Podcasts about internal journey

Dr. Hoffman continues his conversation with Dr. Christian Conte, author of "Strong Mind, Strong Man: The Blueprint for Mental Toughness, Self-Mastery and Real Strength."

Mastering Emotional Control: Dr. Christian Conte, one of the country's most accomplished mental health specialists in the field of anger and emotional management, discusses his new book, “Strong Mind, Strong Man,” which aims to help men become the best versions of themselves. The conversation covers a range of topics including internal versus external control, the concept of toxic masculinity, the importance of accurate language, the role of meditation, and practical anger management techniques like the 'maybe' technique and 'sans adjectives.' Dr. Conte also shares his experiences working with violent offenders in prison systems and underscores the importance of discernment and self-control in achieving mental strength. Personal anecdotes, including Dr. Hoffman's confrontation with a potential bike thief and Dr. Conte's wife's battle with cancer, enrich the dialogue, making it an insightful listen for anyone interested in emotional management and personal development.

In this episode of 'A Prisoner's Pardon' podcast, host Michi J wraps up a discussion with former correctional officer turned life coach and bestselling author, Jamal Javan G. They delve into the concept of 'Living For a Living,' exploring how individuals, especially those incarcerated, can find true freedom and empowerment from within. Jamal shares insights on the perception of prison, personal empowerment, and how changing your internal dialogue and understanding can shift your reality, making freedom possible regardless of external circumstances. Through attention and intention, he highlights techniques for managing anger and transforming adversities into opportunities for growth. The episode emphasizes the power of internal change, self-examination, and how these approaches lead to a meaningful, liberated life.00:00 Unlocking Inner Freedom: A Deep Dive00:20 Welcome to the Prisoner's Part Podcast00:41 From Correctional Officer to Life Coach: Jamal's Journey01:14 Exploring the Concept of Living for a Living Inside Prison01:53 The Illusion of External Control and the Power of Inner Freedom05:11 Prison as a University: Learning and Growing Behind Bars06:18 Shifting Perspectives: From Victim to Victor11:30 The Power of Gratitude and the Law of Attraction14:56 Coaching for Transformation: Breaking Free from Institutionalization19:40 Harnessing Emotional Control19:58 Understanding Triggers and Control21:00 The Power of Intention and Focus22:50 Manifesting Reality Through Belief27:40 The Internal Journey of Healing32:52 Empowerment Through Self-Examination36:58 Closing Thoughts: Hope and Future Possibilities

No Religion Required to Worship the CreatorThis episode from the Network of Awareness spirituality series explores the possibility and implications of worshiping a creator outside the boundaries of organized religion. The host, ORRA The Informationalist, discusses the universal and transcendent concept of a higher power and how this connection can be deeply personal and not necessarily tethered to religious doctrines. It explores how individuals can craft their own spiritual narrative through self-reflection, meditation, and mindfulness. The episode also covers the role of religious teachings, the limitations of language in describing the divine, the various aspects of personal faith and worship, ethics, and the notion of proselytizing, among other topics. Or reinforces the idea that spirituality is a deeply personal journey, and that a connection with a higher power does not necessarily require religious affiliation or adherence to any particular set of doctrines.00:00 Introduction to the Concept of Worshiping a Creator00:57 The Role of Religion in Worship01:28 The Journey of Acknowledging a Creator Outside Organized Religion02:37 The Internal Journey of Connection with the Creator03:17 The Role of Spirituality in Worship Without Organized Religion04:04 The Significance of Religious Teaching in Personal Worship04:59 The Role of Community in Worship Without Organized Religion05:51 The Universal Nature of Spirituality06:14 Challenges in the Journey of Personal Worship07:53 The Role of Spiritual Practices in Personal Worship08:23 The Essence of Truth in Worship Without Organized Religion08:58 The Limitations of Human Language in Describing the Divine09:47 The Unity Underlying Religious Diversity10:16 The Role of Religious Institutions in Personal Worship10:59 The Nature of Salvation and Enlightenment in Personal Worship12:37 The Role of Faith in Personal Worship13:22 The Nature of Ritual in Personal Worship14:07 The Dichotomy Between the Sacred and the Secular14:20 The Role of Moral Guidance in Personal Worship15:04 The Notion of Proselytizing in Personal Worship15:43 Conclusion: The Personal Journey of WorshipBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/network-of-awareness/support.

No Religion Required to Worship the CreatorThis episode from the Network of Awareness spirituality series explores the possibility and implications of worshiping a creator outside the boundaries of organized religion. The host, ORRA The Informationalist, discusses the universal and transcendent concept of a higher power and how this connection can be deeply personal and not necessarily tethered to religious doctrines. It explores how individuals can craft their own spiritual narrative through self-reflection, meditation, and mindfulness. The episode also covers the role of religious teachings, the limitations of language in describing the divine, the various aspects of personal faith and worship, ethics, and the notion of proselytizing, among other topics. Or reinforces the idea that spirituality is a deeply personal journey, and that a connection with a higher power does not necessarily require religious affiliation or adherence to any particular set of doctrines.00:00 Introduction to the Concept of Worshiping a Creator00:57 The Role of Religion in Worship01:28 The Journey of Acknowledging a Creator Outside Organized Religion02:37 The Internal Journey of Connection with the Creator03:17 The Role of Spirituality in Worship Without Organized Religion04:04 The Significance of Religious Teaching in Personal Worship04:59 The Role of Community in Worship Without Organized Religion05:51 The Universal Nature of Spirituality06:14 Challenges in the Journey of Personal Worship07:53 The Role of Spiritual Practices in Personal Worship08:23 The Essence of Truth in Worship Without Organized Religion08:58 The Limitations of Human Language in Describing the Divine09:47 The Unity Underlying Religious Diversity10:16 The Role of Religious Institutions in Personal Worship10:59 The Nature of Salvation and Enlightenment in Personal Worship12:37 The Role of Faith in Personal Worship13:22 The Nature of Ritual in Personal Worship14:07 The Dichotomy Between the Sacred and the Secular14:20 The Role of Moral Guidance in Personal Worship15:04 The Notion of Proselytizing in Personal Worship15:43 Conclusion: The Personal Journey of WorshipBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/network-of-awareness/support.

Success is a lot like an iceberg - our external milestones and achievements have nothing on the internal journey we have to go on to reach it. My own internal journey to success was sparked by a movie I watched when I was 9, and my life would never be the same again.  From the highs and lows to the peaks and pivots, we have to fight a lot of battles, many of them with ourselves.  In this episode, I share what that journey looked like for me from when it began to where I am today.    Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Well-meaning advice can derail your dreams There are only two choices in this life, creating your own destiny or conforming to someone else's failed reality. How do you make the right one?  An internal journey into the unknown When one door closes, how do we pivot and find meaning in something new?  The movie that sparked my journey Why did Rad inspire me to pursue snowboarding?   Get Your FREE Copy Of ‘The Private Money Guide'  and ‘Mapping Out The Millionaire Mystery'.    Keep up with us every week on our FREE Live webinars for more conversations like this, and as a BONUS get our newest mini ebook instantly upon signing up! https://moneyschoolrei.com/wednesday-webinar (digital download).   Dive into money, mindset, and motivation videos on my YouTube Channel, and be sure to subscribe so you can be notified of our weekly LIVE streams. Find out about our next weekend workshop, and see what others are saying: https://www.moneyschooltraining.com/registration.

Torrin Minutillo is the founder and CEO of Attergy coaching system and a real estate agent. He has empowered business leaders to achieve more through courage throughout his career.   He began his entrepreneurial career back in 1989, cutting his teeth in the retail space. Through many years of observation, study, and experimenting with his own business, Torrin uncovered the invisible barrier that was holding owners back. Now, after 32 years of experience in business, he devotes a lot of his time to helping other business owners pull down their invisible barriers while still running his successful real estate company.   He developed this into a simple coaching model that reveals the hidden internal barriers that will empower your business and life to whatever outcomes you're looking for.      Episode Summary - Leadership is primarily an internal journey than an external journey. And this is where the gap is, which most leaders struggle to break through.   As an entrepreneur, you need to be able to lead your organization through various challenges and gaps to break through and scale up your business and achieve the outcome you are looking for. And the first thing you need to master is building your leadership skills internally. In this episode, Torrin Minutillo shares some insightful views and strategies on building your leadership skills from within and leading your organization to the next level.   Snapshot of the Key Points from the Podcast: [01:46] Torrin talks about what his primary coaching business is all about. [06:41] The background information about Torrin's business, “Attergy Coaching System”. [13:05] Torrin talks about how he started his journey as a business coach [14:43] What you need to know about Torrin's book “The Essential Inner Game”. [15:46] Torrin talks about the mistake most leaders make and explains what leadership is. [17:12] Torrin talks about the three things that originate any business problems and how courage plays a vital role for leaders to break through any challenges. [19:40] Torrin explains the meaning of “the line of courage” - The differentiation between living above and below the line of courage. And how to grow above the line of courage as an entrepreneur and a leader. [25:49] Torrin explains why you should value time more than money in your business. [28:27] Why it is important to know your identity and how it can affect your achievements.     How to connect with Torrin Minutilo: Website - https://attergy.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/torrin-minutillo/ Download the Book - https://attergy.com/book/   About the Host: Ann Carden is a highly sought-after Expert Business Growth Consultant, Marketing Strategist, three-time published Author, and a #1 Bestselling Author, and Professional Speaker for small businesses and entrepreneurs.   With more than forty-one years of business experience and coaching and consulting hundreds of coaches, entrepreneur's and owners in more than forty different industries to more success, Ann knows what it takes to succeed in all areas of business. After spending thirteen years in corporate business management, Ann started her journey as an entrepreneur building businesses for herself for twenty-nine years. Her first business started out of financial hardship and Ann was able to propel that business into the international market (before the internet.) After selling that business, she went on to start and build five more businesses to succeed. She has sold those businesses and today has a passion for helping small business owners and entrepreneurs build their success. She has been featured on the affiliates of ABC, NBC, CW, and FOX, among many other media outlets. Her articles have been published on Small Business Trendsetters and Business Innovators Magazine, and she has been a featured guest on multiple podcast shows such as; “Business Innovators Radio” podcast which can be heard at: BusinessInnovatorsRadio.com/Ann-Carden. She was also chosen as one of the top coaches in the world by Six-Figure Coach Magazine. Through the years Ann has educated thousands of professionals through speaking, workshops, seminars, and online platforms as a Speaker.   How to Connect with Ann Carden: Website: https://anncardencoaching.com Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/business-consultant-coach Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/anncarden Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ann-Carden-A-Carden-Inc-110882230558068/

In this episode, we talk to the Founder of Lost at Sea Kyle Gabriel about his journey from having trouble with the law in Halifax to turning his life around and his accomplishments. The post An Internal Journey Lost at Sea (The Story of Kyle Gabriel) appeared first on Black In The Maritimes.

Cade Bergman has spent the last year + literally traveling the country all alone in his car trying to discover what it is he's meant to do and how to bring fulfillment to his life. And even with his goals, even with his step-by-step plan, life found a way to blindside him with passions and opportunities he never thought he'd have. Through inadvertently finding the meaning of life (through his eyes) and by finding his lifelong career, Cade has now found himself in our studio and he wants nothing more than to share every bit of knowledge he has about life, NFT's psychedelics, meditation, and way more.CHAPTERS:0:00 - Growing Into Your Success10:35 - NFT deep dive (Everything you need to know)22:43 - The responsibility of NFT pundits and holders32:22 - Social credit score (the NFT takeover)NFT's are the future tech race (Building responsible members)50:21 - Believing in yourself (believing in growth)1:00:21 - Fake people1:05:40 - Going through your journey alone (Merrit, practical, and gut-based decisions)1:22:57 - psychedelics/energies/cosmos1:57:11 - outro------------------------------------------------------------------------Find Cade BelowNFT and Personal YT channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/CadeBergmanPodcast YT channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC__XBS9-pwGS72s2Jt91WGQSpotify podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/6bUfVN36E1XlmNbrngeNqCINSTA - https://www.instagram.com/cade.bergman/TWITTER - https://twitter.com/cadebergmannDiscord - https://discord.com/invite/wFjpDSAsg21st NFT collection - https://opensea.io/collection/the-joyage-a-quest-to-nowhere2nd NFT collection - https://opensea.io/collection/the-prequel-joyage_______________________________________Find Marq's profiles and content below.M.G.C TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@marq_gerbino?from=sw&lang=enM.G.C INSTA: https://www.instagram.com/m.g.c_podcast/Marqs Personal INSTA: https://www.instagram.com/marq_gerbino/___________________________________________Watch on YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbGdq04LLKA1H0Ye51heWXA

In this episode I sit down with Taylor to understand how being on the go almost every few years since the age of 3, until finally settling in his current apartment in London (for now), helped him to break down biases and understand "at the end of the day we are all human" as he states. He speaks on how he uprooted and moved to Tokyo, the perception the local Japanese population held for the American culture, differences in integrating into South of France, and how he began his inner journey of self discovery. About the GuestTaylor is committed to transformational change by helping individuals and organisations to create meaningful and synergistic end results. He is the Founder of Galliant Trainings, which guides and facilitates the development of creative consciousness and intuition through training workshops and 1-to-1 coaching services.Taylor has worked with intuition for over 10 years training with Maryann Madden, founder and director of The Inner Energy Centre in Brisbane, Australia. He has also been accredited to Level 4 Mastery through Natural Success Academy, founded and run by international best-selling author William Whitecloud.Prior to Galliant Trainings, Taylor worked as a commercial lawyer and consultant for nearly 20 years providing legal, strategic and commercial advice in renewable energy projects and corporate transactions around the world. Reach out to Taylor:Instagram @thetaylorroarktaylor@galliant.life ________________ Get in Touch whether you have any comments or insights of your own on today's episode. Or whether you'd like to be a guest  on the show and allow your story to live on for the generations ahead:On instagram @thejourneyonwardspodcastBy email tjopodcast@gmail.com 

In each episode of Notable Leaders' Radio, Belinda Pruyne will delve into the minds of top-level executives and business owners, also drawing from her own experience; to unravel fears, limiting beliefs, struggles and how to overcome them.  In episode 1 of Notable Leaders' Radio, Belinda looks back on her personal challenges and successes of being a leadership advisor to give you an idea of how this podcast will support your leadership journey.

Introduction The Impact of the Virus Well, if you have a copy of the Word of God, I'd like to ask that you open it to James 5, we're going to be moving through. This is the second to last sermon, God willing, in the Book of James, and we've had an incredible journey through this book. But now, we could never have foreseen, when we began this study in James, these extraordinary times, and these are certainly extraordinary times, as Andy already mentioned. People all over the world are being impacted by the coronavirus. Total number of cases, I checked yesterday afternoon, over 300,000 worldwide, almost certainly, the number's higher this morning, with over 11,000 deaths as of yesterday afternoon, maybe even more now. In the US, over 25,000 cases, I think now, with 250 deaths. And along with that, as I mentioned, there's the staggering economic effect of this virus. Not only has the stock market crashed, with a loss of somewhere between 17-20%, depending on what index you look at, as I mentioned in my prayer, small businesses are struggling. We think about coffee shops and other businesses that depend on a steady stream of customers walking in and interacting, and they've had to shut down. Think about hourly workers who are wondering how they're going to make it with their income being curtailed. And along with all of this is the change in the lifestyle that we've felt. Me streaming this sermon in an empty room is just one symbol of this. So also college students coming back, having their semester cut off, maybe they never even came back from their spring break. They never expected, when they went away on spring break, that it would turn out like this. Government schools closed all around us, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, closed. We think about sports leagues that have stopped, all of the sports that people just enjoy, especially around this time. March Madness, the basketball tournament, closed down. Ordinarily, people would be following their brackets now, they were never filled out. People staying home hour after hour, day after day. Supermarkets displaying weirdly empty shelves in certain categories, as people are hoarding various items, and their behavior then forces a similar pattern of behavior in those that would not ordinarily do it. All of this is clear evidence, I think, of the fragility of our lives and of our lifestyles, of the fragility of our economy, the fragility of our physical health, our earthly hopes, all of these are fragile. If the Lord Wills, We Will Live Now, the last sermon that I preached live, here at First Baptist Church two weeks ago, was on the text of Scripture in James 4:13 and following, it says, "Now listen, you who say 'Today or tomorrow, we'll go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money,' while you do not know what will even happen tomorrow. What is your life? It is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast and brag, and all such boasting is evil." What a memorable statement that is. “If the Lord wills, you will live. And if the Lord wills, you will do this, or if the Lord wills, you will do that.” All of our times and our days are in the Lord's hand. The Gospel For Unbelievers Now, if you're not a Christian and you have been led, this morning, somehow, to come on this live stream service, I plead with you, right now, to realize the brevity of your life and flee to Christ while you still have time. You have an eternal soul created by Almighty God. He created all things, heaven and earth and everything in them, and as the creator, he is the king and ruler, and as the king and ruler, he makes laws by which we are to be governed. But like all of us, you have violated God's laws, and therefore are called by God a sinner, a transgressor, as all of us are. God sent His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, into the world, born of the Virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, He did miracles, He healed every disease and sickness that was brought before him. This COVID-19 virus would have been nothing for him. No disease was too difficult for him to heal. He did all of these healings as a sign of a coming world in which there'll be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. But above all, Jesus came to die as a substitute for our sins, which he did on the cross, and he bled out and died, he gave up his life as a substitute. He died under the wrath of God, the death penalty we deserve for our sins, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and appointed the Church to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. This simple message, that faith in Jesus Christ is sufficient to forgive you for all of your sins, that you will be forgiven, justified of all of your sins, past, present and future, if you simply trust in Christ, and I'm pleading with you to do that now. For all of us who are already Christians, maybe members of this church, you're coming here this morning to be fed by the Word of God, and I want to do that. I want to feed myself, and want to I feed you also by this marvelous text, and what a beautiful opportunity we have this morning to consider patience in affliction, patience in suffering. To learn to wait quietly and patiently under the Lord's mighty hand until he decides to lift us up. So we need patience for salvation, we are waiting for salvation, that's what's going on here. I. The Need for Patience: Waiting for Salvation What is Patience? Look at verse 7, "Therefore be patient brothers." What is patience? The Greek word used here, “makrothumia,” means longsuffering, the word “makro,” a long time of waiting. We're talking about the patience, the endurance of a marathon runner, not of a sprinter, the lightning-quick reflexes of a sprinter, the power of a 100-meter dash runner, not at all. We're talking about longsuffering, being a long time in the race. Now, James discussed endurance in the Christian life earlier, but he used a different Greek word there, “hupomone.” One scholar said the difference between makrothumia, long-suffering, and hupomone, which is endurance, is longsuffering has to do with patiently enduring difficult people, and endurance has to do with patiently enduring difficult circumstances. Whether that's linguistically true or not, we know that that's all part of the patience that we have to have in the Christian life. Patience is essential to our salvation. The Context in James Now, let's look at the context in James. James is writing to a people, the Jewish people, it seems, scattered throughout the world that are enduring great trials, they're going through various trials. James has just gotten done in the last text we looked at last week, speaking a fiery word of judgment to wicked oppressors who use their positions of power to oppress and dominate, and even murder people. He then turns his attention toward his brothers and sisters in Christ, verse 7, "Therefore be patient brothers until the coming of the Lord." Now, the suffering they're enduring at the hands of these rich oppressors will not go on forever, Judgment Day is coming for those rich oppressors. But this also, this message of patient endurance and suffering also fits the overall message of the book. It fits the first message that James gave in James 1:2-4. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance, and perseverance must finish its work, so that you'll be mature and complete, not lacking anything." So that is a strong word of patience in affliction to the end, that we would be spiritually mature and complete in Christ. So James again points Christians to the need for patience in suffering, for the patient endurance that is essential to our salvation. Our Context: We Are a Very Impatient People Now, that's their context, what about our context? Well, we are a very impatient people. Do you feel it? I feel it more than ever before. We are impatient, we're wanting this COVID-19 affliction to end today. That's how we are, we're very impatient. As western Christians, American Christians, we do not generally suffer the kinds of beatings and oppression and the trials that James describes even at the beginning of this chapter, in James 5. We do not face, generally, the kind of afflictions and oppression that our brothers and sisters face in certain regimes and countries, like North Korea, for example, or Iran, or China, even. In those nations, our brothers and sisters are arrested, they are detained for a long time, they're beaten, imprisoned, even tortured and killed for their Christian faith, so they would read this text very acutely and powerfully, and they're drinking in these words, needing to be sustained in their faith through fiery trials that they're enduring. Now, we know our sufferings do not reach that level, but still, we're called on to perseverance in the Christian life, and we are a very impatient people. Our technology has, I think, tended toward that end, of making us impatient. We are used to instant solutions to life's problems. We are used to instant answers from the internet from our handheld devices or our laptops; we're used to next-day delivery from Amazon Prime; we're used to fast food, very fast; we're used to GPS systems that tell us how to get through the city from point A to point B, avoiding traffic snarls. We're used to immediate answers. I have found myself, even recently, getting impatient at a drive thru at a fast food place, because it wasn't fast enough. I still don't know what happened. I was there waiting, we didn't move for five minutes, five minutes, and I was wondering what was happening to my food, and I was thinking about pulling out, canceling my order. All of these weird thoughts going through my mind, and I think, “What must my brothers and sisters in Heaven be thinking about me right now, who have had to endure far worse trials than that?” I found myself getting impatient over the blue donut that circles on my laptop while I'm sitting in an air-conditioned office waiting for the program to download. So we're impatient people, and James 5:7-12 speaks a strong word to us, as do many other scriptures, of the need for patient endurance in the Christian life. The Scope of Our Waiting Now, what is the scope of our waiting, what are we waiting for? Well, look at verse 7 again, "Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord." Now, we're going to talk more about this in a moment, but this is definitely speaking of the second coming of Jesus Christ to earth, ending all of human history. For 2,000 years, every generation of the Church has waited patiently for the second coming of Christ. The imminent coming of Christ. It was planned, it was prophesied, it is the next major event in redemptive history. For 2000 years, we've been hearing this word "soon." "Behold, I am coming soon." Three times in the final chapter in the Bible, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said it, "Behold, I am coming soon." For example, Revelation 22:12, he said, "Behold, I am coming soon, my reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done." So James is calling for a long-term, big picture waiting by the church, waiting for all of this to end. For those suffering daily under the oppression of rich tyrants or governmental oppressors, it's day after day suffering, out in the fields bringing a harvest and you're never going to get paid, or languishing in a cell with no end in sight. The Purpose of Our Waiting: Salvation Now, we need to understand while we're doing all this waiting as a church, what are we waiting for? What's the purpose in all this? We know that God could step in at any moment and end our afflictions and end all of our grief and sorrow, he could do it. Well, the Bible makes it very clear that we're waiting for salvation, that's the reason for the delay. 