the hope of the world. So all that over here says: It's time to celebrate. And so all week long, I've been witness to a war. These are two very strong armies. What's a man to do about this? I suppose nothing because this has a way of making everything that is said this morning a bit more real. This internal battle of mine is really just a metaphor for the internal battle that all of us experience by virtue of the fact that this world is broken. What do we do about it? Can we celebrate in sorrow? Can we celebrate in the midst of a broken world? If your best friend has been taken from you by death, can your rejoice? If you are suffering deeply as a result of someone cheating you, taking advantage of your kindness, or sinning against you can you rejoice? If you are in misery because of an illness that won't leave you alone, can you be grateful? If the brokenness you experience is literally unfixable and there is no hope that you will ever experience freedom in this life, can you still sing praise? Suffering presents us with a decision. Suffering is a fork in the road. This path goes East and this path goes West. The two forks lead in opposite directions and I must choose. Warning: life is too short to make a mistake. Here's the fork: does my suffering interpret the goodness of God or does goodness of God interpret my suffering? Is my suffering evidence that God is not in control, is not good, and that he does not love me. Or is the fact that God is in control, God is good and God loves me the very TRUTH needed to properly interpret my suffering. Here's what every preacher of the Gospel has been sent to proclaim: OUR EXPERIENCE, as hard as it may be, does not change the GOSPEL TRUTH. It's the other way around. This GOSPEL TRUTH, changes our EXPERIENCE of suffering. Can we sing praise in suffering? You want to know what the answer is? You bet we can. Can we rejoice in our affliction? Absolutely we can. Yes. Because there is a GOSPEL TRUTH that changes everything. Yes, life is difficult. Yes, we all suffer. But JESUS CHRIST HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD. AND BECAUSE THAT IS TRUE, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED. That objective truth exists beyond and above your experience, it exists outside your experience. It is real and solid and has shaping power. And because it's real, it can change you. Listen, this might sound obvious but just let it land: For something to change your life it has to be real. Review If you were with us last week, we were in the book of James chapter 5 and we reviewed this incredible scene from the top of Mt Carmel, this showdown between on the one side: 850 prophets of Baal and Ashera VS the other side: the one prophet of God Elijah. And the contest was established to determine which God was God of the storm. And here were the rules: Elijah said, “We each get a bull. We each get wood. We each get an altar. but neither of us gets fire.” The God who answers by fire, he is the true God. And we watched as the prophets of Baal danced and raved. We watched as they screamed and cried out. We watched as they demonstrated their sincerity by inflicting pain upon themselves and cutting themselves. On and on they went for 8 hours. And yet their god did not answer them. And we asked, why? Why was it that Baal did not answer? Was it for lack of effort? No, they exerted maximum effort. Hurculean effort. Was it for lack of personal sacrifice? No their personal sacrifice was extreme. They cut themselves and the text said that blood came gushing out of them. Was it for lack of belief? No, they fully believed. They were all in. They were completely invested. Was it for lack of devoted followers? No they had a tremendous following. 450 prophets and thousands of worshipers. But Baal was not answering. Why did their god not answer? Answer: Because their god wasn't real. And because he was not real he could not care. And because he was not real he had no control of anything. Truth is harsh. It just doesn't care about your sincerity. The truth doesn't care about your creative passion. The truth isn't even a thing that it could care. The truth just is. However much you deny the truth, the truth just goes on existing. And if you don't align your life with the truth the truth will break you. We speak of sinners breaking the law; but is not better to say that the law breaks the sinner? The law just is. God just is. Truth just is. So again, we do that review to make this obvious but needed point: For something to change your life it has to be real. If you hair is messy, you need a real comb to get the tangles out. If your car is low on oil, you need real oil to lubricate the engine. If your stomach is empty you need real food to fill your belly. And listen carefully. We have two very REAL problems. Sin has destroyed our soul. And death will destroy our life. And to fix those two very real problems we need a REAL Savior. Resurrection TRUTH Christianity is not an tradition, idea, a philosophy or a political agenda. Christianity has traditions. It contains ideas. Philosophies arise from it. Certain political ideas are favored because of it. But most certainly, none of these things get at what it is. Christianity is at it's very core a TRUTH-CLAIM. It's an appeal to REASON to align your life with TRUE events that happened in HISTORY. Christianity tries to get men and women to grapple with the implications of the historical claim that Jesus Christ really was God, really did die, and really did rise from the grave. And because that is REAL: it has tremendous power to save you if regarded, and tremendous power to destroy you if ignored. Christianity is a TRUTH-claim that hinges on ONE THING - the REALITY of the resurrection, if the resurrection is true, it's all true. If it's false, it's all false. There's nothing in between. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ did not raise from the dead then we are still in our sins, everyone who died is still dead and we are of all men most to be pitied. Everything hinges on the resurrection. So this morning we are going to establish three implications of the resurrection and then we'll close by looking at the last 2 verses of the book of James. So let's start with the resurrection implications. If the resurrection is true, if the gospel accounts are HISTORY, here's what that means for us. If Jesus is alive that means that you can't go to his grave. You can't find his body. That means that his existence did not come to an end. It means right now, he's alive. I want you to get your mind around the significance of a claim like this and what it means for the Christian faith and what it means for. Let me give you an illustration. Let's say your spouse goes for a drive and then goes missing for some reason. And of course your worried sick and the days turn to weeks which turn to months which turns to years. And you've nearly given up but then, one day, a mysterious letter shows up. It appears it's written by your spouse. The very evidence of the letter gives this very strong evidence that they are alive. Your heart would leap: is it real? But then you look at it more closely and the doubts arise. You question the authenticity of the handwriting. You might question the sentence structure. I can't recall them forming sentences like that. Maybe even a detail or two seems like it might not be entirely true. And pretty soon you are seriously doubting it's authenticity But then you get a knock on the door and standing before you in flesh in blood is your spouse! Suddenly, all the questions vaporize. Let me ask, "Why do the questions disappear?" There was never resolution on the handwriting or grammar question. But you don't need it, because the REAL presence of the person resolves every other question. You know the questions are answerable because you have standing before you the one who contains all answers. They are the answer. When we talk about the place of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the Christian faith we are talking about the same sort of argument-silencing absolute authority. If the resurrection is true, it's all true. What about the textual accuracy of the OT and the NT? What about polygamy or slavery in the OT? What about the age of the earth and how that goes together with science? What about bad things happening to good people? What about… There's a certain posture behind those questions: “If you can't answer me these question, then I can't believe in God.” Those are all really good questions. They are all fair questions. But if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, well, you have your answer. It's similar to turning off a basketball game at halftime when your favorite team is down by 30 at half. And you think it's over. And then later you look at the final score and see that they won. You think, there's no possible way. How did they do that? Because you didn't watch the game you don't know HOW but because you see the final score, you know THAT THEY DID. The resurrected Christ is like that final winning score. I've got a lot of questions, I don't know HOW this works, but if the resurrection is true, there IS an answer. He obviously has answers. He contains the answers. He is the answer. The only thing that matters at that point is submission. The only thing is to sit down, shut up and see what he has to say. Let his mouth speak and answer your questions. Answer Us With Fire The resurrection is God's answer. The people of Israel asked the question, “How do we know which God is true? Is it YHWH or Baal?” So they setup a contest. YHWH of the OT answered Elijah with fire. We have a NT equivalent of this: On the cross we have a showdown between all the forces of evil of the universe, all the darkness of sin, the horror of death, Satan himself. All those forces of evil press in upon Jesus. That's the side of evil. And then you have over here Jesus, alone, by himself. And here's the rules of the contest. Whoever can rise from the dead, he is God. God in the person of Jesus Christ, answers with the lightning of resurrection.Whoever can live forever and overcome our greatest enemy, death itself. That person is God! Jesus Christ has done it. Jesus is Alive! It's the decisive, irrefutable evidence that what Jesus claims is true. He's the LIVING God. Prayer So there is an apologetic use of the resurrection. You know what else it means if Jesus Christ is ALIVE? You can talk to him. If you have ever had someone you love die, you can visit their grave, you can talk to them but you know they are not there. There's no response. You are talking to the air. They aren't there. And they certainly can't do anything for you. But if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, if he's alive, that means you can talk to him. He can actually do something. In the context of the book of James, why did James take us back to Mt Carmel. Why did he take us back to that showdown between Baal and YHWH? Because he wanted to remind us that there is a God who listens to the righteous. You can pray like Elijah, and Jesus because he's ALIVE will listen to you. Let me illustrate the implication of the resurrection. Pray with me: Jesus Christ, God very God, we pray to you this Easter Sunday and we praise you. We praise you for your victory over death. We praise you that you love us. We worship you. We give our lives to you. We love you! Thank you Jesus. That is not play acting. Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord, hears our prayers, he's listening to us now. He sees us. He understands us. You can have a personal relationship with the God of the Universe because he is alive. So that's the first thing the resurrection demonstrates. Here's the second. If Jesus Christ is Alive that MEANS that: Now listen, very few of us understand the seriousness of the sin problem? Why? Because it's all we've ever known. It's like a man or woman born blind wondering what they are missing out on. But just because you do not know how handicapped you are, does not mean you are not handicapped. Sin has mamed us. Sin has consequence. As surely as you cannot leap out of a building without consequence, we cannot sin without consequence. And the consequence of sin is every form of brokenness we experience on the earth. The brokenness of every relationship is a result of sin The selfishness that destroys marriage The lustful looks of infidelity is the result of sin Death itself, we are told in the Bible is the result of sin. We started this message by reminding ourselves of evil and suffering? Why is there even such a thing as evil? When we are young and protected in our parents homes the world seems so safe. But as we grow older, wooden swords turn to real swords, pretend bullets turn to real bullets, we see real death, real suffering. We see just how cold and empty people really are. We see people drowning in lonliness. We see how cruel the world is. And the response of the heart is, “This all seems so unjust.” In fact, this is the number one reason people reject the Christian faith. It's the number one reason. Why do bad things happen to good people? Listen, the Bible has an answer for that. The first thing to say is that your sense of justice is from God. That's a right response. If it could be demonstrated that bad things happen to good people then you would be justified in dismissing the Christian faith. But you want to know something. Bad things don't happen to good people? Bad things happen to bad people. There's only bad people. This is what the Bible teaches: Romans 3 Now if you want to be outraged at injustice, let your outrage focus on Jesus the Christ. There was one good person. And bad things did happen to him. We read about on good Friday. Here is Jesus, in anticipation of calvary, amazed at the cup of suffering that awaited. He held that cup in his trembling hands, his soul sorrowful even unto death. Is there no other way? There is no other way. So here the perfect lamb of God is nailed to a tree, hoisted into the air to suffer. Here the perfect lamb of God hangs in a buzzing cloud of flies. His flayed back pressed against the tree, the suffering of suffocation as His body droops, the repeated torture of dislocated sockets, the raw wounds the only lever upon which to lift himself to gain breath. Here is the lamb of God plunged into the abyss of anguish. Forgive us Lord for ever coming to this moment with dry eyes. You want to talk about not fair. You want to talk about injustice. That is unjust. You want to talk about bad things happening to good people. What did he ever do to deserve this? There was only one good person and bad things did happen to him but here's the difference: he volunteered. Why? 1 Peter 3 He volunteered to endure this suffering to bear the sins of the world for those who would believe in Him. Jesus died to take away our sins. He died so that he might BRING US TO GOD. What does that mean? Here's what it means. It means that life is ours: What is the greatest philosophical question that has ever been asked? And by the way this is not even slightly debated. All philosophers agree that this is THE great philosophical question. It doesn't matter if you are athestic or theistic. It doesn't matter if you are hindu, muslim, Christian, anamist. It doesn't matter your culture, your family background, your race, gender, anything. Every single person that has ever been born has asked this question? Statistically speaking, we spend the most time thinking about this question. Almost all, if not all, of our decisions are based on our answer to this question. In other words, what is the best possible way to live that brings us the highest level of fulfillment? In other word, how can I be happy? How can I find satisfaction? What is the good life? What binds every human on planet earth together is we are all in constant pursuit of the good life. Here's what's interesting about our culture: We live in a society which has completely jettisoned the idea that there is an ABSOLUTE answer to this question. We have just untethered ourselves from absolutes. The thinking goes like this: the good life could be different for you than it is for me. The good life is something internal to you. It's subjective. And you might be wired such that the good life could be experienced this way. And I might be wired such that the good life is experienced this other way. And so who am I to tell YOU how to achieve that inner sense of well-being? We live in a culture in which not only our good life experience but even our identities are defined by personal choice. Anything that comes from the outside and tries to impose upon either my identity or my happiness is a threat to the good life. And so life is one giant experiment where we hope we can stumble into happiness. Let's not experiment. Let's use reason. There's not multiple ways to solve the problem of being thirsty. To a thirsty person we don't say, “Well, the solution to your thirst problem might be different for you than it is for me.” Why? Because we are biologically made to solve the thirst problem with water. If your thirsty you need water. And in a similar way, there are not multiple ways to solve our spiritual thirst. We are spiritually made to solve our spiritual thirst problem with Jesus Christ. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” THAT IS THE GOOD LIFE. You want life? Jesus says, “Then come to me.” God tells us over and over again in his Word, death this way; life this way. All the commands of God in the Bible are fences to protect you from death and keep you on the path of joy. Do you see why we are mad as a culture? Do you see why we have just absolutely lost our mind? We have people changing their gender thinking it will make them happy, dressing up as furries, self-identifying in a thousand ways thinking that this will save them. But they have untethered themselves from reality. Full STOP. Let's stop it. Life is being offered to us. Take it! The Christian message is this, both eternal physical life and eternal soul life, the only TRUE good life, IS found through Jesus Christ. The TRUTH we are here to celebrate is that there is truth. The Conclusion What does all this mean for you and I? You might not like the fact there is objective truth. In fact, nobody likes it. Truth is like a blade that cuts if your in it's path. Truth grates against you. But before you reject it out of hand, simply because it is uncomfortable, think about the implications of rejecting truth. TRUTH just exists. It's like gravity. You can't change it. It exists outside of you. It doesn't care if you exist in the same way that gravity doesn't care. It will do what it will do regardless of whether you are here or not here. It will act upon you whether you think it applies to you are not. It just is. If the gospel is truth we can't change it. It's not ours to change. It's not ours to tinker with. We don't own it. Don't say, "I could never submit to a God who sends people to hell.." Let me ask you, “Would you use that same logic with a semi truck on the freeway.” I could never submit to a semi-truck that kill people that are in it's way. I refuse to move off the freeway. Do you see the insanity of that reasoning. The question is this: is it real? Is it true? Will it destroy me or not? Does it offer life or not? To try to change the gospel is trying to argue with a steaming locamotive. We don't break the laws of God, the laws of God break us. We are the breakable things. What if there is a truth that either SHATTERS your LIFE or HEALS your LIFE? Now all that was setup for our closing two verses in the book of James. These are the most unlikely of all verses for Easter. I doubt an Easter message in the history of