2 Peter 3:15 says, "Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation." So God is being patient too, God is waiting. You need to realize that, your Heavenly Father cares about your afflictions, he is concerned about your suffering, it is hard for him to watch his people suffer. I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. He was concerned about the Israelites in bondage in Egypt, He was concerned when David committed that sin of the sinful census, and he afflicted the Israelites with a plague for three days. He was concerned and he couldn't take it anymore, God couldn't, and finally moved to end it. So then, what is he waiting for? He's waiting for salvation. God has a timetable of purpose for all of history, for every day of history, and his ultimate purpose in human history is his own glory in the salvation of human beings. That's what he's doing in history. So he means, at least, the redemption of the elect, who he chose by name from before the foundation of the earth, that the elect would come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, that's what he's waiting for. 2 Peter 3:9. "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness, he is patient with us," I think that means with the elect, "not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." So history continues because there are, as yet, some elect people that God knew by name before the foundation of the world, who have not yet come to faith in Christ, they've not yet come to repentance. Not only that, though. God's patience means our own salvation, even if we have come to saving faith, we're not done being saved. Philippians 2:12-13 says that we are "to continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us, to will and to act, according to his good purpose." Our Salvation Comes in Stages So we know that salvation comes to us in stages, justification, sanctification, then glorification, so we're not done being saved, and we need to have these trials, as we saw, again, from James 1:4, that God's affliction of us who are already in Christ, is tending toward our own sanctification. Perseverance must finish its work, so that you'll be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Mature means sanctified, conformed to Christ, so that's what God is waiting for, and God has a timetable for everything. He knows the value of time better than we do. 2 Peter 3:8, it says, "With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day." So the two thousand years since Jesus said, "Behold, I'm coming soon," is as nothing to Him, like a watch in the night. Christ can rightly say to every generation, "I'm coming soon, be ready, be prepared at any moment for the coming of the Lord." God Acts in His Perfect Timing But notice also that God works intensively and extremely actively, every single day of human history to accomplish unique purposes for that day. That day, “this is the day the Lord has made,” that day is unique and will never be repeated. And so, God has a specific purpose. With the Lord, a single day is like a thousand years. And so God has measured out the days of COVID-19, He knows exactly how long they're going to go on, He knows what He's trying to achieve with every day. He is working his secret purposes out. So if you're a Christian, you should be praying for those secret purposes to be worked out, don't just pray that the virus would end. You should pray for that, but say, "In the meantime, Lord, would you please accomplish in people's hearts everything you're trying to accomplish?" We should pray for that. We know that Christ came at just the right time, didn't He? He was born of a virgin. "When the fullness of time came, [at exactly the right time,] Christ was born of a virgin," Galatians 4:4. We know that he also died at exactly the right time, even down to the minute he died. Passover night, before sundown, right before they came to break his legs. And so Romans 5:6 says, "You see, at just the right time, when we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." So everything has been meticulously measured out. So also, your life, all the days of your life have been measured out. Psalm 139:16 says, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." So all of these days have been measured out. So God is calling on us Christians to have patient endurance in the suffering of the Christian life because our sufferings are essential to the salvation of our own souls, and the salvation of other people's souls as well, converted or not converted, that's what God is working on. II. The Scope and Hope of Patience: The Second Coming of Christ The Scope of Patience: The Coming Lord Now, I mentioned the scope and patience of our waiting is the second coming of Christ. We need to focus, more than ever before, on the coming of the Lord. Look again at verse 7, "Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord." History will come to an end at the second coming of Christ, and all of the suffering of the elect will end on that day. All of the brothers and sisters that patiently waited, and were even incarcerated waiting for their release, and it never came physically, they actually were tortured and executed, as it happens. They're waiting for the coming of the Lord, their sufferings have been great, but no matter how great their sufferings were, Paul, who had greater credentials of suffering than any Christian that's ever lived, still calls our sufferings “light and momentary,” 2 Corinthians 4:17. And he says in Romans 8:18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." And so we need to think light and momentary, not worth comparing with the glory that is coming, that is the hope of our patience. We are longsuffering, waiting in hope, we are filled with hope. What is hope but a strong feeling in the heart that the future is bright based on the promises of God, and our future is indescribably bright? We are going, brothers and sisters, to a perfect world. Revelation 21:4 says that “there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things well have passed away and the Lord is going to make everything new. “That's where we are going. A world free from all evil, free from all evildoers, a world free from Satan and his demons, a world free from the decay and corruption of this present age cursed in Adam, a world free from all disease and suffering, a world radiantly beautiful illuminated at every moment with the glory of God and of Christ and there's no need for the light of the sun, or the light of the moon, or the light of the lamp to shine on the new Jerusalem for the glory of God will give it light and the Lamb is its lamp. So when Paul says that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with that glory, we should be filled with hope. Other people who watch us, who look at us during this time should see us filled with hope so that they'll ask us to give a reason for the hope that we have. The Coming of the Lord is Absolutely Certain Now this coming of the Lord, this second coming in Lord, is absolutely certain. The second coming of the Lord is either alluded to or openly discussed over 500 times in the New Testament, it's incredible. For example, Revelation 1:7, "Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be, amen." Or Jesus Himself said, Matthew 24:30, "At that time, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory," Matthew 24:30. So this certain promise of the coming of the Lord should fill each of us with a radiant buoyant hope no matter what suffering we're going through right now. And James says that Christ's coming is near, look at verse 9, "The judge is standing at the door." He's right at the door. So the rich oppressors that we talked about last week in James 5 should realize their judgment is imminent. Imminent. The Judge is at the door. For our brothers and sisters in North Korean prisons or in Chinese prisons that are eating filthy and inadequate food and drinking filthy and polluted water, and being tortured mentally and physically for their faith, the judge of all the earth is standing at the door. And for us who are enduring far less dramatic sufferings and afflictions, whatever they are, not just with this virus but just things that are going on in your life, maybe chronic pain, illnesses of other sorts. We were just saying a moment before the service began, wouldn't it be nice if all the other diseases took a break while the virus had center stage? But they don't. And people continue to have afflictions in other categories, brain tumors, heart disease, other things continue to go on. Some have lost godly spouses and they're struggling every day with loneliness. And then there's other afflictions common to life. We need to realize that the second coming of Christ is imminent, the judge is standing at the door. III. The Examples of Patience: Farmers, Prophets, and Job Example #1: The Farmer Then James gives us examples of faith and patience. He begins with the farmer's patience. Look at verse 7, "See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains." Now, I would say none of us that are members of First Baptist Church, as far as I know, are vocational farmers. I've never been a farmer, I've killed a lot of plants that I intended to do well, but I've not been a farmer. My family would starve, no doubt about it. But farmers learn to be patient as they've done everything they can for the crop. They've plowed the field, got it ready at the right time, they planted the seed, they looked after it, they did all that they could, but then the harvest has to come based on something they have no control over, and that's rain. Without the rain, the harvest will fail. And so James mentions the early and late rains as the pattern of rainfall in Palestine that was essential to the final harvest. And so this picture of a farmer's patience, looking up, waiting for something he has no control over, that's a powerful image of the kind of patience the Lord wants us to have. Jesus used a lot of agricultural parables to talk about the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of heaven is like seed that a man went out and sowed, etcetera. There's a lot of parables like that, agricultural. Listen to this one in particular, Mark 4:26-29, "This is what the kingdom of God is like, a man scatters seed on the ground night and day. Whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself, the soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head, and as soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come." Our salvation is like that, and so is the advance worldwide of the kingdom of God. We have a certain role to play, like the farmer, but we cannot make it grow. As Paul said, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow." So the salvation of sinners all over the world is totally dependent on the grace of God and the grace of God alone, not on us. Now we have a role to play, we have to evangelize. Pray, set a good example, do the works that God's given us to do, that's true, but in the end only God can send the rain and only God can give the growth, and so we need to wait. And notice how he talks about patience as the strengthening of the soul. Verse 8, "You also must be patient and stand firm" or "strengthen your hearts," one translation gives, "because the Lord's coming is near." So you have to strengthen your hearts, this is the powerful image, establish your hearts. Think about a building, a structure, concrete with rebar in it or structural members in a building. Do that in your heart. Now, ordinarily, this strengthening of the heart is a work done, a secret work done by God the Holy Spirit within the hearts of believers, and so we should be strong. James talked in James 1:6-8 about the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed back and forth by the waves, double-minded, unstable. We can't be like that during trials, buffeted around, like, "What's God doing?" and getting upset and being all frustrated. No, no, no, strengthen your hearts in patience. Put that structural member in there. Now, again, that's something that God does in us. I love Ephesians 3:16, Paul says, "I pray that out of His glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.” So that's exactly what James is calling on us to do. So it's a partnership. The Holy Spirit will strengthen us, as we make ourselves available to him in prayer, say, "Oh God, would you strengthen my heart? I'm so weak, I'm so impatient. Would you strengthen my heart?" And as Andy mentioned earlier, I love that text in Isaiah 26, “He will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on him.” So stay your mind on God, or in Isaiah 40, it says, "The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall, but those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." So that could be you right now. Strengthen your hearts in patience and wait on the Lord. Example #2: The Prophets The second example he gives is of prophets that spoke in the name of the Lord. Look at verse 10, "Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord." James opens that long and tragic history up for our eyes. Again, we know what he's talking about. These prophets suffered universally, greatly, great opposition from the people that they were sharing with and they were speaking the word of God to. Stephen said in his great sermon in Acts 7, "Was there ever a prophet that your fathers did not persecute? Was there a single one?" Elijah was persecuted viciously by the wicked king Ahab and his demonic wife Jezebel, Isaiah was sawn in two, tradition has it, by Manasseh, the evil son of the godly King Hezekiah. Jeremiah was probably the most hated of all the prophets, and he was assaulted, beaten, he was thrown in prison, he was thrown in a miry pit. John the Baptist, for just telling the truth to King Herod that he shouldn't have taken his brother's wife as his own, was thrown in prison and then beheaded by King Herod. This is the history of the prophets, and James wants us to consider. Consider the prophets, the patience that they showed, but they persevered in their ministry, and when they were finally done with their suffering and God took them to Heaven, they came into great rewards in Heaven. And so Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:11-12, "Blessed are you, when people insult you, persecute you, falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in Heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." So for us in our generation, we don't have a lot of persecution. Some of it is because we shrink back from boldly proclaiming the Gospel. I think the Lord is calling on First Baptist Durham to be more and more bold, bolder and bolder in the sharing of the Gospel, and more and more persecution is going to come. That's not our goal, but it's going to happen. We should be willing to take up the fallen mantle of the prophet Elijah, he went up to Heaven in a chariot of fire, and as Elisha did, took on that mantel said, "Okay, that's our role now. It's our time now, it's our time to share the Gospel, and we're going to be persecuted, but rejoice and be patient in it." Example #3: Job The third example he gives us is of Job. Look at verse 11, "As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You've heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about," one translation gives it. What was his final purpose, what was the end? How did it all end up for Job? The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Perhaps other than Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul, no one in the Bible suffered more than Job. In a single day, wave upon wave of horrifying news came to him, wave upon wave of his losses and material losses, and then irreplaceable, his 10 children all killed in a single day. Hard to even imagine for me as a parent, more I meditate on it, I think has any parent ever received such news? And then in a second wave of attack, Satan came after his body, and his health was taken from him, and he was sitting there covered with sores festering sores, scraping them with a piece of a potsherd, a piece of pottery. Now, we may think it's a bit strange that James mentions him as an example of patience and suffering because most of the Book of Job is his lamentation and complaining about it. For example, he gets going right away cursing the day of his birth. Job 3:11, "May the day of my birth be cursed. Why did I not perish at birth and die as I came out of the womb? Why are the suffering even given the light of day at all?" And then it gets worse in Job 19:6-7 he says, "God has wronged me and drawn His net around me, though I cry, I've been wronged, I get no response, though I call for help, there is no justice." That's a very serious charge to lay at God. And it was for this very reason that when God finally spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, He rebuked him. Job 38, “the Lord answered Job out of the storm and he said, ‘Who is this that darkens my counsel by speaking words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man, and I will question you and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?’" And he goes on like that for chapters. He's rebuking him, but he's also lovingly healing him from questioning God, ever questioning God. God's commitment to justice was seen at the cross, and I know that Jesus hadn't died yet but there is no higher statement of a commitment to justice than the Father pouring out his wrath on his only begotten Son, whom he loved. And Job questioned God's justice. However, for all of that, he repented, he said, "I put my hand over my mouth," at the end of the book, he said, "surely I spoke of things I did not understand, and therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." It could be that, not at that level, but that you need to do some repenting too. Maybe you've murmured and complained against God during this virus time. Don't do it, don't do it, but see what God finally brought about in the midst of all of that, you say, "How is Job an example of perseverance?" Well, listen to what he said in the middle of his trial, a trial far greater than you will ever endure. This is what Job said, Job 13:15, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." And then he said in Job 19:26, "The worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh I will see God." Now that's the perseverance of faith, and therefore, God in the end vindicated Job and restored all his possessions to him. More on that in a moment. IV. The Holiness of Patience: Free From Grumbling and Swearing How We Get Through the Trial Matters Now in the midst of this, we have the call to holiness in patience, free from grumbling and swearing. It matters a lot, dear friends, how you go through this time or any time. How are you going through it? What are you like? God wants us to control our mouths when we are in times of trial. The Israelites were constantly grumbling against the Lord. Remember when they were pinned up against the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's army was coming down, they looked like they were about to die, they cried out, Exodus 14:11 and they said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt you brought us here to die?" That was just the beginning of the complaining they did, and God hated their grumbling. At one point after they refused through unbelief to enter the promised land, they had to turn back, they started complaining about the manna that God was miraculously giving them. Numbers 11:4-6, "The rabble with them began to crave other food and the Israelites started wailing again and said, If only we had meat to eat, we remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost, and also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. [Remember those good old days?] But now we have lost our appetite. We never see anything but this manna." The good old days of being slaves in Egypt, how they had forgotten God's mighty hand and outstretched arm. It's very easy for us as sinners to charge God with wrongdoing, and to grumble against him. And so God warns us not to grumble against him vertically in other texts. Here, he warns us not to grumble against each other. Look at verse 9, "Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door." Isn't it amazing? When we go through afflictions, we start to take it out on others. Hard time going on in your life, you start to have marital problems. We heard this week, it's a great tragedy, but in China, where the virus began and where there was so much suffering and death, the divorce rate has skyrocketed. And I understand that we're on top of each other, we're with each other hour after hour, day after day, and problems come up, but we Christians have resources to be able to not grumble against each other and not complain against each other. For me, I like to think about Jesus, He's up on the cross, hands and feet nailed, blood pouring out, he's in agony and several of his statements show his tenderness and compassion to others, like when he set up his mother to be cared for by John, his beloved disciple. And he said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing," I think, speaking about the Romans, who killed him. And he said to the thief on the cross, "Today, you'll be with me in paradise." Jesus was suffering the agonies of the wrath of God but was still gentle, loving, horizontally caring for others. So don't grumble against the people in your life, in your home. We could be another several weeks together. Don't grumble against each other. The judge is standing at the door, he hears everything you say. Do Not Swear Now in verse 12, he commands us also not to swear, "Above all, my brothers do not swear, not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, or you'll be condemned." It's one of those interesting moments in James where it's hard to see the train of thought. It doesn't well connect with what we've been talking about, and it doesn't well connect with the next section, which we'll look at next week, God willing. So it's just a word from the Lord about swearing. And by this, I don't think he means using foul language, but taking an oath like, "I swear on a stack of Bibles," you know how people do that. And what that means is that your word can't be trusted. If you have to swear on a stack of Bibles to make certain that your word is upheld, that's evil. "Anything," Jesus said, "beyond letting your yes be ‘yes’ and your no, ‘no’ comes from the evil one." And so James picks up on that and says the same thing. Don't make vows. Just be faithful to what you have said you will do. V. The Outcome of Patience: A Rich Harvest The Outcome Christ Wants Now, what is the outcome of patience? Well, it's a rich harvest. Look at verse 11, "As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about, seen his ultimate purpose there, the Lord is full of compassion and mercy." God is so compassionate and merciful, he doesn't love seeing his people suffer, but he has a purpose, he has an end. And so what happened with Job? What was the final outcome for Job? Well Job 42:12-17, it says, "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, a thousand donkeys, he also had seven sons and three daughters. After this, Job lived 140 years. He saw his children, and their children to the fourth generation, and so he died old and full of years." Well, the blessings we are pursuing are eternal and spiritual, not physical, but Job's physical blessings point to that. Patient endurance in trials results in Christ-like maturity. We saw that in James 1, conformity to Christ. And the Lord is disciplining us and training us so that, as Hebrews 12:11 says, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." So our own maturity, if you humble yourself during a time of affliction, God is going to make you mature, so that at the end of your life, you'll be much more like Christ than you were before. And then beyond that, we need to look to the unconverted elect. What is God's purpose in all of this? And that is that lost people may be saved. Very soon, we trust, we pray, this affliction will end, but people will remember it, they'll think about it and they'll remember what they felt. They'll remember that they looked at death. They thought about death more than they usually do. And that will be an opportunity for us in evangelism and in missions to share the Gospel. Let's do it. VI. Application Redeem the Time Let me say a few final words of practical application for the facing of this hour. Can I say just redeem the time? Redeem the time. When Paul's activities were shut down, he was an energetic go from place to place church planner, but then he was arrested and thrown in prison, sometimes for years. How did he redeem the time? Well, he witnessed to his captors, and he wrote Scripture. He wrote the Book of Philippians from jail, when the Apostle John was exiled to Patmos, he wrote the Book of Revelation. When Martin Luther was basically exiled to the Wartburg, an old castle, and he was up in the attic with the bats for three years, a very energetic, hard-working individual, who wanted to get out and about, but for his own safety needed to be there. For three years, he translated the entire New Testament into good German, which serves as the foundation of the modern German language. Now the Lord, I don't think, is expecting any of you to be that fruitful during the time of your confinement. But let's redeem the time, let's make the most of the time that we have. Study More Scripture Start with your daily devotions. Don't shrink them, expand them. Read through the book of the Bible in ways you've never done before, pray more than you've ever done before, pray specifically for the issues related to this plague. I would suggest you do a word study in the word “plague,” see why God brings plagues. See how often they're connected to human sin. You may need to begin by confessing and repenting from any sins that you may have committed. We'll, God willing, talk more about that next time. Sometimes people are sick because they've sinned. And so that may be something that we need to ask, but we don't want to be Job's friends saying, “It's definitely because we've sinned.” But it's at least a possibility. So for us, even if we haven't committed any sins other than ordinary sins that are serious, but our conscience isn't testifying against us, we still should be confessing the sins of the human race, and we know that God brings plagues because of human sinfulness. Grow in Your Prayer Life Let's be praying for the issues related to this virus. Pray for the caregivers, family and friends that stand alongside worldwide around people that are suffering, pray for those that are in the medical jobs, that they would be protected from illness. Pray for our brothers and sisters in those roles. Pray that the numbers, the COVID-19 numbers, will soon flatten out and diminish, pray for that. But also, as I said earlier in this message, pray that God's purposes in all this would be achieved. Pray that these extraordinary times will result in a huge harvest of souls of, as yet, unconverted elect people, that they will come to faith in Christ, be ready when all this ends to talk to people about the brevity of life, and the fragility of life and the fragility of our lifestyle and of our economy. I think people would be ready to listen. If you're parents, gather your children around and talk to them openly about these things, speak to them in the language they can understand, get them to pray for these things as well. And don't waste time with a big upswing of electronic entertainment. Don't waste time pouring into the electronic hole. Spend more time talking to each other, reading books, going out on walks, maintaining social distance of course, but just use the time well and wisely, and realize that God is merciful and compassionate, and when he wills, these days of trial will end and God's purposes will be established. Would you close with me in prayer? Prayer Father, thank you for the Word of God, we thank you for its timeless lessons, we thank you for the way that it speaks to us in every generation, we know that other brothers and sisters with the Black Death, the plague faced far worse afflictions than this, but we want to be faithful in this day and in this hour, help us to be ready at any time for the second coming of Christ, and help us to make the most of this opportunity to “redeem the time because the days are evil.” But we know that though the days are evil, God is full of mercy and compassion, and we look to you in Jesus' name, amen.

Introduction Sermon Illustration Turn in your Bibles to James 3. You'll be looking this morning at the text you heard read for us, James 3:1-12. In the year of 2012, I went on a mission trip to Nepal, fulfilling a dream. For many, many years, I'd wanted to go to Nepal, prayed for many years for an unreached people group there, and yearned to be able to share the Gospel there in Nepal and had the opportunity in 2012. At one point, we were driving along a road that was alongside on the verge of a raging river swollen by a month of rains, torrential downpours. The river had a brown muddy look to it. It was not attractive at all, but I had never seen such a rushing torrent in all my life. It looked like a stampede of bison back in the Old West. Not that I've ever seen that but what I imagine it would look like. A stampede of muddy bison. It was rising and falling and roaring and undulating with peaks and troughs, and unspeakable power. It was terrifying just to drive alongside it, wondering if at any moment, it might leap out of its boundaries, and swallow up the very road that we were driving on. It was ugly, it was powerful, it was threatening and dangerous. I feel certain if anyone were to have fallen into it, they would immediately be swept to their death, or pulled down under and drowned. So these words are in my mind as I think about that image. Dirty, dangerous, powerful. So as we come to this passage this morning, James 3:1-12, that picture's in my mind. An overwhelming force, a rushing torrent, a deadly power, able to sweep away whole villages in a flood and swiftly bring death. But look at what we're actually talking about today, we're talking about the tongue. That little muscle behind your teeth that has no bone to it, but how powerful it is. James zeros in on the tongue as it seems like a weapon of mass destruction. I think James wouldn't have known that expression, but if he understood it, he would say, yes, that's exactly what it is. The human race speaks an almost immeasurable torrent of words every single day. We Speak Many Words Every Day Estimates put the average ration of words for you as between 18 and 25,000, some of you more, some of you less. Seven and a half billion people. I know a percentage of those haven't learned to speak yet, but they will. So we're talking about approximately 150 trillion words every day spoken by the human race, and God listens to every one of them, remembers all of them, but what's really terrifying is not the sheer volume of human words, but what the Bible says about how evil many, if not most of them are, and that's exactly what James 3:1-12 is addressing, the absolute necessity of we Christians, who James calls again and again. “My brothers, my brothers. We Christians have to tame the tongue by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Now in context we've just passed through what I call the theological center of the Book of James. James is a very practical book. It seeks to address how Christianity is actually affecting your life. What's actually going on with you now that you've heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And he's seeking to instruct Christians on what genuine faith looks like in the real world. Now he's just made it plain at the end of James 2, that faith without works is dead. If your faith isn't actually affecting what you do, then it's a dead faith, a useless faith, a demon faith. But immediately after that, he addresses the tongue because there is such a powerful connection between the heart and the tongue. Who you really are as a person and what you say, and James wants his readers to know that the transformation of the tongue is essential to genuine salvation. It may be the single greatest proof that you really are a Christian, how you use your tongue. So we're going to draw out from the text today six reasons why all Christians must tame the tongue by the power of the Holy Spirit. I. Because By Our Words We Will Be Judged The Tongue is a Clear Reflection of the Heart Reason number one, “Because By Our Words We Will Be Judged.” Because by our words, we will be judged. Look at verse 1, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” Now for me as a teacher of the word of God. I must read that with fear and trembling. I was sitting over there in the seat just like all of you, were sitting in your seats but I have to get up and walk up here and talk, and I have to do so with fear and trembling because it says that “not many of us should be teachers,” and the NIV puts it, “presume to be teachers.” I think that's to take that honor on yourself. Many of you should not do that. Why? Because we who teach will be judged more strictly, more severely. Why is that because of the great danger of hypocrisy, of saying one thing with your mouth, and living a different way with your life. Richard Baxter in his classic, Reformed Pastor, said this to his brother pastors, "Take heed to yourselves lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you preach God's laws, and then willfully break them? If sin be evil, then why do you live in it? And if it be not, then why do you dissuade men from it? If sin be dangerous then how dare you venture on it? But if it be not then why do you tell men so? If God's threatenings be true, then why do you not fear them? And if they be false then why do you needlessly trouble men with them and put them into such frights without a cause?" That's very convicting for me. “Let not many of you presume to be teachers because you're going to be judged more severely if you get up in front of people and talk about God's word, and then you don't live it out in your own life.” We're going to be judged. James says more severely, but on the other hand, God has ordained the teaching office as essential to the completion of the salvation of the flock of Christ. So what am I supposed to do? The talents, the Parable of the Talents, five talents, two talents, one talent, the one with the five went out and put it to work and gained five more, the one with the two went out and put it to work and gained two more. But then there's that one with the one talent that was afraid of the master because he's such a severe judge and he's harsh, and unfair, and so he takes his talent, hides in the ground and he's called a, “wicked lazy servant.” So, I'm hemmed in by the word of God. It says in Romans 12, if your gift is teaching, then teach. And so those of us that have the gift of teaching, we need to venture forward and teach but this passage stands as a warning to be certain that we understand that we are going to be judged more severely even as we teach week by week. What is this link then between the tongue and judgment? Jesus Clearly Links the Heart to the Tongue Well, it's because there's a clear link between the tongue and the heart. Between the tongue and the heart. We're going to be judged, evaluated by our words, and Jesus made this link very clear. You remember when he was driving out demons and his enemies claimed that it was by Beelzebub, the prince of devils that he was driving out demons? That's a filthy statement. Well, they made many filthy statements about Jesus. And at one point Jesus zeros in on that. Talk to his blasphemous enemies, and he said this in Matthew 12:33-35. “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, make a tree bad and it's fruit will be bad for a tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good. For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him. And the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” So that's why there's this link between what we do with our tongue, and Judgment Day. Out of the overflow or out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. The heart then really is the issue, the heart is the storage receptacle of all manner of things. The heart does many things, biblically. There are many verbs attached or connected to the heart, biblically. So what you ponder, you ponder in your heart, what you delight in, you delight with your heart. What you ruminate over, what you fantasize about. What you covet, what you lust after, what you desire and pursue, what you love, what you hate, what you choose, what you reject, what you consider, what you plan for, the heart does all of these things. It's the core of your being. Now the Bible makes it plain, the basic nature of the unregenerate heart is wickedness. Jeremiah 17:9 it says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” That's where all of us starts, with a deceitful wicked heart. Do you not see the supernatural grace of salvation? Jesus said, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good.” That's the one thing we cannot do, we can't make ourselves good, we can't make our hearts good. And so, as the Gospel has unfolded so clearly and so powerfully and in great detail in the Book of Romans, the first section of Romans unfolds the universality of sin. And it culminates in this crescendo in Romans 3 saying there's, “no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, all have turned away, they've together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one”, now, listen to the next words, “their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit, the poison of vipers is on their lips, and their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” That's four straight statements about the mouth. The poison of our unregenerate mouths. The tongue therefore, is a clear tattletale to the state of the heart. What's really going on in your heart? Jesus Says, “By Our Words We Will Be Judged” And Jesus says, “by our words we will be evaluated.” As he continues there in Matthew 12:36-37. “But I tell you that men will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word you have spoken. For by your words, you will be acquitted and by your words, you will be condemned.” That's an amazing statement. The tongue is such a sure-fire reflection of the state of the heart that all Jesus, the Judge of all the Earth will need, is a full catalog of your career in words and he'll know exactly the state of your heart. Now, he'll look at more than that, but I'm just saying that all he needs are your words if he has a 100% catalogue of the words. Now, does he? Does God keep track? Oh, he does. I remember sharing the Gospel with somebody, and I came to that verse. It’s a very useful verse in witnessing. You'll have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word you have spoken. Well this individual who had the great misfortune of sitting next to me on a four-hour flight, and I said, you're going to have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word you have spoken. He said to me, “But I don't remember everything I've said.” What would you say next to that? “That's okay, God does. He's got it all written down. Every single word.” Job said, "Oh that my words were recorded. That they were written on a scroll. That they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead or engraved in rock forever.” Don't you want to say to brother Job, be careful what you wish for? Everything has been written down. God has a perfect record, an accurate record of everything that we've ever said, and we're going to have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for all of it. Therefore we ought to tame our tongues, brothers and sisters. What is