the Christian religion has focused on these two verses. But we are going to go for it. What are you going to do, “Fire me?” James is going to close the book out on a little bit of a cliffhanger. And to point out the cliffhanger I'm going to get just slightly technical for a second. The last sentence of the book is written with subjunctive verbs. What is a subjunctive verb? It's a verb that has to do with something that could be real, but isn't yet real. It has to do with an action that has not yet occurred. It has to do with a future possibility but as it stands now it's an unreality. The future for the wandering sinner is hanging right here in the balance. What will happen to this wandering sinner? That's the question. Listen, there are many in the room here who have wandered from the truth. And what is the consequence of wandering from the truth both according to this text and also according to logic? Answer: You die. Are you miserable? Do you feel lost? Do you feel unsatisfied? You have wandered from the truth. You have wandered from Jesus Christ, the WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. That's why you are dying. You've cut yourself off from the vine. You cut yourself off from the source of life. But guess what? Today, you're coming back. Today you are going stop the pursuit of other gods. Your going to give up. And your going to come back to Jesus Christ, the WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. You're coming back to the fountain of Life. You're coming back to the God who loves you and cares for you and has given his very life for you. Your coming back. All of us. Everyone in this room is coming back to the truth, the truth that changes everything. This place is a place of rescue. Jesus Christ has brought you here today to rescue you. To give you the Truth in the person of Jesus Christ. This is a place of healing. Revival starts today by beholding JESUS CHRIST. Do you see him. Do you see that he demonstrated his love for you dying for you? Do you see that you can be free of the power of sin. You want to know what LIFE is? Life is knowing that nothing can separate you from the Love of God. Life is living for something that lasts. Life is being part of a mission that cannot fail. Life is being part of a movement that will change the world. You want to know why you will change the world? Because you have seen the Lord. Let's stop trying to do it on our own. You cannot save your marriage, save your kids, transform your church, repair your family, overcome your sin patters, absolve your guilt or condemenation, resolve your loneliness or deliver yourself from evil. Turn to the fountain of life. Come thirsty. Drink deeply. There are stories. And then there are true stories. There is fiction and then there is non-fiction. This is REAL. This changes everything. And maybe all this feels like a dream. It feels too good. Frankly your scared to believe it because if it's not true it would undo you completely. That's understandable. It's understandable to fear being fooled. Counterfeits are everywhere. But don't let your fear of counterfeits prevent you from drinking from the fountain of everlasting life. The degree to which we will be happy is the degree to which we align ourselves with the Truth. And the truth is Jesus Christ has died to set you free of your sins and give you life. Let's let the Scriptures reduce this down to it's absolute most simple form. John 3:16. John 3 Here's what you need to do. You just need to respond to Christ today. You might say to yourself, "I don't know how to do that?" Of course you don't. Nobody does. I don't know how to move toward God. I don't even know where he is. Of course you don't. But he knows where you are. God is saving you. The key isn't to do just the exact right religious motions in the exact right sequence. Life begins when you discover that you ACTUALLY want the resurrection life that Jesus is offering. Faith has already begun if you WANT to believe. To want to believe is evidence that life has already started inside you. If you sense you want this, friend, you are beings saved. Jesus is already beginning the resurrection in you. In our natural condition, none of us will never seek the Lord, so if we find ourselves wanting it, he's working. Think of it. The living God… working in us, even now. Listen, life is being offered to all of us in the room. And it's the greatest life of all. I have been a pastor for many years now and watched a lot of people die. I have never personally seen or ever heard of a dying person who, on his death bed, regretted he was a christian. You want to know why? Because nobody regrets being satisfied. Can't you see what is being offered. Life! Life! Life! Take your Bible and read the book of John. Read of Jesus. Behold him and drink. Live. If God is working in your heart right now and you want to respond then come up here and pray with the prayer team. Maybe you feel you want to pray with those who are responding. Then come down here. Come down here and pray! Maybe your scared and saying, I want to come but I don't know what to do. Of course you don't. Nobody does. Who cares. How can you loose if you have the creator of the Universe ready to embrace you. How can you loose if you have the Great Shepherd just ready to take your hand and walk with you and love you. You can't loose.

Michael Dubberly spoke on April 2, 2023 pointing out that in this passage we see Jesus' first self revelation of Himself as Savior. (John 4:1-26)

J.R. Hand spoke on March 26, 2023 pointing out that while God hates pride, the church doesn't really take the sin of pride seriously. (John 3:22-36)

John Tillery spoke on March 23, 2023 showing that one cannot enter the kingdom of God by reforming ourself. Being reborn is the only way. (John 3:1-21)

Introduction James 5 Well, FCBC, after today we've got just a couple messages left in the book of James. The Lord has taught me a lot in this book. I'm pretty changed because of it. And today's message is no exception. And the way things line up, we are going to actually end the messages of James on Easter Sunday which will also be the last Sunday I'm officially preaching here at FCBC. A lot of emotion in that for me. Maybe you come today with a lot of emotion about something. Well James is going to help us today. So today we enter into James' final words. We know we are winding things down because we have this literary marker that lets us know we nearing the end. A lot of the NT epistles follow this pattern. Paul does a similar thing in his books. Finally brothers….and then he wraps things up. And here is James doing it. “But above all brothers….” He's wrapping up his letter. Now what he says in his wrap up is pretty surprising to me. Before we reveal that, let's think about everything James has said up to this point. We have said approximately 100 times that the entire book of James is a test for people to assess genuine saving faith. People can say anything. People can claim whatever they want. But just because you say it doesn't make it true. And that is especially true when it comes to faith. People can say, "I am Christian." People can say, “I have saving faith.” But that doesn't mean they do. How do you know if they have genuine faith? Forget other people, how do YOU know if you have genuine saving faith? You know because genuine faith works. Genuine faith produces genuine fruit. A certain type of root will always produce a certain type of fruit. And though you cannot see the root, you can know what kind of root it is by simply examining the fruit. So James is just systematically working through all these different fruits that are observable in the Christian life. What does genuine faith do under trials? Where does genuine faith turn for wisdom? How does genuine faith think about wealth and oppression? How does genuine faith speak? How does genuine faith think about the future? There's a certain type of fruit that will grow in these environments. These are all micro-tests of saving faith. But the more of these tests you do, the more clear the pattern becomes. So that's what we've been talking about at at thematic level. Now it's interesting how he wraps things up. It's not at all what I would expect. He begins the wrap up with a command not to make oaths. And I think its so interesting that this is how he chooses to close off a book that largely deals with having genuine faith. Don't make oaths. Why would he do that? Why is that kind of like the summary capstone command that closes things out? Here's a Bible interpretation hint that always helps me. Whenever you get stuck trying to understand something just zoom out and get the big picture. We know faith is the theme of the book, so you would expect that as he closes things out, he's going to really zero in on the essence of faith. What's he been saying in the near context? In the past 20 verses, James has been talking to us about suffering, trials, Job, the prophets… I mean there has been all this talk about trusting God in the midst of difficulty. Put your faith in God. Put your faith in God in the midst of difficulty instead of what? Instead of SELF. Placing faith in self is the opposite of placing faith in God. The Summary So let's now go back to it. Why does James close with this command to not make oaths? Why? How does that relate to faith. When we make an oath, we are making a claim about the future aren't we. I promise you I will repay you this money in 6 months. And we are also making a claim about who is responsible to ensure that this future outcome is realized. Who is responsible, according to an oath, for making that future moment a reality? I am. There's a bit of arrogance in that. Now this can't possibly be a prohibition against all oaths. Because other parts of the Bible talks about making oaths and in those places there's not a