the Tongue Capable Of Doing? Now what are the different things the tongue is capable of? It's remarkable the catalog of corruption linked to the human tongue. There are so many different ways that we can sin. James says in verse 2, "We all stumble in many ways.” What a self-reflective, open, honest statement that is. He's saying, “I'm not a perfect person. All of us stumble in many ways.” Alright, but when it comes to the tongue, how many different ways can we stumble? It's remarkable. When I was writing my book on sanctification, An Infinite Journey, I actually cataloged the sins of the tongue alphabetically. You're ready? Here we go: Arguing, blasphemy, boasting, coarse speech, complaining, cursing, deceit, disrespect, exaggeration, false doctrine, filthy joking, flattery, foolish talk, gossip, insults, lies, mockery, rebellion, sarcasm, seduction, slander, threats, words of unbelief. And that's just a partial list. If you're thinking, what about this or what about that? Come and tell me afterwards, I'll make the list longer and more detailed for the second edition of that book. And for all of these verbal sins, God is going to bring people into judgment, and his record of our words is perfect. Do you not see how much we need a savior? Thank God that God sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die in our place under the wrath we deserve for such a catalog of corruption. And I'm pleading with you, be certain that Jesus is your savior today. Don't leave this place unconverted. You don't want to stand before the perfect judge with this catalog of your own words and have to give an account for everything you've said and you don't have a savior to intercede for you whose blood was shed on the cross, to save you from your sins. So come to Christ and trust in him. On Judgment Day our words will be a perfect reflection of the state of our heart and our souls. II. By Taming the Tongue We Control Our Whole Bodies Control Your Tongue, Control Your Life Secondly, we need to tame the tongue because by taming the tongue we control our whole bodies. By taming the tongue we control our whole bodies. Look at verse 2, “We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” So what James is doing is he's telling us that controlling the tongue is a key step to controlling your whole life. James has already said if you don't bridle the tongue, your religion is worthless, you're deceiving yourself. He said that in chapter one, But conversely if you want a genuine salvation, you have to start really with the tongue, bridling the tongue will enable you to control your whole life. “Now, if you're able to do that, if you're never at fault in anything you say, you are a perfect person,” James says. Now, we will never be perfect in this life. We will never be perfect. There is only one man who ever perfectly controlled his tongue and that's Jesus Christ, but he did perfectly control his tongue. He made it through his whole life in this world without once saying something wrong. And never failing to say the right thing that the situation called for. I think about Proverbs 25:11, which says, “a word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Jesus had almost a countless number of those. Saying exactly the right thing to the person, what was needed for that situation. He knew how to deal with broken-hearted sinners who felt there was no hope for them. “The bruised reed, he did not break. The smoldering wick he did not snuff out,” he knew how to lift up a weeping sinner and give him or her hope of forgiveness. He also could speak like a lion to self-righteous, arrogant religious leaders who needed to have someone speak to them like a lion. He did both. Now James is not in any way implying that we can be perfect, but it is the goal of sanctification. After justification, after our sins have been forgiven and we've been born again, to seek perfection every day. So what do you say we start with just the rest of the day. For the rest of the day that we will be perfect in speech. What a goal. Wouldn't that be sweet, if you could put your head on the pillow tonight and say, from the time that the pastor said that on, you didn't say anything wrong. But then Monday will come, and there's another day in which you can be perfect in your speech. The Tongue Determines the Spiritual Course of Your Life Now, the point that he's making here is the tongue controls the course of your life, actually. Look at verse six, "The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body, it corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire and is itself set on fire by Hell." James literally says that the tongue sets the whole course of his life on fire when it's used for evil. It's interesting. The word that he uses here is the word wheel, like the wheel of fate, or the hinge of fate, that kind of thing. For us, we might think of a steering wheel, that kind of thing. But the whole course of your life is set in motion or in direction by how you use your tongue. Now, for the unregenerate person, James, I think is speaking in verse 6 of the evil that seizes his or her tongue and sets that tongue on fire, even as though it were set on fire by Hell. The direction of that kind of life, that type of talking is Hell, eternity in the Lake of Fire. That's what he's saying. It's a terrifying direction to be on. If you want to know, "Am I on the broad roads that leads to destruction?", look at how you talk. Conversely and positively, when he rescues you from that highway to Hell, and brings you to that straight and narrow gate, he's going to affect by the Spirit the way you talk. So, if you want to grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ, if you want to be more and more conformed to the perfection of Christ, the way he used his tongue, then ask Christ through the Holy Spirit to change the way you talk, to control your speech patterns. So, to weed out the bitterness and complaining you reveal in trials. The way you don't consider it pure joy, but you actually start to complain and murmur against God, start there. Or perhaps kill the gossip or the slander by which you assassinate the character of people who are not even there with you, behind their backs, the things you say about them. Or putting lies and deceitfulness to death. To put an end to the exaggeration that you use when you tell that story about what you did, and you end up the knight in shining armor and the other person, the villain in the dark hat. We all do this, we twist the truth, it's malleable and we make it say what we want. To kill the habit of flattery by which you manipulate people. You say things you really don't believe good things about them, so that you can bring them in your thrall, you can control them, manipulation, that flattery. There is so much work to be done, isn't there brothers and sisters? There's so much to be done. It's like, "Oh God, I want to be a sanctified man, I want to be a sanctified woman." The Holy Spirit is saying to us through this text, “Then control your tongue. You get control of your tongue, your body will follow.” Two Illustrations He uses two illustrations to prove this point. The bit in the horse's mouth and the rudder of the great ship. Look at verse three and four, when we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example, although they are so large, and are driven by strong winds, they're steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. So the bit in the horse's mouth is a clear illustration of how this whole powerful animal can be turned by a little piece of metal. I mean, the horse outweighs the rider by 10 to 20 times. The horse, I don't think is getting up in the morning, saying, “I really want to plow your field for you.” Can I pull your wagon? Think of a wild bronco. Like, “I really am just looking for someone that will ride me. I'm just yearning to have a human being get on my back.” But instead the horse has to be broken, and then the bit has been developed somewhere along the line by horse trainers, to say, this is the way you make it turn left or right. Tiny piece of metal. James also speaks of the rudder. Think about a massive ship, all of the steel and all of the weights and all of this, and it's turned by this very tiny portion of metal left or right, whatever direction the pilot wants to go. And so, what he's saying is, the tongue is like that for you. If you can control your tongue, you can turn your whole body. If you can control your tongue, the whole ship is steered. III. Because the Tongue Has a Powerful Effect on Others Alright, thirdly, because we have to control our tongues because the tongue has such a powerful effect on others. Verses 5-6, likewise, “the tongue is also a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark, the tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire and is itself set on fire by Hell.” So the tongue makes great boast, because it has great influence. It has great power. The Tongue “Makes Great Boasts” Because of Its Great Power For me, I cannot help but think about eschatology, about the end of the world and about the Antichrist that is coming. And Daniel 7 makes it plain that he's characterized more than anything by great boasting. The little horn made great boasts, boast even up to Heaven. He's going to set himself up in God's temple declaring himself to be God and accepting worship. He's like the quintessential unregenerate human. All of us are that if it weren't for Christ. We would want to be that person, to be set up in God's temple and be up on a throne and be worshipped and making these boasts that claim up to Heaven. Or think about politicians that have used the power of rhetoric, the power of the tongue. I think about Adolf Hitler and his ability to just capture the heart and soul of the German nation with these nighttime rallies, like at Nuremberg, where he would use a light show and all that, and he said that the will of the people can be more easily controlled at night. And then you look at videos of his speeches and how powerful and how boastful and arrogant they were and how the entire nation was swayed by his tongue. There are so many examples of this, of politicians that have been able to capture the moment, for good or bad. Think about the Gettysburg Address, which is so short and Lincoln was able to just zero in on the issue of slavery. Yes, but the issue of representative government and will government of the people, by the people, for the people, even survive or will it break into factions and keep breaking apart and breaking apart? Or you think about Winston Churchill, what it'd be like to become prime minister in May of 1940, and have to galvanize the English nation against the kind of tyranny that had taken over all of Europe, Western Europe. And be able to say with words, we're going to fight on the seas and oceans, our goal is victory at all costs lest we submit to slavery. See, I'm not Churchill or else I couldn't do it, but I could do it right here. But that kind of passion, that speaking that galvanized the nation, the whole nation gathers around one man's tongue. And so, James likens the small tongue and the damage it can do to a spark that sets a whole forest on fire. A Spark Starting A Forest Fire So I didn't know that much about the history of forest fires in the United States. Do you know the deadliest forest fire in the history of the United States? It was the exact same time as the Chicago fire, but it was a different fire. It was in the upper peninsula of Michigan and in Wisconsin, killed 1,500 people. You don't see 1,500 people dying in forest fires, they usually flee, they have time to get out. But it was just a weird combination of winds and a storm front that came down and the people were trapped and they died. The exact same time as apparently, Mrs O'Leary's cow kicked over a kerosene lantern. We've been told it's a myth, but it's really good for illustration for this sermon, right here. So, one cow and one kerosene lantern and the whole city burns up that kind of thing. But it was a myth. Anyway, preacher's story, but where I think the point's made. Tiny spark. One idea can get in and ruin everything, can destroy it, and people can be swept away. IV. Because the Tongue is Set on Fire by Hell The Satanic Origin of the Fire Fourth reason: Because the tongue is set on fire itself by Hell. The Satanic origin of this evil fire is clear. Look at verse 6 again, “the tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire and is itself set on fire by Hell.” This may be the single most devastating verse in the entire Bible on human speech. Layer upon layer of the damage the human tongue can do. “It's a fire,” it says, “burning up, destroying much good.” He calls it interestingly, a world of evil. It's a system of evil. There's a logic to the things we say. They take root in the minds and they persuade hearts, they sway wills toward evil. There's a logic to it, there's this world. I think about the tragedies of Shakespeare and how clear words are powerful. But one in particular, I remember this one struck me more than any of them, the tragedies of Shakespeare and that's Othello. And in that we have the power of slander. And you have Othello and he's got a friend who really isn't a friend, an evil guy named Iago who whispers in his ear that his, Othello's wife, Desdemona is committing adultery, is unfaithful to him. It's not true but he's able to turn his heart against his own faithful wife. And we know that she's faithful for the way that Shakespeare writes the play, but it's all the power of whispers into the ear and the heart can turn and he ends up killing Desdemona and then committing suicide. All of that from Iago's tongue. So James says the tongue directs the whole course of someone's life in evil. And Satan uses the tongue to do his work. Think of the role of the tongue in the crucifixion of Jesus. Think about that. The people that got together and plotted many times to kill Jesus. The way that Judas told where Jesus would be that night. The way that they slandered him when he was on trial and gave false witnesses against him. The way that they persuaded Pontius Pilate who wanted to set him free to kill him. V. Because the Tongue is So Wild More Wild Than Untamed Beasts The fifth reason that we need to control the tongue is because the tongue is so wild. Look at verses 7-8, "All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the Sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison." So James likens the tongue to a wild animal, barely, it's just untamable. Now, every kind of animal has been tamed. Some of you have actually been to the circus. I remember when we were first here, 20 years ago, we got tickets to the circus in Raleigh. And it was quite remarkable what the animal trainers could do to lions and elephants and the things that they could make them do. I remember a number of years ago, I went to Sea World in Orlando, And there was a woman there with a bucket of fish attached to her belt and she's got all these hand signals and all that, and she's making Orcas, I mean they are at the top of the food chain in the ocean, making them jump and do ridiculous things. The Orcas, like do you have any self-respect? Like the untrained Orca coming along and saying, "Because of a few sardines you're jumping through a hoop? Have some dignity, have some self-respect." But here's this skillful animal trainer able to make this massive animal do whatever she wants it to do. But the real question the text would ask is, “Yeah, but what does she talk like after the show's over?” She's able to control this massive Orca but she can't control the way she talks and neither can any of us. But No Man Can Tame the Tongue Now when it says, "No man can tame the tongue." you might say then, "What's the point? Why are we listening to this sermon? Just so we can all go home and feel bad?" No let me tell you what I think is one of the most important verses concerning our salvation. It's the first beatitude, blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. God doesn't want you to bring your capabilities and your abilities and all of this stuff to him and say, what a great person I am. He wants you to bring your brokenness and your sinfulness and your corruption to him and say, "Would you please heal me, fix me?" Jesus said “it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous. I'm not calling on perfect people to talk so we can all know how perfect they are. I'm calling on broken sinners to bring me their brokenness and they're sinfulness and I will heal you, I will save you.” So that's what we're supposed to do with this. We're supposed to bring our brokenness and our tongues to the Lord. And then you're going to start praying differently about your tongue. You're going to say something like this, "Set a guard over the door of my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips, O Lord." Psalm 141:3. Guard Your Mouth I live in Butner, near the federal facility up there. What a gentle word for that, “federal facility.” Alright, it's got spiral razor wire and big towers and searchlights and guards. And a whole system by which you can get in if you have the permission to get in, no one can get out. It's you're like, "Well is that what my mouth is like?" Yes, yes. Can you imagine like Amnesty Day, once a month, there at Butner. Just letting everyone out, just get out in the community, and we'll get them all back. And it's like, "No, please don't." I don't want those murderers and those folks out because of the damage they'll do to me and my family, etcetera. Well, think about your mouth like that. Say, "Lord, would you please dispatch an angel and set the angel over the door of my mouth and set guard so that nothing harmful gets out of my mouth." You probably need to slow down your speech as we talked about earlier. Quick to listen, slow to speak. Used to be true, I don't know if it's still true, the FCC had like a seven-second delay so they could beep out things that shouldn't be said. I don't know if they still do that anymore, they should. There are some things that get said that I don't want to hear. But alright, whether they do it or not, why don't you do it? Seven second delay. I'm going to wait, wait a second or seven seconds before I say something to my wife or my husband, some of you, alright. I'm going to be careful. I'm going to be slow to speak. VI. Because the Tongue is Given to Praise God Six, because the tongue is given to praise God. “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father and with it we curse men who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brother's can a fig tree bear olives or a grape vine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.” Well, here's the thing, our changed nature should result in praise and worship to God. It's the best thing you can do with your tongue. You know you will be doing that with your redeemed tongue in Heaven. Your tongue will be glorified in Heaven. You will shine like the sun in the kingdom of your father and you will talk only perfect words in Heaven. Isn't that encouraging? Think about that. But now, we should be consistently praising and glorifying God. Now, when we fell into sin our tongues fell with us. You remember the first sin that Adam committed after eating the fruit? Do you remember? God confronted him. “The woman you put here with me, she gave me some of the fruit.” So he's taken a swipe at both God and his wife. But when we have been redeemed, genuinely redeemed, we're going to speak to one another with “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.” We're going to sing and make music in our hearts to the Lord. We're going to always give thanks to God the Father through our lord Jesus Christ, Ephesians 5. That's the redeemed tongue. We're going to worship God. So our tongues show our redeemed nature. Now, the question he's asking here is how can you praise God one moment and then do that the next moment. How can we sing, in a few moments we're going to sing a closing hymn, how can we sing that closing hymn praising God and then get in the car and say this or that to each other. How can you do that? How can a fresh spring produce salt water or vice versa? But let's speak positively. You've been redeemed, there should be good fruit flowing from your life, not bitterness and not wickedness. So out of your mouths, you should be praising God and out of your mouths you should be blessing others and not speaking in this way. So let your mouth show your transformed nature. VII. Application Evaluate Yourself in Light of God’s Law Alright, applications. This should make all of us repent. We're looking in the mirror of God's word, the perfect law that gives freedom. We're looking in it. How do we look, how do we look? So we should be convicted by this. Start with your family life, without joking at all, just start with your marriage. How do you talk to your spouse? It could be that some of you husbands have some things you need to ask forgiveness for as soon as you can. Ways that you've spoken perhaps even this morning, this very morning to your wife. Some of you wives may need to do the same thing to your husbands. Ways that you've talked to him that show disrespect or sin. We need to look in the mirror of God's law and say, "How am I actually talking to my kids? What do they hear when they hear me speaking? Do they hear a redeemed person?" and you kids, you teens, how do you talk? How do you talk to each other? How do you talk to your parents? You're looking in the mirror of God's law now, what is it saying about the way you're actually using your tongue? And what about specific occurrences? Let's go back to the one I mentioned. Affliction comes in your life, you're hurting, something is happening whether great or small. Is your nature to praise God and trust him and speak those words or do you complain? Do you murmur? It's a very common sin, but it's still a sin. “O God set a guard over the door of my mouth when I'm hurting. I don't want to question you.” What about the issue of gossip or slander. How do you talk about someone who is not there? Gossip about other people in the church can hurt their reputation. It can affect the way other people think about them. Do you do it? Do you have a reason to repent, a reason to ask forgiveness? What about lying? What about exaggeration? Tell you what, next time you tell a story about yourself in which you believe that you did well, put that seven-second delay in there and make sure you tell the truth. Don't exaggerate the truth, don't go beyond what the truth is. What About Your Language? What about filthy language, course language? My brother-in-law lives in Amish Country, Pennsylvania. Like what are you going to do with that? Alright, well, I'll tell you. For about a year he had a job in New York City and he would commute from Amish County, Pennsylvania, up to New York City. The closer and closer he got to the Big Apple, he noticed, not just a change in accents, but a change in vocabulary. Unbelievable, the things that were said. But woe to us, if we ever think the sin is just out there, are there coarse words that come out of your mouth, false speaking? Learn therefore to be quiet in God's presence. Start in your prayer life. I would start by getting into the presence of God and just being quiet. “The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the Earth be silent before him,” Habakkuk. Let's be silent before God and then say, "Lord, would you please teach me what to say and how to say it?" I love this mouth filter that I've used before, Ephesians 4:29, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen." So that weeds out the bad, it allows the pure water through. I have a whole house water filter, changing that cartridge is quite a moment. Actually, we had a year in that house before I put one in. I'm like, "What did I drink for that year?" The nasty color of that pure white cartridge that I put in there, it's not pure white anymore. It's a combination of reddish-orange from that clay that we have here in North Carolina and something black, and I'm not sure what that black is but the filter has caught it out. Well, set that filter over your mouth. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen. So you think about World War I, that gas mask thing, with the big cartridge in front of the mouth like that, that's to protect you from what you're breathing in. It'd be nice to have one for what goes out. But boy, would that look weird? There's a lot of people wearing masks now but imagine a mouth filter. Say what's that, what's a mouth filter? What does it do? Well, it doesn't let any unwholesome talk come out of my mouth but only what is helpful. Well, you don't have to physically wear one. Clean out your heart, clean out your heart. Start there. Say, "Lord, what is in my heart?" I love Philippians 4:8, “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy, think about those things.” You think about those things and that will come out of your mouth. That's one of the reasons I love to memorize scripture. When I'm going through, what I'm doing now is the Gospel of Mark, when I'm doing Mark to and from work when I'm getting over it and saying it over and over, it's amazing the amount of Mark that's coming out of my mouth. It's just Mark all the time. And so, fill your mind with the Word of God. Friends, we have a challenge in front of us, don't we? We have the rest of this day, let's resolve to be holy by the power of the Holy Spirit for the rest of this day. Prayer Close with me in prayer. Father thank you for the clarity of the Word of God. We thank you for the warning tone that it strikes for us. We thank you that you have not left us as orphans, but through the Spirit of Christ, you are in us if we're redeemed. Oh God, I pray that you transform our tongues. Help us to say only those things that will bless and benefit first our spouses then our kids, our parents, our brothers, sisters at home and then our neighbors, our co-workers, Lord, our fellow church members. Help us to use our mouths for what you designed them to do, which is to praise and exalt your glory and your goodness. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Introduction Turn in your Bibles to James 2. we'll look this morning at verses 14-26. In many ways, this is the theological center of the Book of James. As James, I think, is very practical and throughout five chapters is giving us evidences, or perhaps tests of what genuine, saving faith looks like. Not just here in this one place, but throughout all five chapters. And so, it's vital for us to understand these verses, and they are not easy to understand. We need to be able to harmonize this text with Paul's teaching in Romans 3, we need to be able to see the scripture as what it is, the inerrant and the perfect word of God. I. On the Perfection of Scripture and Apparent Contradictions Our Entire Lives Are Founded on the Perfection of Scripture The salvation of our eternal souls depends on scripture. It depends on the written word of God, and the perfection of scripture. The Bible says very plainly that the word of God is flawless. In other words, that there are no errors in Scripture. It says in Psalm 18 in verse 30, "As for God, his way is perfect, the word of the Lord is flawless." And again, Psalm 12:6 says the same thing, "The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver, refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times over." Now why is this true? Why is the scripture perfect? Well, because all scripture is God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is breathed out by God, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness." Also the origin of Scripture is taught plainly in 2 Peter Chapter 1:21, it says, "Prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So the mind of God is perfect. As the text says that we just heard God is one. And what that means is there's no contradiction within the mind of God. He's never confused about anything, he is never at a loss for words, he never has no idea what to say. Once having said something he never has to double back and retract something that he said or add to it later because it was inadequate in any way. The word of God is perfect because the mind of God is perfect. And so, the doctrine of inerrancy is vital to the salvation of our souls. The Doctrine of Inerrancy is Vital If we knew that the Bible were, for example, 99% accurate what would you do with that knowledge? Would not your imagination be running amok? Would you not wonder constantly about that 1%? And wouldn’t it crop up every time the Scripture crossed you in some way? In some way taught you something you didn't quite understand or in some way got in your business, got in your grill and convicted you about something? Would you not wonder about that 1%? And pretty soon 1% might become 2%. And effectively 5% and then 10%, and after a while you're not sure about any of it at all. So inerrancy is vital. Now, the essence of liberal theology is to teach us that the Bible is essentially a human book. It's what people in the past thought about religion, what people in the past thought about God. It's kind of an evolutionary view as well as we're getting more and more evolved. We understand spirituality, we've gone beyond the archaic teachings of the Bible. You've heard this kind of thing. Well, in our denomination there was a battle fought for the Bible called the Battle of the Bible in the 1970s. And was specifically over what kinds of things would be taught in the seminaries. Would the seminaries teach liberal theology? That the Bible is essentially a human book and then get up on Sundays and preach like that, or would the seminaries train men to preach the word as inerrant as the word of God. And we praise God that despite the overall tendency of mainline denominations to slide toward liberalism, the Southern Baptist Convention was willing to turn back to the doctrine of inerrancy, and therefore we have to continue to be vigilant and to fight for it. The Complexity of Words However, words are complex, words are challenging. Paul himself said that we “see through a glass darkly.” That is, when we read scripture, it's not the same as seeing God face-to-face. We're going to have an infinitely clearer understanding of truth in heaven than we do right now, and words are part of the problem. It is by words that God saves us. “I'm not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation.” And the Gospel is a set of words instead of doctrines about Jesus and about ourselves and about God, etcetera. But words can be difficult. They can challenge us. Married couples, you know very well what I'm talking about. Have you ever just talked past each other? And you have to go back and define terms? It's like, "No, no, no, you don't understand what I'm saying." Maybe that only happens with me and my wife, where you get just snared in your words, it's like, "Do we even understand what we're talking about?" Politicians do this, they just talk right by each other. And it's like, "Are we even operating from the same dictionary with the same definitions?" I mean, English is a strange language. It wasn't until I tried to teach it in Japan that I realized what a weird language we speak. And any of you who have done English as a second language, you've done some of this teaching, you realize how bizarre it is. Like the spelling rules are weird. But even some things like this, like complete and incomplete are opposites, right? But flammable and inflammable are synonyms. Figure that out. Give and take are opposites. But a caretaker, and a caregiver is the same person. I've never been able to figure that out, is a caregiver somebody who gives care or takes care? I don't know. Tell me afterwards what you think about that. Or this one, I could care less and I couldn't care less. Don't they mean the same thing? So, we're constantly struggling with this and it happens even theologically, even in the Book of James. He uses a word in one way, “peirazo,” the Greek word for “try” or “test” and says that God does do that, he tests us and tries us. But he uses the same word a little later, which means in that context tempt saying, "God never tempts us." Exact same Greek word. Or you could look at the word for lust, epithumia in the Greek. It also means strong desire, and so obviously, all of our temptations are based on lust but the same Greek word is used for the Holy Spirit's deep desire over our hearts, that he yearns for us deeply. Same Greek word. Or again, the word translated zeal or jealousy, “zelos” in the Greek. Sometimes it's the one, sometimes the other. We're told that we should not have a carnal jealousy for one another, but we should never be lacking in zeal toward God. Context is king. So this is the challenge of language and God has entrusted the salvation of our souls to the words of Scripture, but that doesn't mean that the words are easy to understand. And therefore, 2 Timothy 2:15 says, to Timothy, as a pastor, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. A workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Cutting it straight, handling it properly. And so, we go to seminary, those that are set apart as preachers and we learn theology, we learn Church history, we learn exegesis, the original languages, so that we can rightly divide the word of truth. It's not always easy to understand. Now, the flaw is with us. There's nothing wrong with the scripture, it's not like God could have written it better. Jesus said to the Sadducees, who are basically the liberals of his day, "You are in error, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." There's nothing wrong with the scripture, there's something wrong with us. And so we bring confusion, we bring double-mindedness to the scripture and that makes it hard for us to understand. The Apparent Contradiction So, what apparent contradiction are we talking about? Well, in Romans 3:28, Paul says these words, "We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law." A person is justified by faith, not works. But then look at verse 24 of our text today, James 2:24 says "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone." So this is an apparent contradiction, and it's not insignificant, it's not like perhaps some difficulty with one genealogy and another genealogy, where a name seems to be skipped or something like that. This goes right to the heart of how it is that sinners are made right with God. Now because of this, Martin Luther, the great 16th century reformer had a very low view of the Book of James. He was constantly battling on the issue of justification by faith alone. When he realized that sinners are made right with God, forgiven of their sins by faith and not by works, he was liberated from that slavery that he was living under as a monk. He said, "If anyone could have ever won Heaven by monkery, it would have been me." You can picture him like in the recent Martin Luther movie, down on his hands and knees scrubbing a floor. And the floor is already clean, because he's already scrubbed it, but now he's scrubbing it some more. This is a man who spent constant hours confessing tiny sins of his mind and heart to his confessor, Father Staupitz. He was relentlessly afflicted by terror of Hell and by the fear of the Law. And then at last, he understood justification by faith alone. That simply by trusting in Christ and not by works are our sins forgiven. And he said, "It was like the gates of Heaven flew open and I walked in." But then he's got to debate on this with the Roman Catholic magisterium, with the Medieval Roman Catholic hierarchy and they're constantly battling and no doubt they threw James in his face. And so therefore, in 1522 when he wrote an introduction to the New Testament, he called the Book of James, "An epistle of straw." Because it has very little of the Gospel, about it. Well, the great man was wrong. So I know he's not here to defend himself, but he's fine, he's up in Heaven, he's not worried about what we think about him. But he was wrong. It's not an epistle of straw. Now, he did call him Saint James, and he didn't drop it out of the cannon. But I think he had a fundamental misunderstanding of these words. This is an apparent contradiction. There cannot be an actual contradiction in words spoken by God. And so we have to make an effort to harmonize what Paul says in Romans, and what James says here in chapter 2, because each of these scriptures are equally God-breathed. They're equally coming from the mind of God. Charles Spurgeon once, when he was talking about the debate on Calvinism, on divine sovereignty and human responsibility, he was asked, "How do you reconcile the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty over salvation and the doctrine of human responsibility?" And Spurgeon said, "I would never try. I never have to reconcile friends. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility have never had an argument or falling out with one another. They're very good friends. So I wouldn't make any effort to try to reconcile them." End quote. So it is with this, there is an apparent contradiction and we don't need to reconcile them. They are teaching vital aspects of the salvation of our souls, and we need to try to harmonize them. II. The Crown Jewel of the Gospel: Justification by Faith Alone The Central Issue of Sinful Humanity is Salvation The second part of my outline says this, "The crown jewel of the Gospel is Justification by Faith Alone.” The central issue of human salvation is how sinners like us can stand righteous before God, on Judgment Day. And then for all eternity in heaven." How can we go to heaven? How can sinners like us stand before a God who, the Scripture says is a consuming fire? The angels, the holy angels cover their faces, and they cry, "Holy, holy, holy." Isaiah, a godly man and a prophet said, "Woe is me, I'm ruined. For I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord almighty." How can sinners like us be made right with God? "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23. God is perfectly holy, he has a perfect record of our actions and of the inclinations of our hearts. And how can we be made right in his sight? We could never save ourselves. And so God did it, by sending his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is begotten by the power of the Holy Spirit. Who is born fully God, fully man, who lived a sinless life, as recorded in the scriptures. Who did all these great teachings, who did all these incredible miracles but especially he was crucified on the cross as a substitutionary atonement for our sins. On the third day, God raised him from the dead. That is the Gospel. But how are we sinners to tap into that? How are we to connect with that work of Christ? And the Bible makes it very, very plain that we are justified by faith alone, apart from any works we could ever do. How Are Sinners Made Right With God? Listen to Romans Chapter 4:5, "To the one who does not work but trust him who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited to him as righteousness." That maybe, probably the clearest and most important verse on justification by faith apart from works in the Bible. Let me read it again. Romans 4:5, "To the one who does not work but trust him who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." Or again, Galatians 2:16, "We know that a person is not justified by observing the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, so we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the Law, because by observing the Law, no one will be justified." And again, Ephesians 2, 8 to 9, it says, "For by grace, are you saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Not by works, so that no one can boast." There are many other verses like this. This is the center-piece of the Gospel, this is the crown jewel of the Christian religion. Every other religion in the world is a religion of human works. All of them. There are Islamic good works, so defined. There are Buddhist good works, so defined. Hinduistic good works, so defined. Even the cults have their own system of works, inevitably flogging their members with a pattern of morality that they have to keep, in order to go to Heaven. All of the cults do it. Every religion in the world is a religion of human works and human endeavor, except for this one, the religion of God's sovereign grace. Martin Luther put it this way, "The Law says, do this and it is never done." The Gospel says, "Believe this man, and it is done already." So we're actually trusting in Jesus' works, not in our own. We're trusting in his perfect obedience to the Law, not in our own. We're trusting in his death, his bloody death on the cross to atone for our sins and pay the death penalty we deserve. So that we don't have to die eternally in Hell. That's the Gospel and that's the center-piece of Christianity. John Calvin said this, "Wherever the knowledge of justification by faith is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion is abolished, the Church is destroyed and the hope of salvation is utterly overthrown." So we believe that we are forgiven, made right in the sight of a Holy God by simple faith, not by good works. III. The Different Questions that Paul and James are Answering Outline point number three, “The Different Questions that Paul and James are Answering.” Now, Paul and James are seeking to answer different questions. Paul's question is, "How is a sinner made right with a Holy God? How can we be forgiven? How can we stand holy in his sight? How can we be welcomed into a perfect, holy heaven given that we have sinned?” And the answer is, by faith in Christ and not by works. But James' question is different. We could say two questions, first, "What kind of faith actually justifies?" And secondly, "How is that faith lived out or displayed in a genuinely saved person's life?" Those are the questions James is asking. Now Paul is also going to have to address those same questions. James and Paul are both true teachers of the true Gospel and they both had to address both sides of this equation. Paul’s Answers Now, Paul knew very well that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, apart from any works was open to misunderstanding and was open to slander and to being twisted. He knew that. Again and again in Romans, at least four times, he has to address slanderous accusations made against him and his doctrines. For example, he taught beautifully, and I love this verse, Romans 5:20, "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more." Isn't that incredibly encouraging? You can't sin beyond God's provision of grace. So, I've pictured my sin as a fire. Sometimes like a match, sometimes like a torch, sometimes like a bonfire, sometimes like a raging inferno, and then God's provision of grace like the Pacific Ocean. And whether you take the match and put it in, or the torch, or the bonfire, or the raging inferno, and you drop it in the Pacific Ocean, God's grace is supra-abundant it's greater than all of our sins. And so where our sin abounds, grace abounds even more. Well, you know what's going to happen, as soon as you teach that, they're going to say, "Well then, why don't we just go on sinning, so that grace may abound?" Have you ever heard that before? That's Romans 6:1. Paul knew very well that that's what people would say. "Well, if that's true, then we can sin as much as we want. Sin to beat the band and then go to Heaven afterwards. Can live it up in sin, and then go to Heaven afterwards." And Paul has to say, "May it never be." And for three chapters, Romans 6, 7, and 8, he unfolds the doctrine of sanctification, of progressive holiness. Of what kind of life you should live if you are a genuinely justified person. And it's a life of holiness, it's a life of putting sin to death by the Spirit, it's a life of obedience. He teaches all that, Romans 6, 7, and 8. So he would not in any way disagree that not every kind of faith saves a sinner. There are different kinds of faith. Other religions have fanatically devoted adherence to their religion, and they have all kinds of faith that their religion is true. Jesus himself in his own day, had tons of people following him because they saw his miracles. But it says at the end of John 2, it said “many put their faith in Him because of the miracles, but Jesus would not entrust Himself to them because He knew all men and He did not need anyone's testimony about man because he knew what was in a man.” So just because it says someone believed, doesn't mean that it's a genuine saving faith. So James is getting at what kind of faith actually justifies. Obedience Does Not Add to Justification Now, Paul wants to be very, very clear, please don't misunderstand. It's not like you have faith as part one of your justification, and then you add good works as part two of your justification and those together are the way by which you are forgiven of your sins. That is a false doctrine. It's exactly what Paul is seeking to destroy concerning the Judaizers. The Judaizers said they believed in Jesus, they believed Jesus was the Son of God, they believed that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, they believed that forgiveness of sins was available in part by faith in Christ. But you had to add the Law of Moses, you had to add circumcision and all of the precepts of the Law of Moses, if you were going to be saved. Faith in Christ alone does not save you, it's faith plus works. That's the Gospel of the Judaizers. And he absolutely vigorously taught against that. You are fully, completely justified the moment you believe in Jesus. Justification is a perfected state from which you can never fall out. If you have been justified, genuinely justified, you're justified forever, forgiven forever, reconciled to God forever. God's at peace with you forever. That's the beauty of it. But now, you have a life to live. And what kind of life will you live and what kind of faith justifies? Now, I think Galatians 5:6 gives us a key harmonizing verse. We're going to come back to it, but I want to say it now and just get it in your mind. Galatians 5:6 says, "For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only," listen to this, "faith working through love." Faith working through love. Hold on to that phrase. We're going to circle back and talk about it later. IV. Useless Faith, Dead Faith, Unproven Faith, and Demonic Faith Do Not Save a Soul Outline point number four, “Useless Faith, Dead Faith, Unproven Faith, and Demonic Faith Do Not Save a Soul.” So let's walk through each of these. The question James is addressing is, “What kind of faith saves a sinner?” Secondly, “How does that faith display itself in a person's actual life?” So the issue of what kind of faith comes up clearly in verse 14. Look at verse 14. "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?" That's one translation, or, "Can that faith save him?" Can that kind of faith that I'm about to describe or that I have described here, faith with no works, can that kind of faith save a soul? So we're dealing with the issue of what kind of faith do you have? All right, so James brings up four types of faith in James two: Useless faith, dead faith, unproven faith and demon faith. So let's walk through them. Useless Faith First, useless faith. Verse 14, "What good is it?" What good is it, what does it benefit, how does it profit, what difference does it make, that kind of thing? Does your faith do you or anyone else any good in this world? Is it good for anything? And if it's not, we would call it useless. Look at verses 15-16, the example he gives. "Suppose your brother or sister is without clothes and daily foods. If one of you says to him, 'Go. I wish you well. Keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" What good is it? So, there's a practical need, you see the need, and you do literally nothing to meet it. What good is it if the person's trembling, shivering with cold, and they haven't eaten anything in a day, and you say, "Go, I wish you well," and you pat them on the back and send them on their way? James is ridiculing that. Their stomach is still growling and they're still trembling. They have interacted with you, a supposed believer in Christ, and nothing has changed at all. You have made no impact on the person's life, no impact on their experience. What good is it? He's going to say the same thing in verse 20. "You foolish man. Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?" So the word there is “idol,” or “lazy,” or “unemployed.” Your faith is unemployed, it's an unemployed faith. As though I think your faith is the sluggard of the Book of Proverbs. You remember the character, the sluggard. What an interesting individual the sluggard is. "As a door turns on its hinges, so the sluggard turns in its bed." Or look at the sluggard, he dips his bread into the dish, but he will not bring it to his mouth. He needs his mommy to help him, help him to feed. “Just, would you please just lift this bread with the sop into my mouth? Thank you so much.” The sluggard makes excuses saying, "There's a lion out in the streets. Who knows, I might get mauled," and so he stays home for the day. And you look at his house and it's overgrown with weeds, and the roof is falling apart. It's the life of the sluggard. That's the word that's used here. Your faith is like that, it's a sluggard faith. It doesn't do anything in this world, it's useless. James does not want a congregation of so-called believers whose faith makes no difference in the world in which they live. Dead Faith Secondly, dead faith. Look at verse 17. "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." So James goes even further, he calls it a dead faith. There's no life there. And that's vital, isn't it? Because Jesus comes to give us eternal life. And if your faith is dead, it means you have no life. You're not alive in Jesus. You're actually dead in your transgressions and sins. You don't actually have spiritual life, it's a dead faith. Now, the key issue here has to do with fruit. If there's no fruit, there's no life. And so, what is fruit? And that's vital for us as we read the New Testament. What kind of fruit are we looking at? And I'll talk about it at the very end of the message here, but the Bible defines what good fruit is. One preacher said there's two main categories of fruit: Attitude fruit and action fruit. So attitude fruit would be the internal attitudes of your heart, the fruit of the Spirit. Those are demeanors and dispositions of your heart. But then there's action fruit, and that's what James is talking about here. It just rolls out into actual things that you've done. But if there's no fruit, there's no life. Jesus said, in Matthew 12:33, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad. For a tree is known by its fruit." Or, again, Jesus said in John 15, "I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." A few verses later, he says, "Such fruitless branches, that are on the ground, are collected, picked up and thrown into the fire and burned." So in other words, he's saying if there's a branch that's in Christ in some sense, they're not grafted in, but it's hanging on. Could imagine a vibrant vine and then a branch that's been cut off, it's not connected, and it's just laying on top of the grape vine. There's no genuine life, it little by little, starts to wither and it gets faded, it gets yellow, then it gets brown, then black. It's dead. And you can see it especially when the time comes for harvest. Spurgeon said, "The source of the apple tree's life is the root. Whether it has apples or not, the source of the tree’s life is the root. But, in the spring, if that tree has no little bud, and if that bud doesn't develop into a leafy cluster, and if that doesn't develop into a tiny little green hard apple, and if that doesn't develop into a rosy red or pink apple, then there's no life in the tree.” So you have to see the fruit in order to see the life. Now, the fruit does not create the life, it proves it, it gives evidence that there actually is life there. Dead faith produces no fruit because there's no life in it. Unproven Faith Thirdly, unproven faith. Verse 18. So this is kind of like Missouri, the “Show Me” state. I wonder, where did they get that name? I'm just curious. Were there a bunch of people that were like, "I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Show me." All right, so you got the Show Me state. So if any of you are from Missouri or know the answer, I would like to know the answer. All right, it's like, show me that you have faith. If you just tell me that you have faith, I have no way of knowing. Look in verse 18. "Someone will say you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds and I'll show you my faith by what I do." So genuine, saving faith produces a transformed nature. Jesus called it being born again. So if you have a genuine faith in Christ, you're given a new nature. "If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone, everything becomes new," 2 Corinthians 5:17. You've become changed. There's a new nature. But that new nature has to show itself, it has to act out. It is a heart issue. It is a heart issue. You don't move a muscle to be justified. The thief on the cross didn't move a muscle to believe that Jesus was the coming king. But if he had never said anything, we would not have known that he was saved. Jesus would not have said, "Today, you'll be with me in paradise," just by reading his mind, though he could read it. It was the fact that he said something. He couldn't do anything, but he was speaking. So there has to be movement. It has to move a muscle. You have to talk a certain way, and then walk a certain way, and do certain things if you are genuinely a born again. And the cases of Abraham and Rahab, that James is going to bring up, show faith tested and proven is genuine, and that only happens with works. Now, I believe that James may be using the word "justified" differently than Paul. I think that's part of the problem here. I think Paul is, when he says that we are justified by faith apart from works, I think that means before God, vertically, in standing with God, as in a court of law, acquitted, declared righteous, legally by God the judge. That's how he means "justified by faith apart from works". I think with James, it's much more vindicated or proven. The individual is vindicated as a righteous person, vindicated or proven as having genuine faith. It has to be proven. We'll talk more about that in a moment. Demon Faith The fourth kind of defective faith, verse 19, is demon faith. Look at verse 19. It says, "You believe that there is one God. Good. Even the demons believe that and shutter." Now, this may be the key issue. On what basis do individuals, who are not genuinely born again, claim that they are Christians? Generally, it means that they assent to the Christian doctrines. They assent that those doctrines are true. And if asked by someone in a poll, "Are you a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etcetera?" They're going to say, "Christian." 65% of the American population claims to be Christian. But if you were to ask them on what basis, they'd say, "Well, I believe the things that the Christian Church teaches," things like that. What James is saying here is that assent, agreement, to orthodox doctrine is not enough to save your soul. It is necessary, but not sufficient. That's a logical term. You need it, without it you cannot be saved, but it's not enough. And why does he say that? He gives the example of demons. The demons have orthodox doctrine. They know the Ps and Qs, and all that. They can dot every I and cross every T. They know they know the Bible far better than anyone in this room. Satan knows the Bible far better than we do. So demons understand, for example that there is one God and only one God, the oneness of God. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." They know that there are not many gods and goddesses. They know that very well, they're the ones that concocted the gods and goddesses. They know that Jupiter and Venus and Aphrodite are not real. They're god and goddess impersonators. They know that there is one God. And so, James is saying, “if that's you, you believe that there is one God, good. That's a good thing, but the demons believe it too and they shudder.” The Demons Shudder Now, what does that mean, that they shudder? One of two possibilities. First and foremost, simply, they shudder in terror. They're terrified of the one God. They know that their time is short. Satan, in Revelation 12, knows that his time is short, that he's going to end up in the Lake of Fire. All of his angels, the devil and his angels, are in rebellion against Almighty God. And when Jesus came and started driving out demons, one of the demons said, "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." They were terrified of Jesus. They knew that there's a time coming when they're going to be judged. And so, they believe that there is one God and they are terrified of him, they shudder. That's one way of understanding the shuttering. The other could be a shuddering of revulsion. They shudder at every true doctrine of the Bible because they hate them all. They hate God, the hate human beings, they hate righteousness, they hate everything pure and holy. And so, it's not enough to just believe that things are true. The question is, is your heart attracted to it, is it amiable to you, is it delightful to you? Do you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? It's a matter of love and affection. And so the demons believe that there is one God. By the way, that's an interesting insight into the spiritual realm. What it means is they don't see God all the time, they have to believe in God like we do. It's not like God's in their face all the time, they have to kind of be brought into his presence, as in the Book of Job. And so they're just moving around in a spiritual realm like we are in a physical realm. They don't see the Holy God all the time, but they believe he's there, and they know what's going to happen. And some day, he's going to judge them and condemn them. So, in the end, it all boils down to two different issues. Useless faith, dead faith, and unproven faith all lack deeds. There are no corresponding works. But demon faith lacks loving relationship with God vertically, a loving connection or intimacy with God. And so let's go back to that harmonizing verse, Galatians 5:6, "For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but only faith working through love." So what does that mean? True faith justifies the sinner, causes the righteousness of Christ to be imputed, credited, or reckoned to us, and then transforms the heart and gets it busy in work. It makes your heart healthy and active and energetic. It starts to work through love. Your heart now sees God vertically as beautiful, attractive, the loving Heavenly Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, it sees your neighbor as yourself and you start to move out in love. It starts to work in love. And so genuine, saving faith works. It energetically works in love. And so, the issue is clearly addressed. Verses 15-16, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or daily food. Suppose one of you says to him, 'Go. I wish you well. Keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs. What good is it?" Well, saving faith would never do that. Saving faith is going to say, "What can I do to help this brother or sister without clothes or daily food?" Just like we saw with the talking about orphans and widows, to look after orphans and widows in their distress, to actually do something to care for them. Not just come and visit them, but to make certain that their needs are met. Just as we've been saying in the sheep and the goats, when the Son of Man comes, he's going to gather all of his sheep together and he's going to say to his sheep, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison, you came to visit me." Now, Jesus is not saying because or on the basis of those works, your sins were forgiven. That would be justification by works. But he's saying this is the evidence of the fact that you are in fact my sheep. V. Two Famous Case Studies: Abraham and Rahab Case #1: Abraham Well, he then gives us two case studies, Abraham and Rahab. And this is where the verbiage gets so difficult. Let's walk through these case studies. First, Abraham. Verses 21-24, "Was not Abraham, our ancestor, justified for what he did when he offered his son, Isaac, on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God and it was credited him as righteousness,' and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone." Well, James knows very well that this text in Genesis 15, where God says to Abraham, "Come out and look up at the starry sky, look at all those beautiful stars up there in the night sky.” And then He made him a promise, "So shall your offspring be." And he knows that Abraham believed that promise and right there and then, it was credited to him as righteousness. Romans 4 zeros in on that moment when Abraham, who Paul calls wicked in that he was an idolater, an unbeliever but a sinner, when he was made righteous, he was reckoned as righteous. James knows about that whole account. But he also knows, as do we, of the testing of Abraham's faith, which actually happened over years, but especially in Genesis 22. You remember Genesis 22, in verse 1, "Some time later, God tested Abraham, saying, 'take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and offer him up as a burnt offering in one of the mountains I'll tell you about.'" Now that is a severe test of faith. And what did he do? Well, he obeyed. He got up and obeyed. He saddled up his donkey the next morning, he and his son went, they got to Mount Moriah where God identified it, they started going up the mountain, he stretched out his son, he took the dagger and he was just about to plunge it into his son's breast. Genesis 22, verse 10-12, "Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son, but the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, 'Abraham, Abraham.' 'Here I am,' he replied. 'Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do nothing to him.'" Now, listen to these words. "Now, I know that you fear God." It's incredible. That's God saying that Abraham, "Now, I know that you fear God since you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Now, the Lord knows everything. He knew Abraham's heart. He knew the future, he knew what he would do. But he wanted it acted out in space and time. He wanted actual works of obedience. And when those actual works occurred, then he can say, "Now, I know that you believe in Jesus because you have obeyed Me." And so that's the case study here. And then, the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God and it was credited as righteousness." It was lived out, it was vindicated. It was proven in space and time. Every single day we have opportunities to obey. Faith is like a magnet seeking iron to be attracted to. We are, as believers, looking for a command to obey, and there are many of them. As Jesus said, "Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded." There are so many commands; commands about our marriages, parenting, commands about our prayer lives, our money. Our lives are filled with commands in the New Testament, and in the old, that are still binding on us. And faith, genuine faith, is just looking for a way to obey just as Abraham did. Case #2: Rahab Case number two is Rahab. Verse 25, "In the same way, was not even Rahab, the prostitute, considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a direction, in a different direction?" So, Rahab believed in her heart that the God of the Hebrews was the true God and that the Jews were going to inherit the Promised Land, she believed that. Listen to what it says in Joshua 2:9-11. "I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting and fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone's courage failed because of you", listen to this, "for the Lord your God is God in Heaven above and on the earth below." So she had this heart faith, but then she had an opportunity to act on it. When the two spies came to her house, she hid them from the officials there in Jericho, and then sent them off in a different direction so that they would not be captured. And in this way, she physically saved herself and her family from destruction when the walls of Jericho fell. But more than that, she gave a clear example that she had a saving faith in the living God, faith just like the Old Testament saints did, that God is the God of heaven above and the earth below. And God had a special place for Rahab. She ended up making it into Jesus' genealogy. Isn't that incredible? She was King David's great grandmother. And so, she married Boaz, and Boaz gave birth to Obed, and Obed gave birth to Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David. And so, Rahab was in the lineage, the physical lineage, of Jesus. And we're going to see her in Heaven. And so, a sinner is made right with a Holy God simply by believing the Gospel, simply by trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. VI. Application Has that happened to all of you? Do you know that your sins are forgiven by simply trusting Christ? If you're not trusting in Christ, you are certainly trusting in your own works. It's what people do, “I'm basically a good person and my good works are going to outweigh my bad.” I hear this all the time. I would say throw that away. None of our works is pure in the sight of God. None of us. None of our works are perfect. They cannot justify us. Trusting in Christ alone. But once you've done that, what kind of life are you going to live for the rest of your life? What kind of works are you going to display? I want to give you, just quickly, what kinds of works you should look for. First of all, works of repentance, where you realize you are grieved over your sin. You don't just accept the sin in your life, you're grieved over it, you hurt over it, you seek it out. You say, "Lord, show me the sins of my life. I'm not going to be complacent about the sins of my life." So, works of repentance, of confession of sin, of seeing it and fighting against it. Works of secret piety. Are you meeting with the Lord daily, taking in the word of God? Are you praying? Do you go into your prayer closet? It doesn't have to be a physical closet, but do you have a secret prayer life? Do you commune with God through the Holy Spirit throughout the day? Do you have a sense of intimacy with Christ, works of secret piety? Thirdly, works of obedience. I just said a moment ago, are you seeking out ways you can say to Jesus, "I will obey you"? Are you willing to sacrificially obey? Very few of us are going to be tested as much as Abraham was tested, but God does test us. Are you willing to do difficult things? Sacrificial obedience, patterns in your life. Works of separation from the world. In what way are you saying, "I don't want the world's stuff, I'm not interested in the world's lust. I'm not interested in the world's bag"? Are you actually turning away from the world's entertainment patterns and the world's values. Are you increasingly separated from this world? None of us is that perfectly, but if you recognize the corruption of the things in this world, and you hate it, and you don't want any part of it, you want to be pleasing to God and you want to go to Heaven when you die, you want to live a supernatural kind of life, works of separation. And then, finally, works of love. Certainly works of love to God, heartfelt worship, where it's not true of you when you come to corporate worship, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from [God]." You've got a heart filled with the desire to praise him. And then, you sing and you pray like somebody who genuinely loves God. But then, horizontally, you're loving your neighbors as yourself; could be orphan and widow care, it could be those administering to the poor and needy, it could be evangelism. You're seeking to alleviate suffering, whatever way you can make people suffering in this world, and even more importantly in the next, less so that they will not suffer eternally, but will have eternal life. But then, you can alleviate some physical suffering now. Are you doing those kinds of works? Prayer Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the clarity of the word of God. It is not easy always for us to understand it and how we can harmonize justification by faith alone and then that energetic life of good works. As you said to your disciples, "Anyone who believes in me will do the work that I've been doing, and greater works than these will he do." For 20 centuries, the church has been pouring out great works, works of faith. And so Lord, I pray for First Baptist Church. Help us to make a huge difference in this community, that it would make a difference whether this church is even here or not, that we would be evangelistically powerful, and that we would be mercy ministry powerful. That we would be the kind of church that's doing a river of good works for your glory, not to earn our place or to forgive our sins, but that we might shine as lights in a dark place. In Jesus' name, amen.