hint of a suggestion that it's wrong. Presumably, there are times when making an oath is acceptable and other times when it is not. So what's the deal? It's a call for examination of why you are making the oath. It's a call for an examination of where you are placing your faith. There's a way to make an oath that tries to wrestle control away from God. Even this week, I caught myself. It was very humbling and at first seemed like such a small deal. I was trying to comfort someone with my words. They were in a hard spot and I was trying to comfort them. And in my effort to comfort them, I promised to them more than I could really promise. I said something like, “I'll always be here for you.” It's a small thing. But it's not really true. There will be a day when I won't be either because of my own faithlessness or because I'm just physically not there or because I've died. And you might just laugh at that and say, “That's just a human expression.” But the more I thought about why I said it, the more I saw it as an evidence of trying to take control of something that is not mine to control. Why not instead of casting their future hope on my ability to ‘be there' cast them on Christ. Weak faith tries to assure outcomes that only God controls. Weak faith tries to control the future. Weak faith tries to make promises where it cannot. Weak faith denies the reality of our frailty. James already warned us about this earlier in the book by teaching us to say, “If the Lord wills, then I will do such and such.” Now what's the opposite then of trying to control the future, trying to promise and manipulate circumstances that are outside of our control? The opposite is to pray. And so the rest of the book of James just ends on this note of prayer. You want to know the true evidence of strong faith? Prayer. Prayer. Prayer. Prayer is THE evidence of strong faith. It's THE great claim, I have no control. It's the great claim of helplessness. Only you have control, Lord. It's placing your vote of confidence in God. It's hoping in God. It's great evidence that you trust and believe in God and God alone. Now James give us three situations in which we can build faith through prayer. Here are three conditions in which we might find ourselves: general suffering, happiness, sickness. Let's start with the first one. Suffering. Is anyone among you suffering? James gives us a way to approach suffering that will build faith. Suffering can take all sorts of forms. There's psychological suffering. There's financial suffering. There's emotional suffering. The suffering of confusion. The suffering of worry and anxiety. The suffering of scars from the past. The suffering of sin and rebellion directed at you. The suffering of discrimination. The suffering of ridicule, scorn or neglect. Now there a lots of ways we can respond to suffering? We can wallow in self-pity. We can complain. We can gripe. We can whine. We can sulk. We can try to alter or fix the situation through dint of effort. All of these responses suffer from one major problems: These responses don't work. These responses are doomed to fail from the beginning. It's like trying to launch a rocket into space that is constructed of cardboard. Your demanding something of cardboard that cardboard just isn't able to support. And similarly when we complain, sulk, gripe, we burn up. When we try to fix the problem through self-effort, we are incinerated. The weight of suffering is too large and too hot for our cardboard frames. We can't fix suffering. We can't really do anything. So what do we do instead? James says, if you are suffering, I want you to pray. Is anyone suffering, let him pray. The faith is NOT in the fixing the situation. The FAITH is in the sovereignty of Jesus. The HOPE is not in the suffering ending. The hope is in the 100% certainty that the purposes of God will be realized. So we can build faith by praying in suffering. So let me ask you, “Are you suffering? The instant next question, ‘are you praying?'” They go together. It needs to be instinct. Just picture putting your hand on a hot stove. It's just reaction. Your hand just jerks back. Let that be the picture for you. You find yourself in the pain of suffering. The prayer of your spirit just leaps into heaven. When you suffer, the primary way in which you find help in that suffering is through prayer. And not just prayer by yourself. Pray with others. Ask others to pray for you. Ask others to come over and join in and pray for you. Pray, pray, pray. It's the way we cast ourselves on the mercy of God. Let us pray. Is anyone among you rejoicing? Second he says, is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. James gives us a way to approach happiness that will build faith. Are you happy in life? That can be a faith building experience. Depending on your response that can either be a faith building or a faith wrecking experience. Let's say you get a significant raise. Let's say you close on a new home. Let's say you get to go on a vacation. And you find yourself just so excited. That can either destroy your faith or build your faith depending on your response. If you credit God for that moment of joy, that's a FAITH BUILDING experience? If you credit self for that moment of joy, that's a FAITH DESTROYING experience. Because what you are doing is providing a feedback loop into your mind about where blessing is derived. If you credit self, then you destroy Faith. Essentially what you end up saying is, "Yeah, I know we all say that God is the giver of all good gifts, but let's be honest, 'I made this happen through plain old fashioned hard work.'" That destroys faith. On the other hand, think about a common table prayer. God, this food is making me happy. But I am here to acknowledge that this food, even though it looks like it comes from my hard work and money in the bank account, it really, finally and ultimately, comes from you and you alone. Thank you God! That's faith building. The blessing of God can build your faith. Think about that. You don't have to feel guilty for being blessed. Are you happy? Then praise God. Do you have moments where you kids just make you sing for joy, then praise God! Do you have moments where you just overflow with happiness at God's creation? Sing praise! Build your faith by being thankful. Every time you smile, let a prayer come out of your mouth. Here's how I think about it. Literally, as the corner of your mouth goes up, praise goes up. Let us pray. Is anyone among you sick? Now the final condition he addresses is sickness. Sickness is really a subcategory of suffering mentioned in verse 14. Sickness is a particular form of suffering. And James has given us a way to approach sickness that will build faith. Now there are a lot of interpretive issues here. And these interpretive issues are important; we need to spend time on them. Most of the times we don't spend very much time on interpretation because the interpretations are straight forward and so we choose instead to spend a lot of time on application but today's text is not that way. Depending on the interpretation, your application might be pretty drastically different. So we need to think through the various possible interpretations and then give reasons why a particular interpretation is most likely so you can have confidence in the application. So we have three major interpretive issues here and I'll put them in the form of three questions. What Does it Mean to Be Sick? Is anyone among you sick? This is not as straight forward in the Greek as it may appear in the English. Here's the place in the text that gives rise to the question. The Greek word behind the ESV's sick is astheneō, “to be weak.” This word is applied to all kinds of situations in the NT: It can refer to our human limitations (our human weakness) as in Romans 6.19 Romans 6 It can speak of our spiritual weakness. Romans 5 It can refer to a weak conscience. 1 Corinthians 8 In can even refer to our physical appearance. 2 Corinthians 10 Because of the broad and varied usages, some commentators suggest that what is being referenced here is not physical illness but a spiritual weakness. So James would be saying, “Is anyone among you spiritually weak?” If that was the best understanding then the application would be for the spiritual leaders of the church to pray for this spiritually weak person so that his or her fervor for the Lord might be restored. An exhortation to pray for such a situation would fit very well at the end of a letter that has regularly chastised its readers for spiritual apathy. I certainly think this is appropriate and an excellent application of the text. I don't think we should limit the concept of weakness to physical weakness. So let's apply that. If you are feeling spiritually weak, if you lack zeal and fervor, if you feel spiritually sluggish, if you feel like a tissue paper that's just ready to get engulfed in the next flame of temptation that blows your way, then call for prayer. Have the elders come pray for you. Now some go too far in my opinion. Some Bible interpreters insist astheneo means ONLY spiritual weakness. The concept of praying for supernatural healing makes some feel uncomfortable so we have to make the text say something else. I get that, but we have to stare at the text and ask, “What is God saying here?” To say that astheneo EXCLUSIVELY references spiritual weakness and has no application to physical illness goes way to far. Let me give you a few reasons why. Many have observed that the greatest influence on James's vocabulary and theology comes from the gospels, and in the 12 times the word astheneo is used in the gospels, 12 times out of 12 ALWAYS denotes physical illness. Additionally, the closest parallel to this text occurs in Mark 9 where anointing with oil is connected with physical healing. Mark 6 So to answer our first