Introduction So turn in your Bibles to James 2. We'll look this morning at verses 1-13. I'm sorry for my physical condition. I'm not feeling very well. Don't worry, I don't think it's the Coronavirus. When I was in California I saw tons of people with masks on and all that. I tried to stay away from them. I wonder if they had masks on so they would stay away from me. But just be praying for my voice, that it won't give out. And at the end of this message, I'm going to talk a little about those conditions, and the Lord's been pressing some of those things on my heart. Favoritism Throughout Church History I have a love for church history. I come from New England, and if you're up there in New England you can see everywhere, basically on every street corner, historic congregational churches. The Church was really the center of every community, congregational churches were the center of every community. And if you went into some of those, the older churches, you could see boxed pews. You could see pews with boxes and little doors next to them, and they would have plaques on them with ancestral family names engraved on those plaques. In my opinion, they represent a scandal in the history of the church because wealthy families were able to reserve the best seats in the house and pay for them by their tithes and offerings, and actually were able to bequeath those seats to their children, and then eventually to their grandchildren. So this would go on for generation after generation. And this reflected the aristocratic nature of colonial society in which those with the power and wealth could buy the best seats in the churches. You see the same thing if you've ever been to colonial Williamsburg. You can go into the Bruton Parish Church there, and you can see plaques where, "This was Thomas Jefferson's pew", or, "This was George Washington's pew", etcetera, same kinds of things. Now, these things were much more on display in the caste system, aristocratic England, and in Europe. One ancient document of the ecclesiastical laws for the Church of England had this statement, listen to this. "The parishioners have indeed a claim to be seated according to their rank and station, but the church wardens are not, in providing for these, to overlook the claims of all the parishioners to be seated if sittings can be afforded to them." Now listen, as a church historian you have to learn to read between the lines. Let me put that in simple language. Alright? "The wealthy powerful people should be seated in the best seats, and if there are any seats left over for the poor people, they can have them." Do you wonder if they actually even read the text we're about to look at today? I mean, it's such a clear violation of the spirit of what the Lord is saying in James 2:1-13. The problem of favoritism, of we could even use the word discrimination, in churches is not a new one. It's been going on for a long time, even going back to the very beginning of the Church. I. Favoritism is Forbidden in Christ’s Church (vs. 1-4) James Simply Forbids Favoritism So this is my first point in the outline, “Favoritism is Forbidden in Christ's Church, verses 1-4. Look at verse 1, "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism." This is absolutely prohibited, forbidden in the life of the Church. Congregations of Christians must show the total equality of all human beings before the Law of God and before the cross of Christ. The Law of God and the cross of Christ are great levelers of human beings. And we see this throughout the New Testament. Colossians 3:11 says, "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free." The last is a socioeconomic division, "but Christ is all and is in all." What is Favoritism? So when we come to favoritism, as I mentioned, another translation might be “discrimination,” but the literal Greek word is the “lifting up of someone's face.” The lifting up of the face. So that means judging someone by external appearance, by their face, by their position, by their clothing, etcetera, by their wealth and social status, partiality, being a respecter of persons. James on Specific Incidents of Favoritism James gets very specific about the kind of favoritism that he means. Look at verses 2-4, "Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in, if you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes, and say, 'Here's a good seat for you', but say to the poor man, 'You stand there, or sit on the floor by my feet', Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" So in this case it specifically has to do with the rich. The case study is of the church assembled for worship to hear the word of God preached, to sing the praises of the Lord Jesus Christ. So two different men walk into the service. We don't know anything about them. James doesn't tell us anything about them in terms of their spiritual condition. Perhaps they're believers or unbelievers, he doesn't say. Perhaps members of the church or not. Again, he doesn't say. The only difference has to do with their clothing, their physical appearance and what that shows about their status, about their wealth. One man has a gold ring and fine clothes, literally shining clothes, radiant clothes, and they are perhaps shimmering with light, the highest quality clothing is this individual. So he's got a gold ring, he's got nice jewelry, and shining clothes, and the other man is wearing poor, shabby clothes. The Greek word implies the clothes are actually filthy. The King James version has the word, “vile.” So that's a clear translation. So perhaps they smell or they stink. So this is a key moment when these two individuals walk in, how they are treated. If you show special attention to the man wearing the gold ring and the fine clothes, the shining clothes, and you've got a reserved section for wealthy people, and you usher him right to the best seat in the house, say, "Here's an excellent seat for you", but then a moment later you treat the poor man in a very shabby way, shoving him off to the side or having him sit on the floor. By the way, I don't mean any disrespect for those of you that are sitting off to the side. I did clear it with some of you folks saying they're actually not bad seats, but we don't have any special section. We don't have a roped off section based on people's socioeconomic status. But if you treat that poor man in a shabby way you have violated the spirit of the text, you've violated the Law of God. That's what James is saying, that's exactly what he's talking about. And this doesn't seem to have been merely theoretical, it was actually happening. II. Favoritism is Contrary to Christ and to God (vs. 1) Look at verse 6, "You have insulted the poor." He's not saying, "If this should happen to happen." It was already happening. And he's saying, "This must stop." He gives an array of reasons why it must stop. Let's walk through them. This is outline point number two, “Favoritism is Contrary to Christ and to God.” Verse 1, "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism." So Jesus is called here the Lord of glory. What a beautiful title for Jesus, the Lord of glory. In this text he talks about people being rich in faith. I want you all to be rich in faith. I want you to be richer in faith at the end of this sermon than you were before. By Faith We See His Glory Now, what is faith but the eyesight of the soul by which we see invisible spiritual realities past, present, and future? So see with me now a present spiritual reality. I'm not going to ask you to close your eyes, but if you could just imagine the glory of Jesus seated on a throne, high and exalted. Isaiah 6, "And the train of his robe fills the temple." Your eyes would be blinded by the glory. This is the glory of Jesus. And friends, if that doesn't have a leveling, humbling effect on you, I don't know what could. Who of us can stand in the presence of such glory? Who of us would not feel with Isaiah that we want to fall on our faces and say, "Woe is me, I'm ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of glory"? And so Jesus, His glory, His radiance, His person, just levels us all. And as believers in this Lord of glory, we can't see him with our eyes, we've never seen Him, but we can see Him now by the ministry of the Word, by the power of the Holy Spirit. “As believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, do not show favoritism.” Jesus Was Not a Respecter of Persons We also need to look at Jesus's example. In life, in the ministry, He was absolutely no respecter of persons. He couldn't care less what someone's socioeconomic status, or their political power was at all. It didn't mean anything to Him. He had literally no fear of man at all. He treated everyone the same, independent of their rank or their status or whether they were a Jew or a Gentile, a male or a female. It just didn't matter to Him at all. He dealt tenderly and clearly and respectfully with people who were repentant sinners, who came to Him humble. If you came to Jesus humble, if you were a spiritual beggar, he dealt with you that way. It didn't matter whether you were an outcast leper, or a rich young ruler, or an immoral prostitute, or a member of the Jewish ruling council, or if you were a Roman Centurion in charge of 100 Roman soldiers, or a Samaritan woman getting water from the well in the heat of the day, everyone was dealt with the same, and that is, "Do you recognize your own sinfulness? Are you a spiritual beggar?" And if so, He would deal with you very kindly. He was no respecter of faces or stations or power or prestige or money. None of that meant anything, because He knew very well where we're all heading. He knew where all of this is going, He knew that every single human being would someday would stand before Him in judgment stripped of all of those earthly trappings, like we're all wearing costumes. Like kids doing dress up. It's not who we really are, and it's all going to get stripped off. And so every single human being is going to stand before Jesus. When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory, and “all the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” And their socioeconomic status won't mean anything, their political power won't mean anything. None of it will mean anything at all. Christ is the Perfect Image of God Now, Christ's impartiality was so pronounced, and it was so clear, that His enemies even acknowledged it and tried to use it to trap Him. You remember? On the question about taxation? They come to Him with this fawning praise. They hated Jesus. Jesus knew they were hypocrites. But this is what they said, "Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of truth in accordance with God's Word. You're not swayed by men since you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us, is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" So even Jesus's enemies acknowledged this about Him. He had literally no fear at all of people. And that's exactly how God is as well. Jesus is the perfect reflection of Almighty God. If I can just say to any of you that's tempted to be very arrogant and prideful about your earthly situation, God is not impressed with you. “All of the nations are like dust on the scales and like grasshoppers.” Whatever way you think you're better than another human being, it says nothing to Almighty God. Psalm 62:9 says, "Low-born men are but a breath, the high-born are but a lie." In other words, there's no difference between them to God. Together they are only a breath, if weighed on a balance, they are nothing. God, again and again, we're told in Scripture, does not show favoritism. It says this again and again in the Book of Romans. For example, Romans 2:9-11, "There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew then for the Gentile. But glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good, first for the Jew then for the Gentile, for God does not show favoritism." And again, Ephesians 6:9, "Masters, treat your slaves in the same way, do not threaten them since you know that He who is both their master and yours is in Heaven and there is no favoritism with Him.” In other words, on Judgment Day you're not going to be either master or slave, you're going to be human being. And God is going to evaluate you based on who you were, based on your faith and whether, at the end of the text, you showed mercy to others. Jesus’ Impartial Obedience So Jesus Christ perfectly followed His Father's complete indifference to rank and station of the poor sinners He came to save. All of them have sinned, all of them will die, all of them will face judgment, His judgment, and all of them need Him to save them from eternal condemnation. In that sense, they're absolutely equal before Him. Before the Law of God the ground is absolutely level. Everyone has violated it. Before the cross of Christ the ground is absolutely level. Everyone who repents and trusts in Christ will be saved by it, and churches should reflect that. Churches should give a strong sense of that leveling because it's necessary for our salvation. "Unless you are changed, [converted,] and become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." So there has to be this leveling work that goes on. And on Judgment Day money will make no difference whatsoever. First of all, you won't have any. What would a man give in exchange for his soul? Well, on Judgment Day there will be nothing you can give because you'll have nothing. But it says this, Proverbs 11:4, "Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death." And we know that that means, in the fuller explication of the Scripture, imputed righteousness that comes from Christ, perfect righteousness will deliver you from eternal death. But your wealth will not. It will not help you. So this is the character of God, and this is the character of his son, the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ, and it should be the character of Christ's Church. III. Favoritism Reveals an Evil Heart (vs. 4) Showing Favoritism Reflects an Evil Heart Outline point number three, “Favoritism Reveals an Evil Heart.” Look at verse 3 and 4. It says, "If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes, and say, 'Here's a good seat for you', but say to the poor man, 'You stand there, or sit on the floor by my feet', Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" “Judges with evil thoughts.” Specifically, I think in the translation from the Greek we would say a worldly heart, a divided heart, a double-minded heart. The reason that you're showing favoritism to the rich man but shoving the poor man off to the side or onto the floor is simply this, the rich man can do things for you in this world that the poor man cannot. And if you care about that, you are divided in your mind, you're worldly in your perspective. The rich man can buy things. He can buy you clothing, he can buy you houses, he can get you a high-paying job. He has influence in this world and in society, and he can get you things. And if those are the things you want, and you don't care about people, then something's wrong with you. You have become a worldly-minded judge, a corrupted person. Because the poor man can do none of these things for you, and actually is going to probably cost you time, and energy, and money, and you know it. And you don't want to give, and you don't want to be invested in the poor person's life, and so you stay away from that suffering. You draw away from that, but you want to go toward the wealthy person because he can help you. But all of this is just evidence of worldliness. A Worldly Heart James is going to expose this worldliness more in chapter four. I'll just read a couple of verses, and we'll get to that, God willing, in due time. But he says, "When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people. Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?" So he's addressing these things, the issues of money and what it shows about the heart. Do you want to be that kind of worldly person, or can you be liberated from that? Well, so it is also in Christian churches today seeking finances and worldly influence from the rich and famous. I remember when I was involved in a campus ministry, we got especially excited if a varsity player who played some important sport was converted, like the starting quarterback or the point guard on the basketball team, because that meant more than if the equipment manager, or the janitor got saved. We get more excited about Kanye West than we do about somebody that's genuinely converted from a rescue mission. But if Kanye West is genuinely converted we should be thrilled, and give glory and praise to God, and the same if a person from the rescue mission is genuinely converted and begins to walk in a new life. We should give glory and praise to God, because God is rejoicing before the angels in Heaven over both of them. But we tend to be respecters of persons in this regard, and be more excited at the rich and famous being converted. And why? We argue because they have a greater platform. I don't know that. I don't know what God could do through that poor man or woman, and what ministry he could have through that person. God alone knows that. He raises up the lowest of people and does amazing things in and through those people. IV. Favoritism Ignores God’s Election (vs. 5) God Delights in Choosing the Poor Outline point number four, “Favoritism Ignores God's Election.” Verse five, "Listen, my dear brothers, has not God chosen", so that's the doctrine of election, "has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised to those who love Him?" So this goes to the election of God. The Bible teaches election, that “God chose people before the foundation of the world, before they were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that His purpose in election might stand, not by works, but by Him who calls, God chooses, and He delights in choosing the poor.” Overwhelmingly, statistically, God chooses poor, not influential people, to be followers of Jesus Christ. This is true in every generation, and he made this abundantly clear in 1 Corinthians 1, which we went through a number of months ago. Remember how the Corinthian Christians were enamored with the great men, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates? And then they just transferred that over to the Christian great men, "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas." They have that same mentality. They were in love with human wisdom, they were in love with human power, human wealth. And so, Paul has to kind of lower them down, and he does it by getting them to look in the mirror. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise. Not many of you were influential. Not many of you were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him." That's powerful, isn't it? When God was choosing His heavenly kickball team who did He want? The worst players. Not the best, the worst. Now praise God it doesn't say, "Not any of you were wise, not any of you were influential, not any noble birth." There's a big difference between not many and not any. There are some, but all over the world the ranks of the Christian church are filled with people that nobody wanted, people that nobody was attracted to. And this election happened before the foundation of the world. So, for those of you that believe in reformed theology, I agree with you in the doctrine of unconditional election, but I don't like the word, “unconditional.” God has His reasons. I prefer, “sovereign election.” God was actually looking and said, "I want a lot of poor people in Heaven." And so, the text is right there, He chose them because of their rejection by the world, so that He could shame the things that are by the things that are not. So therefore, favoritism to the rich and famous makes no sense at all, because that's not what God is doing, generally. Rich in Faith “He has chosen the poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith.” What a great expression that is. I love that expression. To be rich in faith. Their poverty enables them to go to God again and again to have their needs met. Like that poor widow that Elijah stayed with in Zarephath, you remember her? And God didn't give her some super abundant supply of flower and oil to last 10 years, He gave her enough for that day. You remember? And every day the vessels would replenish. And what do you think her faith was like at the end of that experience? Day, after day, after day, looking to God to meet the need. And so also Paul talks about the widow in need trusts God for her daily needs. She has no family to provide for her, but she's strong in faith. She's rich in faith because she knows that her real provider is invisible heavenly father. And so she is strong, she's rich in faith. I also like the word rich because it points to a commodity, alright? Rich people in this world go after various commodities, gold, silver, stocks, bonds, oil futures, different things like that. The only commodity you should want for eternity is faith. Faith in Jesus Christ is the only thing that you're going to want on Judgment Day. It's the only commodity that you want to be rich in. It says in 1 John 5:4, "Everyone born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith." There's one thing you want to get out of this present world age and that's faith in Christ. When you get that faith in Christ, you will survive this present world age, you'll survive Judgment Day, and you'll go on into eternity. So to be rich in faith, favoritism ignores God's election of poor people all over the world, the poorest of the poor in Cameroon, and in Haiti that I've seen with my own eyes. The Dalit or the untouchable caste in India. The overwhelming majority of Indian Christians come from the untouchable cast. Also, the Burakumin people in Japan, they were ancestrally, leather-workers and butchers and all that, despised in general by the aristocratic Japanese society, a very stratified society, and many Burakumin have come to faith in Christ. To the black slaves in the antebellum South, many of them were chosen by God to be rich in faith and to inherit the Kingdom. God has again and again worked faith and salvation in the hearts of the poor by his sovereign grace. V. Favoritism Forgets the Oppression by the Rich (vs. 6-7) Outline point number five, “Favoritism Forgets the Oppression by the Rich.” Look at verse 6 and 7. "But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of Him to whom you belong?" Now James later in chapter 5 is going to deal with rich oppressors. We should imagine that in this I don't think James is talking to the church, because the language is so horrible that I can't imagine anyone claiming to be a Christian and behaving like this. So I think he's just using his platform as a prophet to speak to rich oppressors around the world in every era. Listen to what he says in James chapter 5:1-6. "Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted and moths have eaten your clothes, your gold and silver are corroded, their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Behold, the wages you fail to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty, you have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence, you have fattened yourself in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men who are not opposing you." James 5:1-6. So those are the kind of rich oppressors that he's dealing with. I think he doesn't go into such details here, but that's what he's dealing with. Most of the Rich are Unconverted Now worldwide, the overwhelming majority of the rich and powerful are unconverted. And they use their positions of power to crush and oppress the poor and needy, so they can stay in power and to hinder the spread of the Gospel. That's exactly what James says is going on here. He says, "The rich and powerful are exploiting you." The rich can jury-rig the system to take advantage of the poor. They can bribe judges. They can get certain people that they own established in positions of power and make them puppets. He says, "They're dragging you into court. They then can force you into court where you will lose. No advocate will speak for you. The bribed judge will throw the book at you. The judicial system will enforce the unjust ruling against you." And it says, “they blaspheme the noble name,” I love that, the beautiful name, “the noble name to which you belong,” that is, of Christ. They blaspheme Jesus. They don't have any respect for Jesus, they don't love Jesus. “Their god is their stomach, their glory is in their shame,” Satan is behind their temporary power that they're abusing, they have no respect for Christ and they blaspheme Him daily. So why would you insult the poor to favor the rich class? Look what's happening with rich oppressors. VI. Favoritism Violates the Law of Love (vs. 8-13) The Royal Law of Scripture Outline point number six, “Favoritism Violates the Law of Love.” Verses 8 and 9. It says, "If you really keep the royal law found in scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law breakers." So James's final point here has to do with the law. He calls it the Royal Law of Scripture, I love that, the Royal Law of Scripture, the kingly law. God the King is giving this to you, and it's a summation of the law, the second great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. Paul said in Romans 13 that whatever horizontal commandments there may be, “such as do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, whatever commandments there may be are summed up in this one law, love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to it's neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Well, that's what James is quoting here. Favoritism, however, violates the law of love. It violates the second great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. Now listen, you should not twist the second great commandment to say, " I need to love myself first, and then I can love my neighbor as I'm loving myself. I just have such trouble loving myself." Friend, you do not have any trouble loving yourself. You've been loving yourself from your first breath. All of you mothers that have nursing infants, you know exactly what I'm talking about. At three in the morning that child has no concern for you at all. We are fanatically committed to self-interest, been that way our whole lives. It is the very thing the gospel is trying to save us away from, it is what the flesh is all about. But there's just a natural, normal, appropriate love for self, there's nothing wrong with it. When you're hungry, you feed yourself. When you're thirsty, you give yourself a drink. If you're cold, you put on a jacket. If you have an itch between your shoulder blades, you'll break one arm to try to get to it and just make yourself suffer to alleviate your own suffering. You will do whatever it takes to get out of pain. You love yourself already. And so, what the second great commandment is saying is, “love others the way you love yourself,” and as Jesus put it, it's what generally known as the golden rule, do to others what you would have them do to you. So think about the scenario, the case study. Favoritism Breaks the Law of God If you were walking into a church service that you've never been in before, how would you want to be treated? How would you want to be treated? Would you want to be shoved off to the side? Or said, "Sit on the floor by my feet"? Or would you want to be treated well? Now, look, a rich person coming in who's a stranger, we want to treat that person well too. We don't want to say to the rich person, "Sit on the floor by my feet." We don't want to do that at all. What we want to do is treat people equally. And so for us then, you see somebody come in, you give up your seat and then you be the one to sit on the floor by somebody's feet. And that way nobody's putting you down, you're just serving. You're willing to make that person's church experience a sweet experience. That's what love is all about. But favoritism, James says, breaks the law. If you strip a person's dignity based on wealth, it's shameful and degrading. And a violation, James says, of one part of the law is a violation of all of it. Breaking One Law Still Makes You a Law-Breaker Look at verse 10 and 11, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery', also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery, but you do commit murder, you become a law-breaker." So this is a vital plank in our witnessing strategy. As we share the Gospel with lost people, it's very common for people to make a list… the very thing we sang about, a list of things they don't do. Ways that they are morally superior to others. I will never forget, I used to do a street ministry in Boston. We'd go out in cold weather and we'd find people that were cold and we'd feed them and get them to shelters. And I remember there was this one particular man who abandoned his family in Pittsburgh, his wife and children, because he was addicted. But he said he wasn't as bad as another homeless guy that he met over on the other street last week who did X and Y, and Z. I said, "It's incredible what we sinners will do to feel good about ourselves." "Alright, it's true I do this, but I don't do any of these." And what James says here is so vital for us as witnesses, so vital, theologically. If you break one part of God's law you're guilty of violating all of it because the same God gave it all. It's a perfect set of righteousness, of motives and behavior, and God means all of it for all people for all time. That's what he's saying here. And so, this destroys that works of righteousness that you're going to hear again and again, which I heard from a Lyft driver when I was in California this week as I was sharing the Gospel with him, the same kind of thing. "Well, it's true, this and this, but I don't do this. And I'm hoping to be basically a good person, and to use my good works to pay for my bad." He didn't use that exact language, but that's what he was hoping for. But the same God that said you shall not murder also said you shall not commit adultery, and vice versa. Therefore the law is designed, as we've learned, to bring us to the cross. It's to crush you, it's to humble you, to strip you of self-righteousness and say, "It is true, maybe, that I've neither literally, physically murdered, nor physically committed adultery." Many people can meet those two criteria. But what about, “you shall not covet”? Has your heart ever been set on some advantage that another human being has had? And you were so burned up with jealousy over that? No one can survive that. And so that covetous heart, Jesus then took back to the law against murder and said, "Maybe you haven't physically murdered, but have you ever been angry in your heart towards somebody? Maybe you've never physically committed adultery, but have you ever lusted after somebody?" Jesus is just taking the law of covetousness, a heart law, and applying it to all of it. And what ends up happening is you realize none of us can survive, we have violated God's law, and according to what James says here, we've therefore violated all of it. The whole Book of the Law stands against us. Praise be that Jesus violated none of it. He wove together a perfect garment of righteousness, and He's just handing it to you as wedding clothing that you can put on to be part of the wedding banquet, just put it on by faith in Christ, just put it on and you'll be seen to be perfectly righteous. You'll actually be seen as though you have violated none of the precepts of God's law because you are in Christ’s righteousness. As it says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Saved by Mercy to Show Mercy to Others Now, having been saved by that mercy, we are then commanded to show mercy to others. Look at verses 12 and 13, "Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom." So we are going to be evaluated by that law, and we have already been condemned by it and brought to the cross. Praise God, in that way we are judged by the law in time, that there's time for us to do something about it. We have been brought to the cross. "We speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment." Freedom Given by the Law Now, it's beautiful how he says the law gives freedom. And you're like, "Well, how does the law give freedom? All it does is condemn us. It kills us." Well, it kills you to bring you to the cross. And Christ's death becomes your death, and you realize you needed that. But then you're made alive by Christ's resurrection. Now, what? The Holy Spirit then brings you back to the perfect law and says, "Now fulfill this." He takes the perfect moral law and writes it on your heart. He transforms you from the inside, He writes His commandments, by His Spirit, in your heart, and you're transformed. You start to live a different kind of life. That's the very thing we're going to talk about, God willing, next week, the works that come from a justified life. Now this law sets us free, it's the perfect law that gives freedom. Freedom from sin, from those invisible chains of selfishness and corruption and wickedness that we all have. The law sets you free by bringing you to the cross and then bringing you back to the fulfillment of the law by the Spirit. And he says judgement without mercy will be meted out on Judgment Day for those who have lived merciless lives here on earth. So if you have been shown grace and mercy at the cross, you're under strong obligation to show grace and mercy to others, and you will. You will. If you're genuinely born again you will show mercy. You will not run away from the poor and needy individual, but you'll go toward them. We're going to talk about this next week, but if you've got clothes, daily food, and you see someone in need, you're actually going to do something about it. You're not going to hide away from the person who's going to be a drain on time, energy, money, you're going to go toward them, and you're going to show them mercy. And so, when the poor man comes to your church where he's humiliated everywhere else in life, but when he or she comes to your church, that person's lifted up and elevated and treated like a human being, and they hear the Gospel of freedom, and they're convicted that they also, poor as they are, are a law-breaker too, and they find salvation, and they are ennobled and they are shown that they are an heir of an eternal kingdom and all of their best things are yet to come. That's the kind of church that we want to be part of. VII. Applications Are You in the Faith? So what applications can we take? Well, first, let the law convict you and bring you to the cross. Has that ever happened? Do you know that you're a Christian? Did you walk in here today knowing that you're a Christian, you're born again, that you're trusting in Christ alone? If not, then I'm just asking you, let the law do its convicting work to bring you to the cross of Christ, and there you'll find, as the text says, mercy, mercy. God will show you mercy. The Rich and Poor in Light of Eternity Secondly, see all people, rich and poor alike, in light of eternity. Let's stop looking at the outward appearance. Let's realize the rich and powerful person has a soul that will spend eternity either in Heaven or Hell. The poor, needy person has a soul that will spend eternity either in Heaven or Hell. Stop looking at the outward appearance. It's like a costume, it's temporary, it doesn't last long. And don't see the poor person only in terms of his neediness, but in terms of the fact that he's created in the image of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ. Faith is True Wealth Thirdly, see faith as a true wealth. Get rich in faith. How do you do that? Well, have a quiet time, let's start there. Every single day feed your soul on the Word of God. Let your eyes, the eyes of your heart, be enlightened. Not your physical eyes, but to be able to see invisible spiritual realities, past, present, and future, be able to see Judgment Day and the world beyond, be able to see the world that we're going to in which everyone's free of sin and there's none of that socioeconomic division anymore, but there will be eternal glory will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father, that's the kingdom that we're heirs of, that James talks about here. See that. See the present reality, the Lord of glory, Jesus, seated on the throne. Be rich in faith. See the past, that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The same God that brought the Jews through the Red Sea, he's just as powerful today. So just every day be feeding on the Word. Commune With God Daily I'm surprised as I go into counseling with people and I ask how are your quiet times going, and it's like, "Yeah, it's hit or miss." Can I just urge more “hit” than “miss”? Can we just start there? Let's just have more hit than miss, and then let's just hit all the time, every day. You feed yourself every day. Alright? Physically, feed yourself on the word of God, sit under good teaching, saturate your minds, listen to podcasts, do different things that saturate your mind, memorize scripture, be rich in faith and let the Word of God move us more and more to mercy ministry. I talked about this downstairs last week, on orphan care and widow care, and just we're going to keep talking about this. This is a major theme with James, of caring for people that are poor and needy and in distress. It's easy to shrink back, to pull back from them. The Coronavirus You know I was thinking about this Coronavirus. Many of you I'm sure are thinking about it, and we have friends that are serving the Lord overseas, and they've had to relocate very rapidly because of health concerns. It's not the first time that it's happened. You know that in the history of the Church, Christians made a name for themselves during the various times of plague during the Roman Empire where they cared for the sick and dying, not just of their own, but also of the pagans in the community where everyone is running for their lives and paganism was proved to be bankrupt, morally, here are the Christians going into sick houses, even going to pagan temples where all of the sick and dying were dragged because they were hoping to receive a benefit from the gods and goddesses. Christians would go in there and take them out of that place, carrying them with their own hands, and nursing them to health. And many of those Christians contracted the illness and died. And we're going to meet those heroes, those men and women that nursed sick people to health, we're going to meet them in Heaven. You're going to be honored to meet your sister and brother in Christ that died in a plague during the Black Death or during that Roman era, etcetera. Whatever You Do, Don’t Fear Death In 1527, Martin Luther wrote a treatise entitled, “Whether One May Flee From A Deadly Plague.” It's interesting, and it's amazingly relevant, and I would commend it to you. He's very balanced in his approach. You know, his answer is not a simple yes or no. But one thing he wanted to go after is you should not be afraid to die. You should not be afraid to die. Satan, the devil, feeds fears of death and makes us shrink back. It's why we generally don't care for the poor and needy, because we care too much about our earthly lives and our health and wealth. Now Luther was big on talking to the devil. I'm really not as big on talking to the devil. But this is what he said, and you can read this, this is public domain. He said, "The devil stirs up terrors of death that we do not care for our neighbors as we should. So you should say to the devil,” this is Luther talking, but I'm going to just read it. He also threw ink wells at the devil, he did a lot of things in reference to the devil. "Say to the devil, 'No, you shall not have the last word. If Christ shed his blood for me and died for me, why should I not expose myself to some small dangers for His sake and disregard this feeble plague? If you can terrorize, Christ can strengthen me. If you can kill, Christ can give me life. If you have poison in your fangs, Christ has far greater medicine. Should not Christ with his promises be more important to me than the devil with his threats?'" Prayer Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the promise of life in Christ. We thank you that we don't have to fear for our health. We don't have to fear for our pile of money. We don't have to fear for our time and our energy. Help us to do mercy ministry, to be drawn toward those people that are needy, toward those people that are broken, and not be characterized by favoritism or discrimination going after the rich and famous. Help us to treat all people as eternal souls that will soon be stripped of those temporary privileges, or temporary deficiencies, and will be souls, eternal souls either in Heaven or Hell. Help us to be the kind of church that is embracing and enticing, where we treat others the way we ourselves would want to be treated. In Jesus name. Amen.