question, “What does James mean by sick?” He means spiritually sick or physically sick. If you are either of these, call the elders. Now that leads to our second key interpretive question. When the elders come, they are supposed to anoint you with oil and pray over you that you might be healed. What does it mean to anoint a person with oil? The practice is only mentioned one other time in the Mark 5 passage we just read and it doesn't help any more than this passage. It's a little bit mysterious. What does James think that the anointing will accomplish? There are really three possibilities here. A Practical Medicinal Purpose There's no question that oil was used medicinally all through the Roman empire during this time. You pressed out wounds. Along with wine, it's a great antiseptic to clean and sterilize wounds. And while this is true, it's kind of strange to suggest medicinal usage of olive oil as a blanket remedy for what could be myriads of types of physical sickness. It's like a doctor having one rememdy no matter what your problem. Imagine going into the ER with a compound fracture sticking out your skin and the dr prescribes some olive oil. You might be a bit frustrated. Olive oil is great for somethings but it's certainly not universal. Additionally, it's kind of assumed that others in their care network would have already done this sort of thing. Why are the elders called upon to administer an antiseptic? A medicinal explanation doesn't seem the most likely. It also has the least support lexically. There are two words for anoint in the NT. Neither word ever refers to oil used medicinally. We do have one instance where we know that oil is used medicinally in the NT. Do you know where it is? It's the story of the good Sameritian. Remember the guy gets beat up by robbers and he has all these open wounds and left for dead. Along comes this Samaritian and the kind-hearted man binds up his wounds and pours out oil and wine on. In that case, the text doesn't use the word anoint. It simply uses the verb to “put on.” In my view this is the least likely option. Sacramental/Symbolic Purpose. Some have taught that this is sacramental. A sacrament by definition is something that imparts grace. In a sacrament there is a visible and an invisible reality. So for example, when I hug my kids, the visible reality we see is the hug. The invisible reality is the love behind the hug. We cannot “see” the love the hug expresses. Later today we are going to take communion. In communion we have an outward expression, the bread, but we also have an invisible, very real, reality. The invisible reality we cannot “see” is God's grace. When we take communion his grace is made known in fresh ways. The redemption we've received through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ is freshly experienced. Now some (primarily Roman catholics) have seen this administration of oil on the sick as a sacrament. So by anointing sick person with oil, we are imparting God's grace in a special way to a person. The main reason we would not adopt this interpretation is because this is not something Jesus directly told us to do. Regarding communion, Jesus told us to “do this in remembrance of him.” So we do. Regarding baptism, Jesus told us to go into all the world and make disciples. How? By baptizing them. So we do. That's where the sacraments come from. But Jesus does not say to us. Go into all the world and anoint the sick. Now a third possibility is closely related but distinct. Symbolic Anointing with oil frequently symbolizes the consecration of persons or things for God's use and service in the OT. Exodus 28 Priests would also anoint temple furniture. It was a way of physically demonstrating this is no ordinary chair. This is a temple chair. This is no ordinary candlestick. We concencrate it, we set it apart for special use. And this usage continues into the NT. The apostles were anointed for special service. Jesus was anointed for his ministry. So if James has this background in mind, then he would be recommending that the elders anoint the sick person in order vividly to show how that person is being set apart for God's special attention and prayer. In affect, the oil is saying, “This is not a normal moment. This is a moment set apart for special prayer to the Lord.” It's a physical way of demonstrating that what is going on here is a special event. We make these kind of distinctions all the time. When we graduate from school you wear strange hats with tassles and people wear strange robes. Why? You have clothes that are sanctified for that single usage. It makes that moment special. What we are doing here is not normal. This signifies something significant. I think that's the best explanation of what is going on here. The oil is saying, this moment is special. This moment is no ordinary moment. You might feel a bit strange having oil put on you like you might feel strange wearing a gown with a tassel. That's by design. We don't do this everyday. We consecrate this moment for prayer. So I think that answers our second question. What is the purpose of the oil? To set apart the moment and set apart the person. This is a scared moment where all eyes are toward heaven in a moment of great need. Now there's a third question that arises out of this text. The reason we ask this question is because the text, at bare minimum, implies this. So here's this sick person (maybe spiritually sick; maybe physically sick). And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The implication is that sin has caused the sickness; prayer and subsequent confession is necessary to be healed. Is this what is being taught? Here's the million dollar question: Is my physical or spiritual sickness caused by my unconfessed sinfulness? You want to know what the answer is: Maybe. Maybe not. That is a very uncomfortable answer but that's what the Bible teaches. On the one hand it's wrong to suggest that all sickness is the result of sin. Certainly the book of Job, just last week, makes this point very strongly. Jesus also makes this point in John 9. Remember the disciples are approaching Jesus and they see this man born blind and they ask, "Who sinned that this man was born blind? Was it him or his parents?" And what was Jesus' response? Neither. He was born blind to demonstrate the glory of God. So Job and Jesus both make it clear that drawing a direct relationship between illness and sin is impossible to do. So it's wrong to claim that all people are sick because of sin. But it's also wrong to claim that no people are sick because of sin. The Bible does teach that some people are sick because of sin. In our modern world we are so averse to thinking that any physical ailment has a spiritual connection. Physical disease has physical causes. You die of arsenic poisoning because you drank arsenic. Let's not spiritualize things that don't need to be spritualized. I agree. I don't want to overspiritualize. But I also don't want to underspritualize. There are a least two things to say here. First, the very modern medicine that we worship is now suggesting that much of the ailments that we suffer physically are results of internal emotional and spiritual issues. We can note the simple connections all the time. Stress creates ulcers, high blood pressure, stomach pain, brain fog... all of that can be caused by things going on in your mind. Who among us have not noticed physical decline that is associated with emotional and spiritual suffering? We are connected beings. So of course our spiritual condition affects our physical condition. But beyond that simple insight, here's a second insight. The NT consistently teaches that some illnesses are, in fact, the disciplinary mercy of God: 1 Corinthians 11 So let that sit. Don't move on too quickly. If you are sick, it's okay to ask the question, are you sick because of sin. Just ask it. It's okay. And just so you know, if that's the case, you aren't being punished. It's a mercy of God to slow you down. It's a mercy of God to alert you. Imagine living in a body that gave you no indicators of pain. You'd twist your ankle off a curb and then just keep walking on it and keep injuring it. Pretty soon all the ligaments in that angle would be absolutely destroyed. If you are living in sin and God halts you through sickness. That is a mercy. The most unloving thing in the world would be to allow you to continue in that self-destructive behavior. So ask the question. Application Now here's the big point. We are going to get lost in the weeds here and never make the important application necessary. The most dangerous possible outcome of today is you walk away and you go, I always wondered what that passage meant. Sweet. I like that interpretation. And then it just vanishes from any practical expression in your life! NO. Let me let you know how I think this should be applied right now. If you are suffering, what should you do? Pray. If you are happy, what should you do? pray and rejoice. And if you are seriously sick (either spiritually or physically) what should you do? Call for the elders, ask your self if, perhaps, it's because of sin that you are sick, and have them come, anoint you with oil, set you apart for a special moment of prayer. This is not ordinary prayer. This is a special concecrated moment of prayer. This is the main job of the elders. Teach the word and pray. And what does the text say? “And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” You want to know what I hear here? I hear an OATH by God. We were told not to make OATHS. But here God is making an oath to us. There are only two ways a being can make an oath. The first way you can make an oath is if something in the past already accomplished has implication in the future. For example. I might say to my son, when you get home, there will 20 dollars on the table waiting for you. I can promise that because that 20 dollars is already there. I put it there an hour ago and that past action will have future implications on my son. My son is saying, “Right dad, when have you ever done that.” Secondly, I can promise if I have some reasonable way of controlling the future. I could say, “I promise when I get home, I'll clean the dishes.” That's an event that in most cases is within my ability to control. Here Jesus is making an oath to us. Three promises The prayer of faith will save the one who is WEAK. The Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sin (NOTE: it's not always a sin issue. So it's conditional). IF he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. God will save them. That's the promise. Those are all promises of God to those who pray. And they are based on the past action of Jesus Christ on the cross and they are based on Christ's absolute control over the future. We do not know how a sick person will be saved. We do not know. Some are saved in death. Some are saved through healing. But they are all raised up eventually. The weakness is replaced with strength. We don't know how the healing will come. But we do know how sins are forgiven. Sins are forgiven by what we come here to celebrate this morning in communion. Listen, the great theme of James is confession. Confess your sins this morning. Confess. The cause of so much suffering in the world is just plane old, run of the mill sin. Do you realize that all the suffering in the world could be instantly overcome if everyone just confessed their sin. Because if everyone did that God would be faithful and just to forgive that sin and cleanse them from all unrighteousness. Think of a wound filled with dirt. That' the picture of sin. It's deeply infected. It's so sensitive when you touch it. That's sin. We are all so deeply affected. All of us. All should be able to confess right now. All should be able to come to the table and confess. We are a room full of beggars coming to the table this morning to receive grace we don't deserve. But how wonderful! Communion Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. I bind unto myself the Name, The strong Name of the Trinity; By invocation of the same. The Three in One, and One in Three, Of Whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word: Praise to the Lord of my salvation, Salvation is of Christ the Lord. A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, and it is in the capacity of man to reproduce such an instrument. A man with wings large enough and duly attached might learn

John Tillery spoke on March 12, 2023 showing us Jesus asserting His rightful authority. (John 2:13-25)

Pavan Rajagopal spoke on March 5, 2023 showing us from the Scriptures when and how we should ask God for things and how we can be sure He will respond. (John 2:1-12)

John Tillery spoke on February 26, 2023 showing how Jesus is the ladder formed from heaven to earth and the door that is the entrance to eternal life. There is no other way we can be saved. (John 1:50-51)

John Tillery spoke on February 19, 2023, pointing out that our job is to bring people to Jesus and let Him do the convincing. Also, that God wants us to accept and love others without prejudice. (John 1:43-49)

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction James 3 We are in the book of James and we are on a journey to discover the nature of true saving faith. James has really opened our eyes and helped us to distinguish between CLAIMS of genuine faith and genuine faith itself. Just because someone claims something doesn't make it true. It's the difference between claiming that that an APPLE tree is an apple tree and claiming that a MAPLE tree is an apple tree.We need to evaluate all claims but especially our own. So how can you tell if a claim is a false claim or a true claim? Well here's James' whole point. Get to the source. Get to the bottom. Look to the root. But there is a problem with roots; you can't see them. They are buried underground. The root is invisible. But for James, that's no problem. In order to make an assessment about the invisible root all one has to do is look at the visible fruit. Depending on the type of root, you'll get a certain type of fruit. And so James has been looking at all sorts of evidences, but the particular fruit that James is evaluating in chapter 3 is our speech. Genuine faith has an effect on our words. Our words should be evaluated as an evidence of what's in our heart. The Speech Challenge Now this week I was reading about a challenge of the words. And it really seemed simple enough. For an entire week, you just had to follow these six rules: Now, I would love for you to try this like I did. It's super eye opening. Here's what you will discover. You will discover how absolutely impossibly freaking hard this is. Here I am trying to write a sermon on this subject. I have lots of motivation to really do something about this whole positivity in speech buisness. And you know how long I lasted? 3 minutes. Here's what happened I come home and I see that the kids have dumped their backpack on the floor and they've basically just kicked off their shoes at random and as I looked around I just saw stuff tossed here and there I started feeling the annoyance meter rise; and I feel pretty justified in this feeling since Lisa and I have been working on this every day for approximately 22 years. And normally I would make some sort of cutting remark to remind them of their sloppy habits. But this time I said, okay, " I'm going to bit my tongue. I'm going to not say anything this time. I'm just going to encourage. I'm going to just take it in th chin. I'm going to redirect the conversation. I'm going to say something nice instead." But then right at that moment, I rounded the corner and saw them playing video games with drink cups out and tipped over. So I just blurted out, “Get off, right now and clean up your junk. I've told you 5 million times….” And then I just stopped and I just stood there amazed. I can't believe I just said that. I told myself I wouldn't say that. You see, you can't tame the tongue. If the heart is evil, it's going to come out. There are dragons in there and you are trying to keep them out with a cardboard gate. I mean, they are just going to burn that thing through like tissue paper against a blow torch. Even though I was consciously thinking about it, even though I told myself I wouldn't do it, even though I'm writing a sermon about it, I made it three minutes. Is that not embarrassing? 3 minutes. And as I surveyed my speech throughout the week, I think I can honestly say, most of what I had to say fell into two categories: boasting or cursing. We are always trying to either build ourselves up or tearing others down. Now, today we will have totally and completely failed if you don't walk away with a crystal clear understanding of WHY it is that we cannot tame the tongue. If you walk away with a resolve to ‘try harder to be more positive' it would have been better for you to not have even come. I really mean that. What we need to come to grips with is WHY. Why do we just continue to fail, day after day, week after week with our speech? There is a REASON we are factories that churn out boasting and cursing. Jesus said, out of the overflow of the mouth the heart speaks. Rotten things stink. Eventually our words reveal what's inside. We can't help it. In the same way that a man is what he eats, a man is what he speaks. So what do we do about it? Review Now really this is just part two of a message Josiah preached last week. What we have in this passage, as Josiah so helpfully pointed out, is the reality that words are either either powerfully destructive like nuclear weapons or powerfully healing like medicine to the soul. Proverbs 12:18 There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Those are the options: either POWERFUL blessing or POWERFUL cursing. Now I want you to understand why words are so powerful. The fact that we can speak is clearly one of the ways that we are like God; no other animal can speak; it's one of the ways we are made in God's image. Think about it. In the beginning was the Word. There was nothing and then God spoke, the WORD spoke, and suddenly, there was something. The word is what created. And in a similar way, our words create realities when we speak them. We can think to ourselves all we want but the second we speak those words, those ideas go out into the world and they create. They take on a life of their own. Just imagine a father who says, “Why can't you get good grades like your brother.” Or to his two daughters, “Your not as pretty as your sister.” Those are not just sentences. Those words, when spoken, create, build and weave realities. Those spoken words create eternal identities. The creative moment when those words are released can never be undone. Maybe you still carry in your soul hurtful words your parents said to you, your best friend how he just stabbed you to the core. The taunts you received, even as a little kid. James compares those words to spark, just a little thing that slips out and it takes on a life of its own. But they can also be powerful agents of healing and life giving. Perhaps you can remember an encouraging word given to you in moments of deep despair. Perhaps you can remember a compliment that struck you and stuck with you for life. You'll never forget it. Words are either POWERFUL swords or POWERFUL antiseptics. So of course the question we want to ask is this: if words are so powerful to destroy or give life, what do we do about the fact that so many of our words create and destroy rather than give life? And as we observed from last week, a lot of the focus of James' writing is on diagnosis and not so much on remedies. So at first blush he's not that helpful. James appears to be here to test not treat. A test tells you who you are. But here's the thing: a test doesn't tell you what to do about it. A pathology lab report just tells you THAT you have cancer. It doesn't tell you WHAT to do about it. The book of James can sometimes feel like a cold, heartless, and even hopeless pathology lab report. James says your words reveal you have a terminal cancer of the heart. It's the worst kind. It's the deadly, lethal. No human being can tame the tongue. Okay, you copay portion is $500 please. It does feel hopeless. This is how the passage ended last week. Where's the hope there? Nobody can tame the tongue. This is a terminal case. Is that where James intends to leave us? Today what I want to do is focus a bit on the solution to the problem. And the solution comes in the form of several analogies. In just a few verses we get four analogies all of which are helpful in GIVING US HOPE! What do we do about the cancer? Well the analogies he gives here contain the answer if we just spend a little time thinking about them. Now here's the first analogy. So the principle here is pretty basic. The source determines what kind of water you end up drinking, right? This is pretty obvious in the physical world but not as obvious when it comes to our hearts and actions. James wants us to apply the analogy. If the supply of your words is filthy, then it's no wonder your words are filthy?" If every time you turn on the faucet, you discover it's black and filled with moss and gardia and you get horribly sick, you aren't going to fix that problem by cleaning the cups in the cupboard or the outside of the faucet with dawn soap. The only solution to THAT problem, is change spring. Change the source. It's always a question of source. And that principle is the key to understanding everything James has to say about the tongue. So here's our outline based on the text. That's where we are going. So, let's start with the first point. The first thing to do is to confess. Now this text really opened up for me when I realized what James is really trying to say. In fact, I think I read this text incorrectly my entire life until just this week. When I would read these texts I would read them like this. Okay, God is comparing my mouth to a spring. And that spring spews out good things and then for some random reason it spews out bad things that hurt people. Goal - get that spring to be less bipolar. Speak more good. Speak less evil. Is that how you read it? But that's not James' point at all. James' point is this. If there is a salty source mixing with a pure source, then the whole thing is salty. It's ruined. What well produces half good and half bad? If there's any bad, isn't it true the whole thing is bad? The tendency is for us to look at the good things and think, "Okay, sure some of my speech was a little salty. Okay sure, I'll grant that. Nobody's perfect. But look there. That one was good. I said some nice things to my kids. My prayers were pretty commendable. My counsel over here was pretty epic. James is trying to get us to stop fooling ourselves. There is no such thing as a well that produces fresh and salt water. If there's any salt water at all, then you have a salty spring contaminator. That's evidence of the wrong source. Your kidding yourself if you think that your connected to a pure well. And that's a problem because if there's any salt, the whole thing is polluted. You see the same principle back up in verses 8 and 9. James 3:8-9, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. The tongue is being compared to deadly poison. Sometimes we bless people and sometimes we curse. And again, I used to read this as ok, do more blessing of God with my tongue and less cursing of men. But that's not what he's saying. WHAT IS THE DEADLY POISON? The deadly poison is the fact that both exist in the same tongue! In fact, that mixed reality is what makes it so deadly. Consider a guy whose trying to hunt deer. He walks around with a gun. Every time he sees a deer he tries to shoot it. What is that deer going to do? He's going to run for his life. But what about the guy who puts a little feed out in his yard and the deer learns to trust him and then he brings the feed in a little closer and the deer learns to trust him. And then weeks later after the trust has been established, he pulls out a gun and shoots the deer at point blank range. Which of the two hunters was more deadly? You see the mixed nature of our words is absolutely lethal. We open up people's hearts with our good words so we can stab them with our hurtful words. It doesn't matter how many beautiful words you sing on Sunday. It doesn't matter how many cool things you can say with your mouth in Bible study settings, it doesn't matter how religiously sounding your Facebook posts are….if any of your words are polluted, the whole spring is polluted. And again, in some ways, the good words makes it way, way worse. All your good words are just bait, all the religious lingo is just luring in your victims so they open their heart up to you, they begin to trust you, so you can stab them. That's why marriage hurts are the deepest. You trust, you let them in, you trust, you let them in further and then the knife! That's also why sins like gossip are so, so incredibly damaging. With gossip you lure a person in through caring words. Concern. I just want to process with you about something… I don't know what to do, maybe I can tell you about my situation and we can pray about it. And rather than confront the person directly, there's all this indirect side conversations. Even though the Bible says as clear as day, “If someone has a complaint against his brother, go to him privately. If he repents, you've won your brother.” Even though the Bible says that you say, “I'm just going to get counsel from someone I respect” That whisper then goes out and destroys. I've seen so much damage from that seeming little sin. So what's the solution? If you hear evil words come out of your mouth, confess. The first step is always, repentance. It's just confessing. It's just good old fashioned repentance. I think confessing that our language is evidence of an evil heart is one of the hardest things to do. That's why there's this second point. So many people try to apply this passage the way I tried to. Okay, let's try and get the good words to outnumber the bad words. Let's try turn up the positivity juice a bit. Let's try and put some more smile sauce into our words. 10 positive word challenge That's crazy talk. Imagine going into a restaurant and being given a glass of filthy, black water. It smells like sewer. You could see the settiment. You could even see bugs swimming around. *And so in a pretty upset voice, you ask the waiter, “Do you expect me to drink this?* This water is filthy.” And she said, “Oh, I'm so, so sorry. And she took out some fresh water and just topped off your glass.” That is almost an insult. That's worse. Do you think that helps? You see, until we confess, we are just topping off glassess. Let's sprinkle a little positivity on top of our poison. But confession pours out the cup. Confession is that magic of just purging and eliminating the evil and yucky things and letting Christ be the one who takes care of them. And then we let Christ fill our cup. 1 John 1:9, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do you see the cleansing part? Confession cleans the cup. Without confession, we are just topping off glasses. With confession, we clean the cup. That's such an important distinction. I know you guys are thinking people. And because of that there's something that is probably really bothering you. You might be thinking to yourself, "Self, how does this work? My speech is always mixed. My speech will always be both filled with CURSING and BLESSING. If mixed water is really not any different than bad water, in fact maybe even the worse kind of water, then I'm that guy, right? What does that say about me? Well here's what it says about you. You can never be righteous through your words. So stop trying. The question is not, ‘do you have salty speech.' Of course you do. Why? Because you have a salty heart. So yes, of course it's mixed. The question is what do you do with it? Do you confess it or do you ignore it. There are two kinds of Christians. Those who speak fresh and salty water and confess it and those who don't. That's the only difference. Don't think the Christian life is one-time repentance deal and then it fixes everything. The Christian life is a lifestyle of repentance. What is promised in this life is NOT the elimination of sin. What is promised in this life is FORGIVENESS when you do. The presence of sin remains. The power and penalty of sin has been removed. The corruption in us runs very deep and therefore will be surprisingly present even in our great moments. Listen, I want to remind you that you just how possible it can be to walk in the Spirit one moment and walking in the flesh the next. Do you remember Peter's great confession. Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Some say you are the great prophet. Some say Moses. Some say Elijah. Then Jesus turns to Peter and say, “But who do you say that I am?” You are the Christ, the son of the living God. Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you. Those WORDS came from God. Now the text continues From that time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's.” (Matt. 16:21-23 NAS) Now what I want to illustrate here is that in a span of two minutes Peter went from walking in the Spirit and speaking words of life to walking in the flesh and speaking words of death. He went words set on fire by heaven to words set on fire by hell itself. And does that not ring true in your experience? Wow that whiplash is sometimes so surprising. But here's the real issue. What do you do about it? Now Peter has a choice. He either ignores that. He pretends like that didn't happen and now he's just topping glassess. Or he repents. And we have the promise, "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Which means we can start over with a clean glass. yes, you can start clean, because of what Jesus did. You can dump it. You have to confess. You can't just ignore. You haven't dealt with the darkness. You have to receive Jesus' forgiveness. So let's do that. Confession is where we say, that speech was evil. That speech is what Christ died for. God please forgive me for saying that. We start by saying what David said in Psalm 51. Against you and you only have I sinned. And then you talk to the person who you spoke to… maybe they said hurtful things to you. Who cares. This is your confession. It's not a 50/50. Will you forgive me for the evil that came out of my mouth. Right now, we need to do that. If you cut people down, if you constantly criticize, if you complain, if you argue every point, if you make excuses, if you have opened your mouth and spoken negatively about someone else if you have spoken carelessly about someone's body if you lie, if you bend the truth in your favor, if you conveniently leave facts out, if you nag, if you whine, if you try to win and explain how you are right. Don't try to justify it. Don't try to explain how the circumstances made you do it. Don't try to point to the other good things you do. Don't say, hey look at this fresh water over here. For some reason, it's just so hard to repent of our words. If we lust, we usually blame ourselves. If we steal, we usually blame ourselves. If we overeat, we usually blame ourselves. But if we burst out in anger, if we say hurtful words, if we complain, if we blame others, if we share a little morsel, try to find sympathy for our situation with our words, we almost always find a way to absolve ourselves of our responsibility. When it comes to our words, it seems we can always find an explanation that exists outside of us. We dump the sin in the lap of someone else. Don't forget when we talk about communication we are talking about not just words, but tone, non-verbal…all of it. Even the silent treatment. Just repent. Remember the God-like power we have with our words? When we speak those words do something to others but they also do something to us. When we confess, when we actually speak those words, it does something to us. WE, WE are changed. Do you know what confess means, literally, it means to say the same thing as. You use your mouth to say about yourself, the same thing that God says about you. You confess it. And what is God saying about us that we need to say? How does God's speech about us need to match up with our own speech about us. We need to confess that without God we are evil. Without God, our hearts are so evil. We can't do this ourselves. It's just not possible. One of the things that sets the Christian message apart from all other messages in the world is our utter helplessness. The gospel message is not very flattering. On the surface it's really crushing. Jeremiah 17, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? This is what God says about us. Confession is just agreeing with it. Romans 3:10-14, as it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Look at your speech. This is what God says about us. Confession is just agreeing with it. Romans 8:7, For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. This is what God says about us. Confession is just agreeing with it. Romans 7:18, For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Do you see the point? We do not have the ability. The flesh, that part of you that exists without Christ, does not have the ability to do good with the lips. Confession, just admits that. The only way to clean the bowl is to let Christ do it. You have to confess. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out I am like a lame man trying to tell his legs to move. I can't do it. Beautiful words come from a different spring. I want to emphasize so strongly, that the solution is not try harder. Try to get a better percentage of good vs bad. So here's where this message really boils down. Change the source. We need to change where we are rooted. So he drives home this principle again with a couple more analogies. Have you ever found yourself trying to apologize and instead of an apology out comes excuses? Can a fig tree produce olives? No. Because it's a fig tree. It's nature is to produce figs. Our words are terrible because we haven't changed the source! Your just drawing from the SAME OLD stuff. Have you ever tried to apologize and then out comes a complaint that the other person hasn't fully apologized so why should I apologize? Can a grapevine produce olives? No. It can only do what nature allows grapevines do. If your nature is bad, you need to change the nature. If your words are bad, you haven't changed the source. Same old stuff. Have you ever tried to really work on your language, really just focus on being positive and changing those bad habits, and then just the smallest little trigger and bam, right back into it. Can a salt pond produce fresh water? In Israel, the obvious location of a salt pond is the dead sea. The dead sea is so incredibly salty. It's almost like syrup it's so thick with salt. Can you stick your head in the dead sea and drink up some fresh water? You can't expect to get both. Why? Because the nature of salt water is that it will mix with all the other water around it. It's nature does not allow separation. If you drink from the dead sea, your going to puke. If your words are salty you haven't changed the source. Same old stuff. And so with all these powerful analogies that James provides for us, let me present to you his point. Now You have a tongue. And that tongue is connected to a heart. That heart has a nature. What kind of heart is it? Here's where this whole message is heading. Your heart, apart from Christ is corrupt. It's horribly corrupt. All you need to do is look at your words. As Jesus said, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” What is that tongue producing? Is it producing poison? If so, what do you think the solution is? Switch springs. You know how to do that? You know how to sink your roots into a new spring? Use your lips to praise the Father. Notice that the dichotomy in the text is not bless men vs curse men. It's bless God and curse men. Application: Walk in the Spirit. What God wants you to do with your tongue is praise him. Yes, you need to confess your sin by confessing who you are but you also need to confess who God is. You need to say about God what he says about himself. You see so much of our problems come from not confessing what God says is true. We need to say back to God what he says is true about himself and to us. This is what the Bible means by a sacrifice of praise. When we sin, we have this instinctual response to offer a sacrifice. And that's good. But what kind of sacrifice? The Bible talks about offering a sacrifice of PRAISE. Hebrews 13:15, Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. We acknowledge, I can't change the spring. You died for my salty spring. And now, because of that, I praise you. I rejoice. Remember when David sinned with Bathsheba, so many ugly words came out of his mouth. So many sinful words. And so he repents. He confesses. Toward the end of the Psalm he says this. Psalm 51:15-17, O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. In the temple system, Moses commanded Israel to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. What are we thankful for? We are thankful that God made the way. We can't do it. Jesus Christ is the Word we need. Yes, your sins are like scarlet. Yes, you have sinned with your mouth. Yes, you mouth is an open grave. But You are my beloved child. I love you. I died for you. You're my treasure. I adore you. You're my precious little one. That has the power to heal and overturn all of the things that have ever been said about you before. It can change you. It can heal you completely. It scatters the vultures that have been pecking away at your mind all these years, all those pecking thoughts, what your dad said, what your mom said, what your friends said, what you have said, all of those things that are haunting you. The Word, the Word comes in, the Word we need, the Word we have to have. And Jesus Christ says, “I love you.” And because he spoke to you, you speak back to him. Listen, FCBC, open your mouth. Let the words come out. Speak PRAISES back to God and others. Speak of his goodness. Speak of his character. Say it. If you don't say it, the words have no power over you or over others. Don't think it. Say it. Maybe you aren't a man of many words. Maybe you don't like to talk much. Well, that's okay, but when this lands, you definitely have one thing to talk aobut. Just blurt out what God has done for you. Just speak. Just spill out your guts. When Jesus is in our guts, what spills out is beautiful. It's life giving. The words heal. When Christ is inside, we discover that everyone around us is being edified by it. God has given you a mouth to sing. God has given you a mouth to praise. God has given you a mouth to shout out words. And those words have power of you and others. SAY IT. SING IT. That's how we change the source. What the Spirit of God does is shows you the beauty of who Jesus is and what he has done for you. And that unglues the tongue. That gets you to praise God the Father. And that solves everything. That blesses everyone. So let's get out of our chairs right now, let's open our mouths, let's loosen the tongue and let's sing about the great, great beautiful love of Jesus Christ. Let's let the fountain of living water come out of us. Now what worship leader doesn't love that setup for a closing song.