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on James 1:19-27. The main subject of the sermon is how we should properly respond to the hearing of God's word. - sermon TRANSCRIPT - Introduction How We Respond to God’s Word I'd like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to James 1:22. It says, "Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says." There are different ways to listen to God's Word but not all of them are beneficial to the soul. Throughout redemptive history many, many people have heard God's Word faithfully and clearly preached and taught, or explained, or shared and it's done them no good at all, ultimately. One powerful illustration of this, a bad way to hear God's Word, we see in the Old Testament, with the Prophet Ezekiel whom God consistently called son of man. This is in Ezekiel 33:30-32, it says, "As for you, son of man, your countrymen are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of their houses saying to each other, come and hear the message that has come from the Lord. My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words, but they do not put them into practice." Historical Example: Benjamin Franklin So for me as a preacher and also one who loves church history, I think about the times that great preachers have attained notoriety in their generation, great popularity, for a short time perhaps. Their sermons have been wildly popular, thousands have flocked to hear them. Many people were genuinely converted by the hearing of the Word and helped by their sermons, but others just came for the spectacle of the whole thing. I think about, for example, George Whitefield who preached during the Colonial Era, before the American Revolution to tens of thousands. He was by far the most famous man alive in that day. Everyone in Colonial America had heard of him, and thousands were genuinely converted by his preaching ministry. But then there was Benjamin Franklin, that old skeptic, that old scientist with whom George Whitefield developed a very close relationship. Franklin was his publisher of many of his sermons and made a lot of money off of Whitefield, based there in Philadelphia. And he came and heard Whitefield preach, and he said this, "Whitefield had a loud and clear voice and articulated his words and his sentences so perfectly that he might be heard and understood at a great distance. Being among the hindmost in Market Street, Philadelphia, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could still be heard by retiring systematically backwards down the street to the river. And I found his voice distinct till I came near Front Street when some noise in that street obscured it. Imagining then a semi-circle of which my distance should be the radius and that it was filled with hearers to each of whom I allotted two square feet, I computed that he might be heard clearly by more than 30,000 people." This is what Benjamin Franklin was doing during one of Whitefield sermons. I think there are better ways to hear a Whitefield sermon than that. George Whitefield, as I said, became very good friends with Benjamin Franklin, and they dined together frequently. And Whitefield earnestly sought his salvation every time they got together. After his famous lightning experiment, he wrote him a letter saying, "You're advancing much in science, I would urge to you the study of the Doctrine of the New Birth. It will do you much more good both in this world and in the world to come.” One of the saddest things I ever read about George Whitefield was something said about Benjamin Franklin after he died. And he said, "we were good friends," Franklin said this, "And he consistently sought to win me but he never had the answers to his prayers." That was Benjamin Franklin talking about himself. Historical Example: William Randolph Hearst Another example of this occurred in 1949 when a tall, young, unknown, but ardently zealous evangelist from the western part of our state in the mountains of North Carolina, Billy Graham, was carrying on a tent crusade in Los Angeles. William Randolph Hearst, the most powerful media mogul of the mihttp://www.thefieldschurch.org/mediafiles/uploaded/0/0e1840389_050904.mp3th century, a man who owned 28 major newspapers read by over 20 million Americans every day. He was a hard man. Hearst was a recluse. He carried on a long affair with an actress. He heard about Billy Graham's tent crusade. And perhaps, although we don't have confirmation of this, listened to some sermons by radio, we'll never know. And then he sent a two-word command to his editors all over the country, “Puff Graham.” Well, the editors knew exactly what that meant, make a big deal out of him positively. Put him front stage, front and center, his crusade in LA. That was a signal moment, a significant moment in the history of American evangelicalism and in Billy Graham's life and ministry. Now, Graham never met William Randolph Hearst personally, but his career, Graham's career took off right from that point on until the end. But there's no indication whatsoever that Graham's gospel message had any influence at all on William Randolph Hearst who died two years later after saying, “Puff Graham.” This problem of hearing God's Word with a certain kind of pleasure, a certain kind of interest, but not obeying its life-changing message has been around a long time. Think of wicked King Herod who loved to hear John the Baptist preach. Even though John clearly proclaimed that he and his wife at that point, were living in sin, committing adultery. Mark 6:20 said, "Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John he was greatly puzzled, yet he liked to listen to him." Now we know what happened. A beautiful young girl danced at his birthday party, Herod's birthday party, and he made a rash oath and it led to Herod giving the order to decapitate John the Baptist. Historical Example: Felix the Roman Governor Or again, think of the Roman governor Felix who imprisoned the Apostle Paul. Felix often sent for Paul while he was a prisoner, and he loved to hear him speak the words of scripture. But he became alarmed when Paul talked to him about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come. Those were not topics Felix wanted to talk about. He became alarmed and he sent him away, saying, "I'll send for you again. Talk again later, at another time." And God in his grace gave him more time. Actually, two years he kept Paul a prisoner, and kept summoning him and listening to him, but actually what he really wanted was to receive a bribe from Paul, so he could set him free. And then at the end of the two years, while he was still in chains, he went off and another Roman governor came. And that was it. All over this religious nation of ours, we're a very religious people, people are assembling together. Churches are filled with people hearing God's Word, and in many places God's Word clearly preached, faithfully expounded, but many of them are deceiving themselves that just doing that religious system is enough, just coming to church is enough, sitting patiently under the Word is enough, and this text is for them and it's, frankly, for all of us. I can't hear the words in James 1 without being convicted. Is this true of me? It's not enough to merely listen to the Word. Well, I'm going to say it about myself, it's not enough to merely get up week after week and preach it, faithfully or accurately. What is happening in my life? Am I actually obeying these words? That's what this is about. What do you do when you hear God's Word? What effect is it actually producing in your life? That's what James is about. James, I think, is one of the most convicting books in the Bible. He doesn't waste any time. It's like an industrial strength cleaner, and it just gets in your grill, and he wants to get you ready to hear God's Word. And so I want to walk through that with you, walk through the text. My first point on the outline is this, “Quiet Humility Prepares to Receive God's Word.” I. Quiet Humility Prepares to Receive God’s Word Look at Verses 19 through 22. "My dear brothers, take note of this, Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry for man's anger does not bring about the righteousness of God. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the Word planted in you which can save you. Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." Application to Human Relationships So now listen, I can take verse 19 and just do a very helpful horizontal application. It would be beneficial and I'll just start there. By that I mean how we should treat each other and the people in our lives. That's what I mean by horizontal. There's three pieces of really good advice for us that we would do well to follow. We should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. If you follow that in your relationships with others, especially in your marriage, home life or in your work life, or whatever your living arrangement is, if you're a college student, whatever is going on, if you follow that things will go better. I actually can preach that, and I think it's helpful. So let's just look at it at that level first. “You should be quick to listen. You should develop the habits of being a good listener.” Proverbs 18:2, says, "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing his own opinions." So that fool is not really interested in anything other people have to say. So I would say husbands and wives need to listen to each other better than they do. Parents and children need to listen to each other better than they do. Co-workers need to listen to each other and bosses need to listen to each other better than they do. This is all helpful. Democrats and Republicans need to listen to each other better than they do. That's my last political comment of the day. Being quick to listen means you're eager to learn from others, you've got a basic humility and teachability, and that's a good thing. So be quick to listen. The flip side of that is to be slow to speak, don't be in love with the sound of your own voice, the sound of your own words. People spend a huge amount of time talking. One study said up to one-fifth of your waking hours you spend talking. That's a lot of time. And then along comes Proverbs 10:19 which says, "When words are many, sin is inevitable." That's a strong word, isn't it? The more you talk the more likely it is that you're going to sin. So, be slow to speak. And then thirdly, be slow to anger. Human anger, James calls moral filth, it's toxic, it destroys human relationships. Marriages are destroyed by anger, by husbands being angry with their wives or wives angry with their husbands. There's a bitterness and unforgiveness. Things can happen at the horizontal level. There are many criminals in prison right now, that they're there because of a fit of rage that came over them one day. And for the rest of their lives they look back with deep regret over having basically lost their mind. Anger can be like a drug. And then your mind clears afterwards like, "What did I do?" And so it's dangerous. Of the three advices he gives us, this is the only one James comments on. Look at 20 and 21. "For man's anger does not bring about the righteousness of God, therefore, get rid of all moral filth." That's strong, "moral filth." Like radioactive waste, that's what human anger is. "Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the Word planted in you which can save you." So, human anger is powerful and effective but it's not constructive. It's usually destructive. It definitely makes an effect. And you could say there's certain roles where anger is really needed, like a coach that gets all red-faced and yells at his team and then they go out and win second half, play with tremendous zeal. Or a drill instructor at boot camp and all that, but friends, we know, for the most part, human anger is a destructive force. And you should be slow to get angry. Get rid of it. Take it out. Like toxic waste, take it out. As Ephesians 4:31 says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice." That's an amazing verse on anger. It's like how many different shades, and hues, and colors of human anger are there? Well, look at Ephesians 4:31 to find them all. There's bitterness, there's rage, there's anger, there's brawling, there's all different kinds of things. Get rid of it. Just get rid of it. Alright, so, that's how a simple horizontal approach to verses 19-21, works. Application to Our Relationship with God But I think it's better to look at it vertically, to look upward toward God and your relationship with God, with these exact same commands. Be quick to listen to God, be slow to speak before God, and be slow to get angry at God. Now I think it has to do with how you prepare yourself to receive God's Word. I think it's a better context. It just weaves the whole thing together. So you remember how Jesus spoke of the parable of The Seed and the Soils? “He went out to sow the seed and some fell on the path and the birds came and ate it up, and some fell on rocky soil and sprang up quickly, but then the sun came up and the plants were withered. And then some fell among the thorns, which grow up and choked the plants, and some fell on good soil, which produced a crop 100, 60, 30 times what was sown.” Each of these represents different states of the human heart, like the path represents a hardened hearer. The Word has no impact whatsoever. And so the birds come and eat it up, it has made no penetration, Satan comes and takes away what was sown in that person's heart. And then the rocky soil shows a shallow penetration. There's an initial reaction of positivity, some joy, but then in the end when the Christian life gets difficult, when there's persecution, then it dies. And then the thorny soil represents the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it out, making it unfruitful. The fourth is the only good outcome. It produces different levels of harvest in different people's lives, 100, 60, 30 times what was sown. It's interesting what Luke says in that parable. Luke 8:15, "The seed on the good soil, stands for those with..." listen to this, "a noble and good heart, who hear the Word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop," a noble and good heart. Where do you get one of those? "Be quick to listen to God, be slow to speak before God, and be slow to get angry at God. " The Heart Prepared for God’s Word Anyone who's been in the Word any length of time knows what God's Word says about the natural state of our heart. "Sinful and desperately wicked," Jeremiah says. But here's the thing, when God in his sovereignty, through the Holy Spirit saves you, He takes out that heart of stone, He gives you a heart of flesh, and He works nobility and goodness into your heart and this is what it looks like, this is how you get your heart like black, moistened soil, plowed, soft, ready to receive God's Word. And so, look at it then that way. What does my heart have to look like when God is sowing the seed into me? So look at it vertically, why would I do that? Well, look at verses 21 through 25, and I think you'll see right away in verse 21, "Therefore... " alright, because of that, get rid of all moral filth. "Therefore..." so the things about quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, the comment on anger, therefore what? The Word. "Humbly accept the Word planted in you which can save you. Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a person who looks at his face in the mirror and then after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." Verse 25, "But the one who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom," that's the Word, "and continues to do this, not forgetting what he's heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does." This is Word, Word, Word, Word. So let's just extend it back to verse 19 and look at it vertically. How should I get ready to hear God's Word? Alright, so be quick to listen, come to God's Word humbly, humbly accept the Word planted in you which can save you. Get ready to listen to God speaking to you. Be ready to hear when you open up God's Word, when you're having your quiet time, or when you come here to hear a sermon, you're ready, you've got the scripture open and you're ready to hear God talk to you, Almighty God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, wants to say something to you. It's powerful. Hebrews 3:7-8. It says, this, "So as the Holy Spirit says... " present tense, not said says, “today if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts." That's Psalm 95, written 1000 years before the author of the Hebrews wrote his epistle. David wrote it. No, the Holy Spirit's saying it today. "Today, if you hear His voice don't harden your heart." And it's in quotations, so as you're reading Psalm 95 better get ready to listen to God speak to you. Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart. So expect then that God is going to speak to you by his Word, he has something to say to you. I love 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul says to the Thessalonians, to that church, "When you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of man but as it actually is, the Word of God which is at work in you who believe". That's a beautiful way for a church to be. You're coming not to hear from a man. Flawed, fallible, sinful man, but you're coming to hear God speak through his Word to you. Humbly Accept God’s Word So many verses call on God's people to listen to Him. I love Deuteronomy 32:1-2. "Listen, O heavens, and I will speak. Hear, O earth the words of my mouth, let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on the tender plants". That's God speaking to you. "Listen to me, be ready to drink in my Word". Jesus frequently said, "He who has ears, let him hear". Do you have ears? Are you ready to hear God speak, are you quick to listen to God? And then secondly, "Be slow to speak in the presence of God". I'm not saying we shouldn't pray, we should pray, but there's something powerful here about coming quietly into the presence of God. I love Habakkuk 2:20 on this, it says, "The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the Earth be silent before Him". Or again, Ecclesiastes 5:1-2. It says, "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in Heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. Much dreaming and many words are meaningless, therefore stand in awe of God". Just come into God's presence and just be quiet before Him, and remember who you're about to talk to, and then pray. And thirdly, vertically, "Be slow to get angry at God". What is that? Why would I get angry at God? Well, God's Word is a sharp double-edged sword, and when you come and stand in God's presence, He's probably going to hurt you. He's going to cut you with a surgical scalpel, because you need it done. You remember when Peter denied three times knowing Jesus and then Jesus sought to heal him, you remember how he did it? "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?" And it said the third time Peter was hurt. Did Jesus intend to hurt him? Yes. Not ultimately, but He had to hurt him in order to heal him. And so, if you're actually coming in the presence of God's Word, He's going to say things that will cross you. He's going to do it this morning. He did it to me already. He's going to cross you. Don't get angry at Him. That's what Jesus' enemies did, they don't want to hear from Him that they needed a savior, that their righteousness was not enough for Heaven, they got all self-righteous and angry and murderous, so don't do that. Don't get angry, don't shoot the messenger. When God's Word tells you you're a sinner and you need to repent and make changes, then be humble and be yielded and don't get angry at God. "Be willing... " verse 21, "to humbly accept the Word planted in you which can save you, which can save your soul from eternal condemnation". Are you saved? Have you trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Maybe you were invited here today, and you know you came in here, and you know you're not a Christian, then don't get angry at evangelists, don't get angry at friends that are trying to lead you to Christ, don't get angry at God. Humble yourself and trust in Jesus, the one who died on the cross, who shed His blood for sinners like you and me, and trust in Him and call on Him and say, "Oh, save me Jesus", and He'll save you. Don't get angry. This is what makes evangelism and missions hard all over the world. People get angry when they hear people say, "You need to repent and believe in Jesus". So don't get angry. "Humbly accept the Word planted in you which can save you", and that means you, Christian. A Christian who's been walking with the Lord for 20-30 years, “humbly accept the Word which can save you, can keep on saving you.” "He gives us... ", James says, James 4:6, "more grace". That's why God says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble". Do you need more grace? Please nod your head. "Yes, Lord. I need more grace. Give me more grace". At the beginning of all Paul’s epistles, "Grace to you", and then grace at the end, there's grace and grace. It's just a avenue of grace. Humbly accept it. Isaiah 66:2, "This is the one I esteem, says Almighty God, he who is humble and contrite and who trembles at my Word." II. Honest Humility Obeys God’s Word The Great Danger of Self-Deception Alright, now humbly accepting the Word is not enough. The soil of a humble heart accepting the perfect seed of the Word must produce a transformed life. That's what James is all about, the works. What happens as a result of hearing God's Word. And, so my second outline point is this, “Honest Humility Obeys God's Word.” Verse 22, "Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says". We keep bumping into this issue, like we did last week. The danger of self-deception, of lying to yourself about your true spiritual condition. "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord., Lord. Did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? [Preach many sermons?] Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers." Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father". Let me make it simple. Not those who say, but those who do. That's what Jesus is saying there. The Word as a Mirror I don't want any of you to have an eternal shock on Judgment Day. I want you to examine yourselves to see if you're in the faith. I want you to look at what's actually happening in your life because of the Word. I want the same for me. And Jesus consistently said, "It comes down to obedience. If you love me, you will obey what I command". John 14:15. And so, we come this morning to the Word of God, "To look as in a mirror", James says. Look at verses 23-25, "Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and then after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does". So James presents the Word as a mirror. Now, don't think of modern mirrors, which are our metal-backed glass that was invented in Germany in 1835. We're thinking about a polished plate of bronze, highly polished. If the light is right, and you look long enough you can see what you look like, and James likens someone who hears God's Word, but doesn't obey it, to someone who looks at his face in the mirror and then goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. God's Word has the power to tell you the truth about yourself. We should not imagine that at some point you'll look in the mirror and say, "I look so good. I mean, I have never looked better". That's not what we're talking about here. The Word is there to help you see yourself as God sees you, in this present state. This individual looks into God's Word, and God's Word generally does this, but God's law in particular does it. God's law in particular shows you how you need a savior. What ways you need to live differently. That's what God's law is designed to do. There's still a role for us once we've come to Christ, where we learn what a holy life looks like by looking at the commands and prohibitions. So God's law has the power to do that. Now, this individual looks at his face in the mirror and then immediately forgets. It's like the hardened path here that the birds come and snatch away, just immediately, it's done. So perhaps a sermon is convicting, and you've resolved, you're going to do something different in your marriage.You're going to do something different with what you do with the internet, you're going to do something different with widows or orphans. You're going to do something different in evangelism, something different in the workplace, and you make a kind of a holy resolution. But then you leave church and get in your car and you go back into the machinery of your everyday life, and then it's like it never happened. Nothing occurred. That's what James is talking about here. Somebody looks into the Word and then doesn't do anything with it, nothing changes. Looking Intently Into the Perfect Law of Freedom Instead, he talks about looking intently into the perfect law that gives freedom. Verse 25, "But the one who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does". So, you come to God's Word and you search yourself, you say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart, show me my sins. Show me where I can grow. Show me my flaws and my failures, my warts and my wounds". And then you bring it to the cross and you remember that you have been forgiven, and all of your sins are covered, but the Lord then wants to heal you up out of that, and help you to live a different life, and so you're gazing, you're saying, "Lord, show me". Psalm 139:23-24, "Show me my sins, show me my faults, what's wrong with my life.” Now why does he call it "The perfect law that gives freedom"? Friends, “sin is terrible bondage,” Jesus said, and “everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” But that slavery, the chains of that, is spiritual, it's invisible. You can't see how your mind, your heart, is fettered. It's chained. You can't see it, but then you come to God's perfect law and then you can see invisible chains on your mind and in your heart, and Jesus said, "If the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed". How beautiful is that? Oh Jesus, set me free. “Jesus show me these hidden fetters, show me the chains, and break those chains.” Shatter the yoke that burdens me in the bar across my shoulder. Isaiah 9, "Be to me a savior". And if that happens you're going to walk in a whole new life of obedience. III. Obeying God’s Word Will Change Your Life The Transformed Tongue So, outline point number three, “Obeying God's Word Will Change Your Life,” and let's start with your tongue. Now I don't have to do a lot of work on this today, because we get to have like half a chapter on the tongue later. So we'll just defer that, but just let me tell you, the tongue's a problem. And you know what I'm talking about. Verse 26, "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless". That's very strong. So a transformed heart will result in a transformed tongue. Out of the fullness or overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So therefore you need to keep a tight rein on your tongue like it's a wild animal. And James is actually going to talk about that, “we've broken all kinds of wild animals, been able to subject them to the yoke, but the tongue, we can't seem to do it.” So, keep a tight rein on your tongue or, I like this one, Psalm 141 verse 3, "Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, and keep watch over the door of my lips". It's almost like your mouth is a maximum security penitentiary and there's a bunch of dangerous things in there. Please, O Lord, only let credited people out. It's like, is it that bad friends? It's worse than that. So, God, set a guard over the door of my mouth. Help me to say only those things that are helpful for building others up, that it may benefit them. We'll say more about that in due time in chapter three. Now, only perfect people can control the tongue. We're going to see that. If you're able to bridle the tongue you are a perfect man or woman, able to control your whole body. So if you guys like a high-challenge, go after that one. I would like one day in which I don't say anything wrong, the whole day. So let's just set that as a goal, and if you do that your whole body will follow. We'll study that in James 3. IV. Obeying God’s Word Purifies Your Life What is Religion? Second issue, outline point number four, “Obeying God's Word Purifies Your Life.” Now, I'm going to go to the end of the text here, because I want to deal with the pollution that the world brings in our souls before I talk about orphan and widow care. Verse 27, "Religion that our God and Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world". Now, this is a very interesting couple of verses. Verse 26 and verse 27 use the word "religion". Now, when I was a new Christian, I talked to Christie about this, she had the same experience. We were both trained through Campus Crusade for Christ, now called CRU, and we heard this again and again and again, and maybe you've heard it. "Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship". Ever heard that? Something like that? And yet here's the word "religion", good religion. What is religion? It's a system, a pattern of thoughts and actions directed to a deity. I guess that's what it is. When people say "Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship" they're talking about, I think, the very thing James is getting at here, a mindless machinery of system that doesn't do anything with your heart, you don't have any strong connection toward God. That's what we're talking about. Verse 26 talks about religion, but bad religion. Do you see that? "You're deceiving yourself and your religion is worthless". So, verse 26 has worthless religion, and verse 27 has pure and faultless religion. That's good religion. So bad religion versus good. So religion in and of itself is not the problem. Is it worthless or is it pure and undefiled before God? God hates mindless machinery of religion too. I quoted that last week, in Isaiah 1:14, and there it talks about the Jewish sacrificial system, religious machinery, that they just kept bringing endless animal sacrifices, but they were leading corrupt lives and He said, "Your new moon festivals and your sacrifices my soul hates". Isaiah 1:14. So God hates that kind of religion too. Here's the convicting part for all of us. Is that you? Is that happening to you? Are you in a mindless machine-like pattern that isn't actually affecting the way you live? That's the convicting part here. And so, we have to look at true religion, and true religion fundamentally hears God's Word and puts it into practice. It transforms the way you actually live. Pure Religion: Purity from Worldliness So let's start with this issue of worldliness, though it's at the end I want to set it up first. What does it mean, “keeping oneself from being polluted by the world”? The world is Satan's masterpiece of allurement and temptations toward lusts. We talked about that last week. It's a system of the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, boastful pride of life, 1 John 2:15, that just draws you into wickedness and sin, that's the world. Worldliness means you've been polluted by all that. You're characterized by the lust of the eyes, characterized by the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. Worldliness is pollution, it's defilement. So religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is to keep yourself unstained from all that, and that's harder than ever, friends. The world has amazing delivery systems to get its ideologies and its loss and temptations directly through your minds, in through your eyes, into your brains. Recently I was watching a video of the 2007 Macworld when Apple CEO Steve Jobs was rolling out a new product. Actually, it said he's rolling out three products: A wide-screen iPod music device with touch controls, some of you will remember what iPods are. Secondly, a revolutionary mobile phone. And thirdly, a breakthrough internet communicator. And then, just in his own clever marketing sort of way, he just kept going over those same three again, and they kept turning around until, BADUM, the iPhone. And out it came. The iPhone, the smartphone that changed the world. Over the next 10 years, Apple would ship 1.6 Billion iPhones. If any of you have an experience recently standing in an airport waiting area and looking around and seeing everyone like this, with their head down, it's like, "Is anybody talking to anybody?" I mean like, in here, in real time. I mean like another human being. Is that actually occurring? I think, just anecdotally, two-thirds or three-quarters of everyone I looked at was looking down at a device. I was at a convenience store recently, filling up my tank, and I saw a Pepsi delivery guy with a two-wheeler, and he had one hand on the two-wheeler, the other hand on his device. So he walked about five to 10 feet, stopped, used the device and then walked another 10 feet, saw something, stopped, and used the device again. I'm thinking, "This is hindering commerce". Alright? This is going on all over the world. I have no idea what he was doing, maybe it was part of his job. I don't want to judge him. I just found it interesting. It took him a while to push that two-wheeler across the parking lot. So, what is going on? Well, we are swimming in a lagoon, or a bay, and then at the edge of it are all these sewage pipes, draining a bunch of septic nastiness into it, how can we not be polluted by that? How do we manage to swim through this world and not get stained or polluted by the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and boastful, pride of life? Now, the flesh. What is the flesh? Flesh, I've defined before, is the fanatical commitment to self. Fanatical commitment to self. You had it when you were born, in Adam. Fanatically committed to self-interest, and that is the thing the Lord is saving us out of. The I-phone. It's all about you, friends. What do you want? What would make you feel good? What social media thing will make people think well of you? What ego boost will you get when X number of people like what you put up? What are you interested in? It's all about you, you, you. And it's just feeding that. This is the hardest fight we have in this world. It says in Romans 8:13, "If you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." Ephesians 6 says, "You should put on the spiritual armor and stand and fight because your soul is being assaulted by invisible foes." If You Are Defiled, Be Cleansed by Christ’s Blood Now, if you're a Christian and you know that you've been defiled, you know that you've been polluted by the world and I tell you right now, it is the very mentality that's hindering us caring for needy people. Because it's going to take time and energy and money and your lives are going to get difficult, and that's probably a big part of why we're not doing it very much. So we have to start by saying, how have I been corrupted? How have I been polluted by the world? How am I living for me? How living for sensual pleasure? How am I living for easy things? Etcetera. And God, would you please cleanse me and forgive me. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” “Bring it to the cross, because the blood of Jesus can purify our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God,” Hebrews 9:14. Obeying God’s Word Mobilizes Your Compassion Caring for the Poor and Needy Finally, outline point number five, “Obeying God's Word Mobilizes Your Compassion." James speaks also of caring for the poor and needy, orphans and widows and in their distress. Now, there are literal orphans and literal widows, and we should care for them but I think it just expands to people who are needy, spiritually needy, physically needy, anybody. And you just look at your life differently because you've been transformed by God's Word. Now, this is vital. A week ago, Sara Zweigle talked to me and then sent me a link to a David Platt sermon on orphan care. And David Platt's church at Brook Hills in Alabama led out in orphan care in that community in Birmingham and began the radical ministry etcetera. And the sermon was 22 minutes long. I've listened to it three times. And he zeroed in on what it means to look after. It was just a word study. “Look after,” and he just went through the Bible, and it means to visit or go physically to someone with the intention of caring for their needs. It's not just to come and say hello for a visit or something like that. It means to go look after people in their distress, to care for them. And he went through all these verses and he ended up in Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats. And there it says, beginning in verse 31, "When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, He'll sit on His throne in heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him and e will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He'll put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. And then He, the King will say to those on His right, the sheep, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and," and here's the exact same Greek word as is in James 1:27, "you looked after me." You didn't come and visit me and bring me a card, you nursed me back to health. I was in prison and you went to visit me. And then the righteous will say, When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? “When were you a stranger and we invited you in, or you needed clothes and we clothed you? When were you sick and in prison, and we looked after you? And the King will say to the righteous, I tell you the truth, whatever you've done for the least of these, you've done for me.” Then the goats, “He will say, depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger, you did not invite me in. I needed clothes, you did not clothe me. I was sick, you did not look after me, I was in prison, you did not come to visit me. And when did we not do all of those things? Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. And these, the righteous will go away into eternal life with the wicked into eternal punishment." We Are Caring for Christ What David Platt said in that sermon, is he said, "You know, we expect that when we go to minister to people, we're going to be Jesus to them." And in some sense that's true, but in the text, it's more of the other way around. When we go, they are Jesus to us, and that was very profound. What it said to me is the willingness that we have to have our lives disturbed, to have our resources upset, our time, energy, money, given to people that are hurting and needy. If we turn away from that, we turn away from finding Jesus in this world. We'll have a harder and harder time walking with Jesus just by reading the Bible and leading living safe, comfortable lives. It's only as we're willing to sacrifice to make changes, to go out and minister in various categories. "When we go, they are Jesus to us, and that was very profound. What it said to me is the willingness that we have to have our lives disturbed, to have our resources upset, our time, energy, money, given to people that are hurting and needy." Be Obedient in Service Now what's so beautiful about this church? There are so many of you that are doing this, this specifically, even in terms of adoption, or fostering, or prison ministry, or ministering to people from other countries who don't know anyone when they come here. It's happening, and I'm so grateful for your example, but the question each of us has to ask as we look in the mirror today, “So what's actually happening in my life? In what ways am I sacrificially living for widows and orphans in their distress. In what way am I actually being inconvenienced by the sorrow and misery of other people? And how am I living?” Other than that, if that's not going on, then we're just deceiving ourselves and our religion is worthless, but if on the other hand, we see God work in us and we don't talk back to God, we're not angry, we're humble, we're submissive, we're listening to Him, we don't get angry, we don't shoot the messenger, we just say, "I want this to happen in my life," he'll work it in you, and that's the beauty of Christianity. Whatever you want, you have a holy ambition right now, a holy, but I don't know what God's calling you to do. Everyone different things. I don't have a specific menu for you. The Holy Spirit does. He has gone ahead of you and prepared good works for you to walk in. So go find them. Don't be an ineffective hearer of the Word, but a faithful, obedient doer of the Word. Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the power of your Word. We thank you for what it teaches us. God, make us ready to hear. Help us to be ready to just take in your Word and take it deeply into our hearts and be willing to be transformed by it. Help us to ask hard questions. What things are actually happening in my life that cost me anything, that cost me time or energy, or money? What ways am I inconvenienced for, literally for widows, or literally for orphans, or for lost people, or strangers in our community. What ways am I willing to serve? And please, oh Lord, let us not be just doing the machinery of religion, but let us be a church in which your Word is bearing an amazing eternal harvest for your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Introduction Well, it's exciting to be able to be with you a week later, as Andy said, to be at a higher level. Grateful to be way up here with you folks, and to be able to share how exciting it is what God is doing in our church. And I'd like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to James 1 as we continue our study in the Book of James. And this morning we're going to be looking at the deadly power of temptation. And one of the things, a healthy church, a good church will do with its members is equip each member for spiritual warfare. And so, you've come this morning we hope to an armory of truth, that you have instruction in the Word of God to put on spiritual armor, that you are equipped to fight, and fight you must. All of us are going to be assaulted this week by the world, the flesh and the devil. It's inevitable, it will come. And the best thing that I can do this morning is to equip you to fight. Sirens and Sin In Greek mythology there were creatures named sirens, they were half-bird, half-woman. They lived near rocky shoals, and cliffs of islands, and they had the deadly skill of singing so enticingly and so alluringly that they could lure sailors to sail their ships too close to the rocky shoals because they were drawn in by the beauty of the music, and so they would dash themselves and their ships to pieces. In Homer's Odyssey, the hero Odysseus had heard about this alluring siren song and wanted to hear it so much, but didn't want to endanger his ship, so he commanded his men to lash himself to the mast and then that each of his sailors would fill their ear with wax, so that they wouldn't themselves be enticed, and in this way, he hoped to hear the song of the sirens. Now, this intoxicating pull toward shipwreck is an illustration from myth and legend of an actual spiritual danger that each one of us faces as Christians in this world, the danger of temptation. We walk every single day on a path surrounded by various siren songs. Satan has crafted a world system and assaults us with the temptations of the world and his own crafty temptations. And then we have the enemy within, our own lust, which the text is going to focus on, which responds to those alluring songs. Taking Responsibility for Our Sin Now it is human nature for all of us to blame others for our sins. That we're going to blame others to escape taking responsibility for our sins, looking for a scapegoat, a fall guy. This is obviously so unjust, and it's corrupt, and it's weak on our part. But worst of all, worse than blaming other people is to blame God for our temptations and for our sins. And this happened from the very beginning, the first sin that Adam fell into, when he ate from the forbidden tree, he ate fruit from the forbidden tree. The first sin that happened after that was a sin of blame shifting. You remember how God confronted him and said, "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from it?" And in Genesis 3:12, he said, "The woman you put here with me, she gave me some of the fruit from the tree and I ate it." So that is terrible. At that point he's blaming not only Eve for his sin, the woman for the sin, but he is ultimately blaming God for his own sin. We are world-class excuse-makers for our own corruptions. Like a thief blaming his economic situations for his thieving, or a serial rapist blaming his abusive father for his career in crime. But it's even worse when we do it to God. The Book of Proverbs makes this tendency clear in Proverbs 19:3. Proverbs 19:3 says, "A man's folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord." Isn't that a powerful proverb? We do damage to our own lives and then we turn around and blame God for it. We're constantly surrounded by the forces that are pulling on our bodies. Physical forces like the force of gravity that's pulling us down or force of moving objects that smash into us, or deflect us from our course, or the force of atmospheric pressure, 14.7 pounds per square inch, pushing on us at every moment. But the force of temptation pulling us toward evil and toward death is the most significant spiritual force that we have to combat in our journey of salvation. It's like a magnetic pull that lures us to our deaths, and as we come to James 1:13-18, James is helping us to understand the true origin of our temptations, and it's not coming from the pure heart of God. And it's coming from within ourselves. God wants us to take responsibility for our own temptations, and to kill them before they kill us. And He does this by teaching us the true nature of temptation. I. God Never Tempts Us Tested vs. Tempted So as we look at our outline this morning, the first point is going to be this: God never tempts us. Verse 13, "When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone." So we come immediately here in verse 13, in the Greek language, to a difficult word, and an issue between being tested and being tempted. What's amazing is the Greek word is the same. So you have to look at the context. We were just told in verse 2 of chapter 1, that we “face trials of many kinds.” That is the same Greek word. And then verse 12 uses it again. God actually does in fact test us. And He does try us, He puts us through trying circumstances. Now, the testing of our faith, we're told, develops perseverance. It purifies our faith, it strengthens us, makes us more purely devoted to God. Temptations however are something else altogether, and we have to make a distinction. A temptation is, as I've been saying, a magnetic attraction toward evil, a pulling toward wickedness. There are many examples of temptation in the Bible. We think about Joseph and Potiphar's wife, how day after day, she sought to persuade him to have sex with her, day after day to allure him, even grabbing him by the garment at one point. Or we have in Proverbs chapter 7, it seems like Solomon is looking down into the streets of the city and sees a young man through the lattice, a young man he says lacking sense, not aware of what war zone he's about to walk into. And then there's this alluring seductress who comes out crafty and with deceitful intent, and she's dressed, and she's enticing and she begins to talk to him. The whole thing is laid out for us in Proverbs 7. She says, "My husband has taken a big bag of money, he's going to be gone until the new moon. It's going to be a long time, and I've fulfilled my vows to God today." Meaning, “I have some meat that I can offer, the very thing that you want.” And so, she persuades him, and she allures him. It says in Proverbs 7:21, "With persuasive words she led him astray and she seduced him with her smooth talk." And the book says, "All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life." So that's just a whole case study of seduction, a case study of alluring. You have the same thing in Proverbs 1, with a different sin, where highway robbers are enticing this man's son and saying, "Hey come on, join us in laying wait for someone and we'll share a common purse." It's a different kind of seduction, but the same kind of thing. So we have all of these examples of alluring and temptation that happens, but the text says, "Don't ever say God is doing that to me." God is no seductress, He doesn't seduce us toward evil, He doesn't allure us toward wickedness. He never does this. God definitely tests us, like He tested Abraham to see the strength of his faith and to develop his faith. And he orchestrates circumstances to test us, that is true. But He never seduces us toward the thing that He hates with a perfect hatred. The Perfect Purity of God Look at verse 13, it says, "God cannot be tempted by evil." The basic nature of evil is as far from the perfect purity of Almighty God as we can imagine. It's as far as the east is from the west. It's as far as one end of the universe is from the other. Cosmologists tell us 47 billion light years across. God is further from wickedness and evil than that. It says in Habakkuk 1:13, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, you cannot tolerate wrong." Even better for our purposes, 1 John 1:5 says, "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." It's a double negative in the Greek. There's not the tiniest particle of evil in God, ever. He is not divided within His nature, He is one, perfectly one. He is perfectly light all the time. But us, we are deeply divided. To the core of God's being, He is light. And in the core of His being, there is no darkness at all. It's an interesting expression in Isaiah 1:14, where God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah and He's talking about the machinery of corrupt religion going on in Israel at the time. And this is what He says. It's a very interesting expression. He says, "Your appointed feast my soul hates." It's a very interesting expression, the soul of God. Well, God doesn't have a soul anymore than He has a hand, or eyes, or feet. These are what theologians call anthropomorphism, but they help us to understand the nature of God and when He says, "My soul hates it," it means to the core of my being, I hate evil and wickedness. The holiness of God may be the single most important attribute for us in our sinfulness to understand. The Holiness of God We have the account of the call of Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 6, where it says, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple, and above Him there were Seraphs, each with six wings, and with two wings they covered their faces. And with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying." One theologian said, "Notice that four of the six wings of the six-winged Seraph are given toward some acknowledgement of the holiness of God." And these are beings that have never sinned, they've never rebelled, they're perfectly holy themselves, separate from evil, but they still have a sense of the intense holiness of God. It is the most important attribute because they cry aloud to each other, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory!" It is the only attribute of God which is said three times, “holy, holy, holy.” God is perfectly separated from evil. It is the essence then, of the saving work He does in us to get us to be holy because He is holy. God Never Tempts Anyone And therefore, verse 13 says, "God is untemptable by evil." There is nothing inside God that is attracted to wickedness or darkness at all. Nor does He tempt anyone. Evil has no allure from God, doesn't pull on His heartstrings. He's not attracted to it. Therefore He's not singing some siren song to get us to divert from His path of righteousness, and disobey His commands, that just doesn't come from God ever. Now you may ask, thoughtful among you are probably already thinking about this, "What about the Lord's Prayer? Remember how we're told to pray, "Lead us O Lord, not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." So you prayed that for years, you never knew there was a problem with that verse, did you? You're like wait a minute now, "If God never tempts us toward evil, then why do we have to ask Him to not lead us into temptation?" But here's the thing, in prayer, we're not rolling out something that we have no idea what God thinks about it. Prayers are always biblically informed, and so, we could pray with the Psalmists, “May the glory of the Lord endure forever.” “Not sure whether it will or not, but may it happen. Hope it does.” Friends, that's not how prayer works. So we learn instead, God hates evil, "May you O Lord, continue to hate it as you will, and continue to lead me in such a way that I am not tempted." But really in the end it comes back to us, doesn't it? It teaches us, it reminds us of the holiness of God. It reminds us of our own susceptibility to temptation, like this text is teaching, and oh God, that we would not lead ourselves into temptation, put ourselves in tempting situations or walk like we're blockheads and have no idea what's going on and find ourselves trapped when we shouldn't be. That's the way I understand, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." God Allows Satan’s Temptations Now, the evil one, Satan, God does permit him to tempt us and he does tempt us. However, we've already learned from 1 Corinthians 10:13 that, “He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, but with the temptation, He will make a way of escape so that we can stand up under it.” Look, oh dear friends, look for that way of escape every time. Say, "Oh God, allow me to stand firm in this hour of temptation. I don't want to cave in." II. The True Origin of Temptation: Our Lusts Now, the second outline point is the true origin of temptation is our own lust. Look at verse 14, "Each one is tempted when by his own evil desire, or lust, he is dragged away and enticed." So our temptations come from our own lust, our own evil desires. Now we were made in the image of God to be filled with desires. It is a good thing to have desire, it's a defective thing to have no desire in life at all. And so, we were made to have desires, not even weak desires, passionate desires. God is a God that's filled with passionate desires. Now, given our physical nature we are going to have normal physical desires, but what sin does, is it corrupts the normal desires and pushes them beyond boundaries that God has set up. So that desire becomes lust, and that's the origin of our temptation. Our Temptations Come from Our Own Evil Desires So we have a desire for food. There's nothing wrong with that, there's everything right with that. But then the sin nature, the flesh, pushes it beyond boundaries into gluttony. We have the desire for rest, we need rest. The sleep of a laborer is pleasant to his soul and God gives sleep to those that He loves. This is a good gift, but the flesh pushes it beyond normal boundaries, so that we become the sluggard, “and like the door on its hinges, we turn on our beds.” I love the Proverbs about the sluggard. What an interesting individual the sluggard is, but here's an individual who is intoxicated by sleep. He just can't get enough. Then there's the desire for marital relations, it's normal, God put it in all normal men and women to have sexual relations within covenant marriage. That's normal. But the sin nature of the flesh pushes that into forbidden territories, and that becomes sexual lust, and it corrupts us. Now all of us have to deal with the enemy within. And Romans Chapter 7, in the second half of that chapter, Paul unfolds the battle that all of us are going to have the rest of our lives. We have an enemy within. And Paul says in Romans 7, in verse 15, "I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." He then says, "As it is, it's no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me that is so repulsive." Like you've got this disgusting virus or parasite, worse than any parasite living inside us. Paul says, "I know that nothing good lives in me, [that is, in my flesh] for I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do. No, the evil I do not want to do, this is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work when I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Well, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, someday dear friends, we are going to be delivered from this body of death. In Heaven, we will not have any struggle with lust, it will be done. And you are hungering and thirsting for righteousness. If you're a genuine Christian, if you're genuinely born again, you're yearning for that day when you will never sin again. And it will come, you'll be released. If you should die before the Second Coming of Christ, you'll be among those that are absent from the body, present with the Lord, and it says in Hebrews that you will be the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and you'll never have an evil thought again or evil desire, you'll be completely conformed to Jesus Christ. But in the meantime, while you are in this body, in this present world, you must fight and you must seek the deliverance that only God can give. And so it says, "So then I myself in my mind am a slave to the law of God but in my flesh a slave to the law of sin." So this is sin living in us. Dragged Away and Enticed by Lust Now, James describes it forcefully. “Each one is tempted when by his own evil desire, his own lust, he is...” The translation I have here is, “dragged away and enticed.” I find that an interesting kind of reversal, so let's just reverse it, “enticed and dragged away.” And these are two very forceful words. You get a sense here of a baited hook, almost like we are fish. We are fish and there's a lure, there's the bait, there's an enticement, some kind of pleasure, something that fits your nature, your flesh, and it's enticing. It's a lure. There is a magnetism, there's a gravitational pull toward it, it attracts the eye, it attracts the heart. You begin to ponder the bait, you begin to play with the bait a little bit, nibble at it, lick it I guess. I don't know what the fish do. What do they do? But something has caught the fish's attention and it's pulling on it a little bit. In my entire life, I've caught one fish. Alright, so I don't know what I'm talking about, at any rate. But they're playing with the bait and so, they're enticed and then dragged away. So you get part two is the bait is in the mouth of the fish and the angler, the fisherman knows it and is able to hook the fish with a jerk, and the fish is now hooked and dragged where the fish doesn't want to go. So these are the images that we have. These Lusts Wage War on Your Soul So, I have so many images that have been in my mind for years of this pull toward evil. This past year, there was a free solo rock climber named Alex Honnold that climbed without any equipment up the face of the El Capitan, the Half Dome. Crazy person, crazy person. But there is every single moment, every fingerhold, all that gravity is pulling on him toward his own death. Every single one. Or you think about salmon swimming upstream. Some of those salmon swim 900-1000 miles, and they're going against the whitewater, against the raging current of the mountain rivers that they're going, they're jumping falls the wrong way. And so all the force of the water, all the force of the gravity is against the journey they're trying to make. Our journey's harder than that, friends. Harder. I was converted in October of 1982. So began the war on my soul. I'm still a Christian, but only by the grace of God. My soul has been assaulted every day of my Christian life by the world, the flesh, and the devil. And here I stand, but I stand very humble, aware that if the Lord had given me over to my lusts and my temptations I would have been gone a long time ago, and so would you. And you're going to get saved, in the end God's going to win. Praise God, He's going to win over you, and He's going to get you there, and when you get to Heaven, you'll realize how much He saved you. And to God be the glory. That's what's going on. So these lusts, Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:12 that they,“wage war against your soul.” The best thing I can do as a pastor, the best thing we can do as brothers and sisters in the church is help you fight that battle. III. The True Destination of Temptation: Death Lusts Get Stronger the More You Indulge in Them So we come to the third outline point, and that is the true destination of temptation is death. Look at verses 15 and 16, "Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers." So, the lusts get stronger the more you indulge them. If you yield to a lust today, it will come back stronger tomorrow. This is the way it is. Conversely, if you fight, if you kill the lust today, it will come back but weaker. And this is how we fight. It'll never be totally gone. You'll never be totally free from any categorical lust while you live in this world, you'll never be able to say, "I will never sin in that way again," while you live. You can't say that. You got to be vigilant all the time. “If anyone thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” But the ultimate end of all this, the true destination is death. Likened to Childbirth and Child Development Now James likens it to the process of childbirth and child development. He says that desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and then he speaks of sin becoming fully grown. So it's like you're watching it grow up and develop. It's completed, it's fully developed, so it's continuing on. And so, sin has an intentionality. Sin is frequently in a number of places in the New Testament, personified. Like, “sin deceived me and through the commandment put me to death,” it says in Romans. So, sin has an intelligence, it's given a personification. Alright, so sin has a plan for you, and that is, to assassinate your soul. Sin wants to take you to Hell, it wants to destroy your life in this world and then destroy your soul in eternity. That's why John Owen said, "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you." The Deceitfulness of Sin And so we must see in verse 16 the deceitfulness of all this. “Don't be deceived, dear brothers. You have to be aware of what's happening to you. Don't allow yourself to be lied to, don't be deceived. Sin lies to us, it promises us pleasure, but it is secretly poisoning us, little by little poisoning us. It's deceiving us.” Hebrews 3:13 says that we should, “encourage one another daily so that none of us may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.” That's powerful, isn't it? Hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Sin doesn't tell the truth about where we're going with all this. John Owen said this about sin, "Sin not only wants to be constantly acting, but if let alone, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous and soul-destroying sins. It always aims at the utmost. It's not trying to do a little thing in your soul, it's trying to take you the whole way, and in this way it doesn't tell you the truth, it deceives you. The Final Destination of Such a Life is Hell So I think about what the Nazis did in World War II to get the people to quietly file onto the trains that would take them to their death. They were told that they were being transported to Relocation Camps. They're using this kind of language and they were told, and this comes out very plainly in the movie, Schindler's List, they were told to take all of your luggage and carefully label it and stack it up neatly on the platform, and it would be transported to their final destination. It's a very eerie scene in that movie where the people begin their journey to what we know is the death camps: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, somewhere. Off they go. And then after they're gone, then a bunch of workers come in and grab the luggage and throw it in a warehouse, and they start opening up and dumping the contents and organizing them to see if there's any valuables. We know as the movie watchers, they'll never see their stuff again, they're going to die, we know it. Well, sin is like that. It uses complacent language about what's happening, you minimize it. You use different adjectives, different words to describe it, and you minimize it. It's not a big deal. And this is very much the hardening of sin's deceitfulness. So, your heart, you didn't even know that your heart is getting harder toward God, toward Christ, toward Bible reading, toward prayer, toward fellowship, you don't want to do it as much, it's not as enjoyable to you. You pray shorter, you are tempted to forsake the assembling of yourself together with other Christians, there's a hardening. The opposite is a softening, which has to do with a yieldedness toward God, you're yielding to what the indwelling Spirit is telling you to do, that the prompting of the Spirit finds submission in you. You're not stiff-necked, like the Jews were said of old, to be stiff-necked, which is to rebel. Instead, you're soft and yielded, but sin does the opposite, it makes you stiff-necked, it makes you hard-hearted. That's the deceitfulness. And the final destination of this is death. Now, we should not misunderstand and think we're just talking about physical death. We understand biblically that there is something called the second death. There is physical death, and we're all going to die. If the Lord doesn't return in our lifetime, we will die physically, that's true. But this is talking about that but much more than that. We must not be deceived. Verse 16 mentioned self-deception, "Do not be deceived, my brothers." Verse 22 of the same chapter, he says, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." And then verse 26 of the same chapter, three times in one short section, the problem of deception, of being deceived. He says, "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless." So this is just the whole project of the Book of James, is to get you to understand what kind of faith saves you and what life comes from that. And this is a life that fights temptation, it fights sin, you recognize what's happening. So, those of us that battle, let's say sexual immorality, Jesus was very, very plain with this about lust. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart.” Then he says, "If your right hand causes you to sin, then cut it off and throw it away, it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into Hell." So that's what we're talking about. Hell is the second death, that's where temptation will take us. We Need These Warnings So the Bible doesn't shrink back from warning us about where we're headed and what lust and sin leads to. And part of the way that the Bible does this is by giving us sober-minded warnings like this text, that's what this is, it's a sober-minded warning. And some people wrestle theologically, "I don't understand, Pastor. I thought once saved, always saved. I thought I was secure." All these kind of things and they have a hard time reading warnings, but you need to understand the warnings are essential to the salvation process of the unglorified elect, the unglorified saved elect. We're still in a war zone, and the warnings do what they need to do to the souls of those who are elect that are chosen that will, in the end, make it through. We heed the warnings. Who takes the warnings seriously? We do. So, if you are elect, if you're genuinely converted, you'll read James 1:13-18 and take it seriously. And you'll say, "I've got to be killing these lusts, I've got to be killing sin or sin will be killing me." IV. God’s Good and Perfect Gifts God is Not an Alluring Siren Alright, outline point four is, Instead look at God's good gifts and His perfect gifts. So God's not trying to destroy you, God's trying to save you. He's not trying to give you death, He's trying to give you life, that's who God is. And so these are some of the most beautiful verses you'll ever find on the generosity and the love of God. Look at verse 17, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights who does not change, like shifting shadows." So God's not an alluring siren, enticing you to your own destruction, not at all. Jesus the Good Shepherd said, "The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly." So this text says about the same thing. God's perfect nature, God is the Father of the lights. So, good gifts come down, so you have this, your eyes are lifted up, you look up at the heavens, and what do you see? You see the sun and you see the moon and the stars, which God created on the fourth day. He created the greater light to govern the day, the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. One of the great understatements in all of history. He also made the stars. And it says that He set them in the heavens to give light to the Earth. He's very Earth-centered. God’s Generosity So I know, I know about Nicholas Copernicus and he told us, "Guess what? The earth is not the center of the solar system, the sun is." The earth is not the physical center, but it is the spiritual center of everything, and He created the sun, and the moon, and the stars expressly to give light to the Earth. And when their time is done, they will be done. And in Heaven, in the new heaven, new earth He will give His own light directly, He will not delegate it anymore to the sun or the moon or the stars or any lamp, but He will illuminate Heaven with His own glory. That's the generosity and the love of God, He is very generous. I mean look at the sun. Sun is very generous, don't you think? I mean, it's been helping us out all this time. Day after day it gives us light, it gives us warmth, and it's doing just fine. It could keep going like this for a while. Cosmologists tell us that it could keep going at the present rate for another 5 billion years. So here, I'm going to bring in my eschatology and theology, I think we'll be all set by then, friends. We will have come to the end of this phase of history and gone on to eternity by then. So I think the sun is set up to run for a while and God sends down that light, He is the Father of the lights from Heaven, and He keeps them burning. And He keeps all of the stars with their twinkling light and He keeps the moon with its beautiful glow, the Harvest Moon, how beautiful is that? And God gives this generosity to us day after day. This is the nature of God's limitless love. He says, "I pray that you may grasp," Ephesians 3, "how wide, and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ, and that you would know that love that surpasses knowledge, that you would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Isn't that what you get out of verse 17? He's giving you gifts, He's giving you good gifts, and perfect gifts. And He never changes. He's immutable. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change like shifting shadows, James tells us. Malachi 3:6, "I the Lord do not change." Before the foundation of the world, He set His love on you, child of God. "I have loved you with an everlasting love," he says in Jeremiah 31:3. "Therefore I'm drawing you in loving kindness." He loves you. And so He says, "Every good gift comes down from above." What Are God’s Good Gifts? What are good gifts? I look on these as common grace blessings: Food, clothing, shelter, beautiful scenery, intelligence, talents, skills, opportunities, finances. These are good gifts, and He gives them to everybody, His enemies and His friends alike. “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” He just is so generous and He just lavishes generous gifts to everyone whether they thank Him or not. The non-Christians don't thank Him. But we can thank Him for these good gifts. But then there's the perfect gift, and what is the perfect gift? Well, the perfect gift is salvation. Look at verse 18. "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth so that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created." So, verse 18, this is the perfect gift that comes from the unchanging God and that is that He wants to give you eternal life, He has given you eternal life, you're born again and He will protect that life until it's consummated in glory in Heaven. And verse 18 begins with God's free will not yours, isn't that wonderful? It's all about what God chose to do. Like, "Well, Pastor, you're saying you don't believe in free will?" It's like, "Well, I just need to know what you mean." Just tell me what that word means to you, free from what? Alright, we'll get to that another time, another sermon. Alright? But I am, thank God, not free from God's effective influence on my soul. I am not free from the fact that He did a surgery in my heart and took out my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. And now, He is working in that and gives me good holy desires after Him. That's what this birth is like. Like He said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again." And so this is the birth that must happen to you. Have You Been Born Again? I have to ask you, has that happened to you? Just because you're sitting here in church, I don't know that you're born again. Have you received the gift of life by hearing and believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that God sent His only begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary, who lived a sinless life, and died on the cross for our sins and lusts, and all that wickedness that we've committed, that His blood atones for our sins? And all you have to do is believe in Him and you'll be forgiven. Are you born again? Have you received this perfect gift? That's what it's talking about here, that God chose to give us life so that we might be the best of all He created, the pinnacle, the cream of the crop, the firstfruits of His creation. He sets His sons and daughters redeemed by His sovereign grace, redeemed by His blood above everything else. As it says in Isaiah 43:6-7, "Bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." We are the apple of His eye. He's engraved us in the palm of His hand, and He delights in us. That's who God is. So He's not luring you off the path of righteousness, He is feeding your soul to stay on the path of righteousness. Application Beware of the Danger of Temptation! Now application, if I can just speak to you, brothers and sisters. I've already invited those that walked in here, perhaps lost, to find Christ. But now I'm just urging you who are already Christians to just get busy to fight. Fight. I don't say fight tomorrow, I don't say fight this week, I say fight right now. Fight as soon as church is over. Because your soul, like mine, is under assault and will be while you live. The world, the flesh, and the devil will be assaulting you, and so you need to be aware of that. Every sin pattern, every identifiable sin has attendant temptations that lead to it. So take prayerlessness for example, you're having a quiet time, you're kneeling in prayer. Have you ever felt a force on you to stop praying? You feel it in your lower back if you get older. Alright. But you feel it in your wandering mind, and you're like, "Alright, I prayed long enough." And there's this pull, pull, pull, like that gravitational pull to stop praying. And then you find it isn't just stop that prayer time, but you don't need to pray as much, or you don't need to pray right now. It's prayerlessness, but there's a temptation that leads toward it. Fighting Specific Temptations What about anxiety? It's a sin. Are there any temptations toward anxiety? You better believe there are. You may be having a financial difficulty, a medical trouble for yourself or a loved one, and you find yourself ruminating, "What shall we do? What shall we do? What shall we do?" And there's temptations to ponder in an unbelieving way your condition and your situation. There's temptations toward every sin. What about forsaking the assembling of ourselves together? Deciding not to go to worship. It could start innocently. You've worked really hard this week, or this. I don't know what excuses for why you don't go to church. And I'm not saying if you miss church one time that you're definitely in wickedness. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying there is a process by which people forsake assembling of themselves together in corporate worship. What about arguing in your marriage? Some of you may do that, okay? Some of you may argue with your parents, or you parents with your kids. Arguing is a sin. "Do everything without complaining or arguing." There are temptations toward it. Have you ever felt that you're in the middle of a marital discussion, and some cool ideas to win the argument pop up in your mind? Ever wondered about that? Some creative ways where you're going to checkmate and win forever that particular point. Only guess what? It didn't happen because I think if we could see in the invisible spiritual realms, there's a demon feeding each side, keeping the fire going and there are temptations toward those kinds of arguments and conflicts. There are temptations toward sexual immorality of all sorts. Some of you are really battling Internet pornography. And you know exactly what this pull feels like. You know it's evil, you know it's wrong, and you want to continue to use the computer to do your work and all that, but every time you click on, you start feeling that pull. And perhaps because you've indulged it many times before it's stronger than ever. You have to fight for your soul. You have to fight for it. What about fornication? It's still a sin 21st century. But you could see couples together, the young people, maybe they're in high school, maybe they're in college. They're not married, and they're being told that it's not a sin to have sex together. They use different euphemisms, ‘hooking up;’ different other things, etcetera, and they minimize it. And we see all kinds of damage that happens for years to come after that, even if the couple ends up married, there's still things that happen as a result. And what about adultery? We've had to pick up the pieces on some of that recently. It's devastating. Man or woman, person's out, they're enticed, they're in a moment of vulnerability, they meet someone, one thing leads to another, they don't nip it in the bud, and then they get somewhere, and then they make excuses. "It was like a freight train, I couldn't stop myself." Well, that's garbage. You saw it coming, and you didn't nip that in the bud, you didn't see your own enticements, and lurings, and all that, and you didn't kill it when you should have. What about bitterness toward God? Some of you may be dealing with that. You've had some trials, some pain, or some other thing and God hasn't answered prayer and you're being tempted, tempted, tempted, tempted toward hardness toward God, toward bitterness toward God. What about unforgiveness toward another person? You're being tempted in that direction too. You keep going over it, and ruminating on what they did to you, and you just can't forgive it seems. It's temptation. There's temptations toward all sin patterns. What about gossip? You know something juicy about somebody and you find yourself talking and next thing you know, the words are on the tip of your tongue, and you don't even realize how many times you've done it in the past, slandered somebody or gossiped, and you said some things. We are being tempted in so many different directions. God is With Us Brothers and sisters, God, the God, the Father of lights, this pure, holy God is with you, commanding you to be holy in all of these areas and all the rest, and equipping you and empowering you to kill these temptations so that they will not in the end kill you. Prayer Close with me in prayer. Father, thank You for this time to study Your word. Thank You for the serious warnings there are in texts like this. Thank You for James writing down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who You are, how pure You are, how generous and how loving, and who we are, how corruptible we are, how in danger we are every moment. Help my brothers and sisters here. Help us to fight sin for your glory, for our own good, for our own fruitfulness. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Introduction Jesus’ Parable of the Hidden Treasure My sermon title is, “Joyful Perseverance in Trials Produces Spiritual Maturity.” Jesus told a parable saying, that, “the kingdom of Heaven is likened to treasure hidden in a field. And when a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, sold everything he had and bought that field.” There is no more precious commodity in this world than salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. It is the most precious thing that there is, and it is real. We, who are Christians, we know that that salvation is real because God is real. Though we cannot see Him, we know that He created the universe and by faith we understand that, and by faith we know that Heaven is real, and that salvation is real. But what if our claim to that treasure, what if our claim is counterfeit? That man went out and sold everything he had and bought that field, but imagine he bought it from a fraudulent salesman and that the title deed he had to that field was fraudulent. What if it was a fake? Speaking more directly, how can we know that our faith in Christ is genuine? How can we know that we have the kind of faith that will save our souls? There are frauds. Fraudulent Faith There are counterfeits in everything. You can think of fake rolexes. You can think of even fake hiking and mountaineering equipment. I saw in Nepal, there were name brands, and the name was spelled slightly differently than I'd seen before. They have WcDonalds in China where the M is upside down. And so there are fraudulent things. Probably the most lucrative fraudulent businesses is in art. I was reading recently of a painting that was sold supposedly from the 16th century, a painting of Saint Jerome, and it was so realistic looking at had actual cracks of age that followed a certain pattern that was characteristic of the 16th century, it was that accurate. But the painting sold for almost a million dollars contained some pigments, some chemicals that were impossible to be from the 16th century. In the end it was exposed as a fraud. Now, the art collector that bought that was out $860,000. We're talking about something infinitely more valuable than that. We're talking about your eternal soul. We're talking about, whether you'll spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell. And therefore it is vital for us to know whether our claim to Christ is fake or genuine. Some have told me before, and we're going through the Sermon on the Mount, in men's Bible study on Thursday. And one of the scariest passages in the Bible, is in Matthew 7 where Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But only those who do the will of my Father, who is in Heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles.' And then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me you evil doers.'" People tell me that's a scary verse for them because they are aware of the possibility of being self-deceived, they're aware of the possibility of a fraudulent faith, and I think that's a good thing. Be Willing to Evaluate Yourself The New Testament encourages us to evaluate ourselves to test ourselves. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you unless, of course, you fail the test." So we are told by 2 Corinthians 13, and many other passages to evaluate our faith, to test ourselves, to not make assumptions. Now, the consistent answer the New Testament gives to the question, “How can I know if my faith is genuine?”, is the issue of fruit, or works. There's different ways of saying it, but it's the same answer. If there is fruit, genuine fruit, then there is genuine life. If there is not genuine fruit, there is not genuine life. Then you may wonder "Well, what fruit, should I be looking for? What is the fruit that God wants to see in my life?" Again, the Lord has not left us as orphans on that question, He has told us what He wants us to be and do. The New Testament defines the healthy Christian life. But one book in particular, zeroes in on good works as proof positive of the kind of faith that saves and that is the book we're about to study the Book of James. The Practicality of James Now James is a book that's hard to synthesize into one overarching theme. It actually reads somewhat like a Christian book of Proverbs, taking on various topics and sometimes even it seems changing the subject, and now we're on to another topic and it's hard always to connect the dots. It's a very practical book. However, one could argue that the theological center of the book is in James 2. A James 2:14 says this, "What good is it my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds, can such a faith save him?" It's an interesting phraseology in that translation, "Can such faith save him?" That kind of faith. “Can that faith save him?” So, what that raises is the question of, “What kind of faith is genuine, what kind of faith saves souls?” And James says there in that chapter, the faith that produces good works will save your soul, but the faith that does not produce good works is not a genuine faith. It is a dead faith, it's a demon faith, it's worthless. And he'll go through all that in Chapter 2. So it is a diabolical thing to be deceived by Satan, for Satan to lie to us about our true spiritual condition. But to some degree, it's even more diabolical when he enlists us in that process where we deceive ourselves, where we lie to ourselves about what's really going on. And so, the whole Book of James is written, I think to help us not do that, to expose fraudulent faith while there's still time to do something about it, to show us what the kind of faith that saves our souls really looks like, and this first sermon will fit right into that as we look at joyful perseverance, in trials, and how that will prove faith to be genuine. I. An Introduction to James: The Man and His Letter (vs. 1) Who is this James? So let's begin with an introduction to James both the man and his letter. That would be the first heading in my outline and look at verse 1, "James a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. Greetings". So who is this James? Well, there are four James’ mentioned in the New Testament. Two of them we can remove right away, that leaves James, one of the 12 Apostles, the brother of John one of the three inner circle with Jesus. The problem is that he was the first martyred among the apostles. And so, would have died too, soon, I think, to write this letter. Most scholars zero in on James, the half-brother of Jesus. Now Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born, but she did not remain so. She and Joseph had a normal healthy married life, and so she gave birth to other children. And at one point, Jesus's enemies in Nazareth say of Jesus, "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't His mother's name Mary? And aren't his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us?” So, there's clear textual proof that Mary had other children. Now they would have been half-brothers and sisters of Jesus because only Jesus had God as His true father while they all had Joseph as their father but the same mother. James’ Journey of Faith Now this man, James, had a journey of faith. It's very plain in John Chapter 7, and 5 that Jesus brothers did not believe in Him while He was ministering, they did not believe in Him, John 7:5. However, after the resurrection of Jesus, James is there with his brothers, and Mary in the upper room, waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. So what happened? What changed? Well, I believe 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 7 makes it plain, that Jesus, as Paul's going through the evidence of the resurrection on how Jesus appeared to Peter and then to the 12, and then to 500 people. It says after that, He appeared to James. So think about that, a private appearance by the Lord of the universe, to you. And at that point there's no doubt in James’ mind who Jesus was. And his role as biological brother Jesus just disappears is not important. It was a historical note of some interest, but what really mattered is that Jesus was James' savior, and James believed in Him, became a genuine follower of Christ, and became a leader in the church in Jerusalem, became what Paul calls in Galatians chapter 2, a pillar of that church, in Acts 15, he led the Jerusalem Council as they discussed the role of circumcision for the Gentile converts. James was a leader, a pillar of the church in Jerusalem. So that I believe is the author of this book, the half-brother of Jesus. Who is He Writing To? Now, who is he writing to? Well, he's the leader of the Jewish church in Jerusalem. These were Jews who had come to a genuine faith in Christ, but he writes, he says to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. Now the Jews were very aware of the scattering that went on after the exiles. They were the exiles by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and they were scattered throughout the Gentile world. So that would have been the Roman, the Greco-Roman world, and they could have just been in the diaspora, the scattering at that point, or there might have been a specific scattering that happened with Jewish Christians. As we learn in John Chapter 9, that the Jewish authorities had already decided while Jesus was still ministering that if you believe that Jesus was the Messiah promised by God, you would be kicked out of the synagogue as the blind man that was healed was. Kicked out of the synagogue, by believing in Jesus. And so what that would mean for you economically as you couldn't carry on a business if you're a tradesman or craftsman or a merchant. No one would buy your wares. They wouldn't sell to you, you'd be ostracized financially, and so you would become poor, poverty-stricken, and you might have had to flee from Palestine, from Jerusalem just for economic reasons. So we don't know for certain why they were scattered, but it might have been those reasons as well. II. Joyful Perseverance in All Trials (vs. 2-4) The Suffering of Trials Now, in verses 2-4, we get to the first urging the James gives. Joyful perseverance, in all trials, that's my heading of the second part. Joyful perseverance in all trials, verses 2-4. Look at the verses, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance, Perseverance must finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." So we come to the issue of the suffering of trials of afflictions. And so, the first test of the Christian faith is how you respond to trials. Remember the parable of the seed in soils and only the genuinely rooted, grounded in the true soil of a noble and right heart endures and perseveres and bears fruit. But there is that rocky soil that as soon as any trouble comes because of the Word they quickly fall away. So, falling away is a clear evidence that the faith is not genuine. So how do you behave in trials? Now James does not specify what sorts of trials he's talking about, he just says trials of any kind. Anything you find difficult anything that afflicts you, that crosses you, that you find challenging, we could, as Christians, put those into two categories. Those afflictions and trials that are common to the human race that we share with all human beings, and then those things that are specifically focused on our Christian testimony. So the first would be sickness, injury, pain, accidents, the death of loved ones, poverty, financial challenges, economic issues, natural disasters, troubles in the family, difficulties in the family, or conflicts at the workplace, or in the neighborhood where you live, these are common to all people. They just have to do with us living in a sin-cursed world. Everybody has to face those. And the world needs us Christians to be evidently, clearly filled with hope at times like that. When we get that diagnosis of cancer that we would have a radiant hope that we're going to live forever. And it's a hope that the other people with the exact same malady, the same diagnosis but not the same faith, not the same Lord have to go through alone stripped of any hope that they would see in you, a hope that they have no earthly answer for, they have no understanding of why, what's the root system of that hope. And they might ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have as 1 Peter 3:15, says. They need you to be evidently filled with joy and hope. But then there are also trials that come because of our Christian testimony as well. Afflictions and persecutions that come some more in other parts of the world than in this one, where there's religious freedom. Persecution, economic isolation as I mentioned already with the Jews there in Palestine, a boycotting confiscation of property, loss of personal freedom, incarceration, and perhaps even martyrdom in very rare cases. Jesus said these trials, must come really of both categories. They must come. John 16:33, Jesus said, "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world." Trials Will Come So it's a new year, 2020. Doesn't feel like a year name to me, I'm still not used to that, but it's a new year. And who knows what will come, but I can tell you this, congregation of 500 plus people, there's going to be a lot of suffering in this community over the next 12 months, but we don't know what it's going to be, but isn't it a beautiful thing to not have to go through that alone, to not have to go through that alone. The more faithful we are in our Christian witness, the bolder we are in our Christian testimony, the more trouble we're going to have in this world. It says in 2 Timothy 3:12, "Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." And so the bolder we are in testimony, the more persecution. That's in our context. In other contexts, like in North Korea, just to be a Christian, just to assemble together, you have to be watching at all times, for the governmental police, the authorities to come in, or in the controlling government of China, same kind of thing, where brothers and sisters are arrested frequently, or in the fundamentalist Islamic states like Iran and Saudi Arabia where our brothers and sisters live under the constant fear of persecution from Muslim family and friends and neighbors and the authorities, or the fiercely nationalistic situation among Hindus in India, persecution comes much more vigorously in those places. Well, James is not specific about the trials. He speaks of trials of various kinds. Whatever they are, expect them, they will come. And he actually uses this language, "Whenever you fall into trials of various kinds." Sometimes it feels that way, doesn't it? You're just moving along in your life and then suddenly you're in a dark pit, metaphorically, you're in a dark pit. And how did I get here? And the light seems so distant, and you're injured by the fall, and you're there wondering, what to do, how to get out of it, what to do next, when ever you fall into trials of various kinds that are going to come. Now, we should understand that our heavenly Father's quick carefully orchestrating all of these things, isn’t that encouraging? You don't fall into anything. It's not an accident, it's not like you're going to God in prayer, and He's saying, "Wow that happened to you. Wow, I wasn't watching at the time." God actually carefully orchestrates our trials and temptations “lest we be tempted beyond what we can bear” as we've already learned, in 1 Corinthians 10. But God is orchestrating these things. Our Response to the Trial is Everything The thing is you can't control it. You can't control your life's circumstances, the only thing you can control is your response, your attitude, your demeanor, and what James says is that you are to, “consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Literally, “all joy.” Consider it all joy, or joy through and through, joy straight through. Now, we should not think that James is saying that we should minimize it like it's not happening. That would be weird, it would not be a good witness. It's like, "Do you not understand what's happening to your loved one, what the diagnosis is?" “Well, no. Now I am happy all the day!” No, it's a real rooted, grounded awareness like in Romans 4. Abraham faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a 100 years old and that Sarah's womb was also dead. They did not waver through unbelief. So you know what's going on, you're aware of it. And you take I think the eternal perspective. I think exactly like the attitude that Jesus had about the cross in Hebrews 12:2, "We are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfect or of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God." What was the joy that was set before Him? I'll tell you what it was. It was us, a multitude of the redeemed from every tribe and language and people and nation, won by His suffering, won by His blood to eternal joy and bliss in His presence. That was the joy that was set before Him. The cross was still physical and spiritual agony. But there was a joy beyond it. I think we're supposed to see it the same way. These trials that are coming are working in us and for us, “an eternal glory that far outweighs them all,” Paul tells us in Corinthians, that's the joy. So we have joyful faithful submission then to the trial. What Joyful, Faith-filled Submission to Trials Produces What does that produce? Well everything starts with knowledge. Look at verse 3, "Knowing that the testing of your faith develops perseverance", or endurance. The testing of your faith, that's the testing, the trying, the assaying of it to separate out the true gold from the fool's gold. So there's assaying, but there's also a purifying of our faith. Now, the trial reveals our faith to be the true thing if we stand firm through it and are not cast away. So, if we stand firm. More than that, however, the actual process of the suffering of the trial produces a stronger faith. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen,” so what happens is we become more reliant on the invisible God, more aware of the presence of the invisible Christ, more mindful of the invisible death of Jesus centuries ago on the cross for us, more mindful of the invisible New Heaven and New Earth that are coming, more mindful of the glory that we will have in our resurrection bodies. All of these invisible realities become much more intense, stronger, if we walk well through the trial and the affliction. That's its purpose. Just like some of you have begun a time in the health center and the weight rooms, because it's January, after all. And so you're on the treadmill and you're working the weights, and you're working off whatever it is you may have eaten in the last part of last year. And you're working the muscles, and the weights oppose the motion, and cause the muscles to get stronger, and so these circumstances cross you and oppose you, and cause your faith to get stronger. Now, what is the end of a Christian endurance? It says in verse 4, "Let endurance have its full effect so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." So as we stay steady, under God's working, steady under His hand. He will work on your souls. There's a clear grammatical insight here that some translations omit. “Let endurance have its full effect.” You're being told to allow endurance to work in you or even better, “Let God do His work in you.” Stay calm and steady under His surgical touch. Imagine a situation where someone has a serious gash somewhere in their body and they're away from medical treatment, but there happens to be a doctor, a skilled doctor there with the necessary tools to disinfect the cut and to sew it up. But imagine the person is skittish and flinches and twitches and yells at the doctor and pushes the doctor away. The doctor is like, looking around saying, "Someone strap him down. You got to hold your hand steady, so I can help you." And so, if we're like that spiritually, and you're going through the trial, it will not have the right effect in your soul. “Let God do His work in you.” That's what it's saying in Verse 4. And what does perseverance produce? Well, one translation says that you'll be “perfect.” I think a better translation is “mature.” We're not going to be perfect in this life, but the word is more Christ-like. That these trials will produce Christian virtues in you, the fruit of the Spirit, love. You'll be more loving if the trial does its work in you. More patient, more joyful, more hopeful, bolder, more compassionate to others that suffer like you are. It just makes you more like Christ. It conforms you, and these things do not happen automatically. They happen because God is working, and what happens is there's a feedback loop here, where you start to realize "I'm not going to fall away. I love Jesus more now than I did six months ago, I'm real, I'm a real Christian. And that proven character, Romans 5 says is the ground of my hope. I know I'm going to Heaven when I die, because of how I reacted how I responded. I'm actually more in love with Jesus, more strong in Him that I was before the trial. Praise God, I'm real, I'm genuine, I'm going to Heaven." And so, that's what happens with endurance, and you'll see it says “mature and complete, not lacking anything.” So my geeky engineering mind at one point turned that whole thing around. Well, I guess what that means is, without the trials we'll be immature, incomplete, and lack things. Exactly! And that's how we start in the Christian life. We're immature, we're incomplete, we lack some things that we need. Justified, yes, forgiven adopted. But you need to grow up. And the only way that's going to happen is with trials. III. Seeking Wisdom from a Generously Wise God (vs. 5-8) Now in Verses 5 through 8, he turns to the topic of wisdom. Look at those verses, it says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That man shall not think he will receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man unstable in all he does." So my third heading is, “Seeking Wisdom from a Generously Wise God.” A Timeless and Universal Promise Now I think these verses, verses 5-8 give a timeless universal principle, that you can use at all times, whether you're suffering or not. But I also think it's helpful to see them in context too. So I think we'll do both. First, you just need to ask God for wisdom more than you do. You should not say, "Well, some days I like wisdom, but other days I'm perfectly fine when it comes to wisdom." You can imagine your Heavenly Father saying, "Are you sure there's nothing you might, no insights you might need from Me?" But that would just pose Him as a counselor, He's more than that. He's your king, and you're not your own you're bought at a price, and so you should, in your daily morning quiet time, be asking your king what He wants you to do today? You should go to Him for wisdom. God, what should I do today? What should I do next? You should have this incredible humility about you saying, "I lack wisdom, I lack wisdom, I lack wisdom and you're just going in God, the Ancient of Days, who knows you from your mother's womb, who knows everything that's going on, He will give you wisdom about anything. And so, we always need wisdom. But then there are those big moments in life. Should I marry this person? Should I take this job? Should we move to this city? Should I go on this mission trip? Should I contribute to this or that or the other Christian ministry, and how much? There's so many things. What are my spiritual gifts? What ministry should I do with my spiritual gift? There's a lot of those big moments. The Purpose of Wisdom in a Trial But we also, I think, should see these verses in context. James said that, "If you stand firm and are steady you will be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Next verse, "If anyone lacks wisdom." So there seems to be a link between verse 4 and 5. So verses 2-4 is all about afflictions. I think that fits very, very well in terms of the afflictions. One of the number one questions that comes up when we're in afflictions, is, "Why is this happening to me?" Whenever you're facing pain and suffering, "I don't understand God why you're doing this to me?" "Why is God not hearing our prayer for the healing of our little girl? Why not?" Or even "Why did you take her from me,” if in the end she dies? "Why is this chronic ailment in my life not responding with the treatment when usually it responds well in other cases?" Or in persecuted countries, “Why do the wicked prosper? Why are the wicked in charge? And then our Godly pastor got arrested last month, and he's being tortured and we have to hide from the authorities. Why is this happening?" Or, "Why in a natural disaster did you allow our home to be destroyed and then those homes were spared?" It doesn't seem to make any sense. And so, if you are in affliction and trials of various kinds, you should bring your questions to God, you should ask Him for wisdom and He will give it to you. He'll tell you why you're going through this trial. Very clear example of this is Paul's thorn in the flesh. Remember in 2 Corinthians 12? Paul talks about some incredible vision he had, where he was caught up to the third heaven and he saw indescribable things. He saw heaven, he saw God on His throne. But then the next thing he says, "To keep me from being conceded because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I sought the Lord that it be removed from me, and He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness', therefore I will boast in my weaknesses." You see what's happened there? He didn't know why this thorn in the flesh, this messenger of Satan had come to him. He was told, "It's to keep you from being arrogant Paul, it's to keep you humble, to keep your feet nailed to the ground after you ascended to heaven and saw heavenly the things you're not allowed to talk about.” And you're like, "Wow would Paul ever become prideful arrogant?" All of us are prideful. We all, we all could be conceded and Paul needed that help, he needed the pain, the suffering, that God did not heal. So, he's healing other people but he's not healing himself, but he had understanding. "Alright, I get it. My strength is made perfect in weakness. I'll keep praying I'll keep trusting, I'll walk in agony and in pain until God chooses to heal it, or until I die." But he got the insight, he got the wisdom of what the reason for it was. And God doesn't tell everything in this world, but He gives you enough wisdom. Seeking Guidance for Your Lives Now you need to seek guidance in your life more than you do. I do too. We are so independent aren't we? We're like, "I know what to do, I got this one, God. I know exactly what to do." If any of you lacks wisdom, it's like, "Well that's not me, I'm on it, I know what I'm doing." But when big decisions come along many decisions we need some guidance don't we? Now, I could give you the guidance of the famous philosopher, Yogi Berra, the catcher for the Yankees. He said, "Whenever you come to a fork in the road, take it." I don't find that incredibly helpful. I guess, at least I know I'm not turning back, so at least that. But I don't know, right or left, but God wants us to express our dependence on Him. He has searched us to know us. He knows all the days ordained for us, He knows exactly what way we should take and He wants us to ask Him. And then we hear in Isaiah 30, in verse 21, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’” Don't you see the gift that is from God? You won't have no idea what to do in life. “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God. But when you ask, you should believe and not doubt. You should believe that God will give you the wisdom. He'll tell you what to do, He will guide you.” So you're asking has to be in faith, because if not, then James says, you're a double-minded person, you're going back and forth. You believe, you don't believe. You believe, you don't believe. You're acting like a believer, then you're acting like God doesn't exist. James also, later in chapter 4, uses double-minded people to speak of those that are worldly. They're after the world's golds, the world's applause, the world's power and position. And so you're not getting wisdom because in James 4, "You're asking, but you're not receiving because you're asking wrongly. You're asking like a double-minded person." And so you have to go as a faith-filled disciple of Christ and He will give you the wisdom that you need. Seeking Wisdom by Faith Now how does He do that? Well, He gives it through the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God's direct minister to you, to guide you in your life. Now the Spirit speaks primarily through the scripture. The more you study the word of God, the more you memorize Scripture, the more tools the Holy Spirit will have to get specific in your life and guide you and you'll know what to do. You'll know the big picture of what God is doing in the world and you'll know details about spiritual gifts, or various ministries. You'll just know what to do more and more. Even then there's some things that are pertinent to you, and the Holy Spirit will guide you by counsel from friends, disciplers, men and women that speak wisdom into your lives, and you also have internal impressions. Be careful about those internal impressions. I've studied them for my entire Christian life. When I got down on my knees and asked the Lord in my PhD office at Southern Seminary, "Should I come to Durham as pastor, senior pastor of this church?" I felt that I needed an answer. I felt that the search committee needed an answer. It was only polite to give them an answer. “God I met the fork in the road, what do you want me to do?" And I had a strong impression to come here. Now, here's the thing about impressions. They're from one of three sources. They're from God through the Holy Spirit, they are from the devil as he deceives us and they're from you as you talk to yourself. And some of the wisdom you give yourself is pretty good. And some of it isn't. I remember once seeing a man wearing this t-shirt saying, "I do whatever the voices in my head tell me to do." That's not the way to go. But we need to believe that God is able to guide us in those key moments well, without becoming erratic and strange following voices in our heads. IV. Temporary Wealth vs. Eternal Wealth (vs. 9-11) Verses 9-11 in Connection with the Rest of the Chapter Now in verses 9-11, James addresses temporary versus eternal wealth. To some degree, you could almost see a seam here, is there's a whole, new topic. James is like that. Sometimes we don't know, are we getting to a whole new issue now that he brings up? But I think it's possible even here to see some points of connection. Look at Verses 9-11, "The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position." By the way, that's not talking about Andy Winn preaching on the third floor. I told him that this morning. He said, "It's right in the text." I said, "Bad exegesis." So he's in the high position. We're in the low position. Tell him what I said about that whenever you see him. "The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position, but the one who is rich should take pride in his low position because he will pass away like a wild flower, for the sun rises with scorching heat, and whithers the plant its blossom falls, its beauty is destroyed in the same way the rich man will fade away, even while he goes about his business." So what is the connection? It could be that the connection is just economic suffering that the Jewish Christians are doing, that they're poor. They're poor. They can't make a living they've had to flee their homes in Palestine, and they're in new cities and people even then aren't really buying their wares and they're suffering, they're struggling, they're poor. And as with the advice he's going to give, I think this section is best to read it as rich and poor Christians except toward the end. Whereas in James Chapter 5, the rich are clearly oppressors who are murdering people, that's a different matter. So I think it's best to read this as rich Christians, and poor Christians except at the end, he changes just a little bit. Eternal vs. Temporal Wealth In any case, we should all have an eternal perspective on physical, material wealth. Its advantages yes, but it's limitations. And so both poor and rich, Christians need to be very clear on the limitations of earthly wealth. Poor Christians need to realize that the money and the possessions that they lack in this life are actually a very limited value. The poor can be led by their circumstances, into bitter coveting, bitterness against God, tempted even toward crime, they can become materialistic, and this will only make their trial in poverty much worse. James says that poor Christians should focus on their exalted position as adopted sons and daughters of the living God and heirs of Heaven. That's their true wealth. They're storing up there in Heaven, every day by their faithful service. Set their minds on things above and things to come, not on earthly wealth, because it's not going to help their lives as much as they think it is. They should boast. "Let the wise man, not boast in his wisdom, or the rich man boast in his wealth or the strong man boast in his strength, but let him who boast, boast in this, that He knows me." Jeremiah 9. And so, boast in God, boast in Christ, boast not in your material situation because it's nothing. It's dust in the wind. That's what he's saying. Conversely then, rich Christians should focus on their humiliation as Christians in this life. They serve a Lord who was rejected by society, who was cast out from Jewish society, who was crucified outside the city gates. And the author to Hebrews there invites us to stand under the bloody cross and join with Him in suffering the reproach of the name of Christ. So you can see how rich Christians, might have business connections which would be jeopardized if they're very honest about their Christian confession. Rich Unbelievers Fade Away in the Midst of Business Don't do that. Don't do that. Be humble in this world as a Christian. Be willing to be named by the name Christian, and take whatever comes. Now rich unbelievers, I think he shifts a little bit there. He says, "The rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business." It's like Isaiah 40 says, "All flesh is like grass and all their glory is like the flower of the field, the grass withers, and the flowers fall, when the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are like grass. “The grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” And so, those rich people we know we hear stories, they're going about their business. They're just moving along and then suddenly they grab their chest and fall dead. Or suddenly there's a car accident, or suddenly some other malady, a sudden fever, something comes and then they're gone, even while they're going about their business, they're dead. Proverbs 11:4, says, "Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, the righteousness delivers from judgment." So wealth isn't going to help you spiritually, in this world and it's certainly not going to help you on Judgment Day because the Judge of all the earth cannot be bribed. He judges justly. He judges to the glory of God. Well, verse 12 wraps up this whole first section, "Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because when he is to the test, he will see the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him." So that goes back to the issue of perseverance under trial. Sums up this whole section. Speaks of blessing of eternity on you. If you persevere, look what you're going to get. You're going to get a crown of life, that God's going to hand you and that really is just eternal life, just being alive forever and ever, but also the rewards of your faithful labor. He will give it to you, if you love Him. And you love His appearing. Application Get Prepared for Your Last Day on Earth So, applications. First and foremost, just all I can say to you is come to Christ, come to Christ. This week some of you know my mother died. Don't have any clear assurance that she was a Christian. Had the opportunity, the responsibility of preaching the Gospel to my unsaved family. Many of you prayed for me in that regard. About two months ago, my mother asked me, "How can I prepare to die." Coming from a mother that had never made a testimony of faith in Christ, I looked on that as a golden opportunity. Probably the 100th time I could have shared the Gospel with her, but it was a gift to me, and I said, "Mom I want you to think about the thief on the cross, when Jesus died, he didn't die alone, but two other thieves were crucified with Him. And they began insulting and reviling Jesus, but at one point, one of them realized what was happening, and he stopped and he said, 'Don't you fear God?' He said that to his other thieves, 'Seeing we are into the same judgment. And we're only getting what we deserve, but this man here, Jesus has done nothing wrong.' And then he turned to Jesus and said, 'Remember me when you come in your kingdom.' To be able to see, in a crucified dying man, a coming King is a gift of faith. He already had faith. He hadn't done any good works. He couldn't. His hands and feet were nailed to the cross. But by simple faith in Jesus, he was able to be saved to have all of his sins forgiven, and to spend eternity with God in paradise.” I said, "Mom. That's how you get ready to die." I said those exact same words at the grave site on Monday. Do Not Assume Your Soul is Secure My desire is that any of you that came in here today, unsaved that you will hear the wise words that James is giving and understand what God is doing, and the ultimate gift of salvation, and trust in Christ. For those of you that are already Christians, just test your faith to see if it's genuine. Don't assume. Just say, "Lord, what is the fruit of my life? What's happening in my life. Is there fruit? Are there good works? Do I see that in my life?" Don't just assume. And especially zero on how you respond to trials and afflictions. Many of you have expressed a desire to be more evangelistic. It could be that God will make you more evangelistic by putting you into suffering on a platform of suffering, so that other people who have the exact same diagnosis as you can see how you behave and will ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have. Suffer Well Suffer well. Suffer well to the glory of God. And just generally, if I can urge you, in the year 2020, seek wisdom from God more than you've ever done it before. I would just say every day in your quiet time, just get up and say, "You're my King. I'm not my own, I'm bought at a price. What do you want me to do today?" And then listen, and let Him guide you by His Scripture, and by His word. And finally, to wealthy Christians, which is all of us who are Christians. We are amazingly wealthy. Let's realize the limits of our material wealth. Let's be generous, let's give to the needy. Let's give more than we've ever given before realizing our true wealth is Heaven. It is a benefit for us to have material blessings, but let's be generous and faith-filled with it and realize, either way, we're going to fade away, or pass away when the Lord says. Let's be ready for that by faith in Christ. Prayer Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time we've had to be here. I thank you for all of the gifts of the spiritual gifts of this church. I thank you for the love that me and my family received from this church. I thank you for the gifts of those that like Wes and his team are so excellent leading worship, I thank you for those who are so good at logistics to be able to plan this whole double worship service with such skill. Lord, I pray that in 2020, we would more than ever before walk in wisdom asking you what to do and seeking Your guidance. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Human Heart is a Perpetual Idol Factory So turn in your Bibles 1 Corinthians 10, we continue our study in this marvelous book, looking this morning at verses 14 through 22. In the year 2011, I was on a mission trip to Nepal, a fulfillment of a lot of dreams I had from early in my Christian life, I always had a heart for Nepal. Prayed for an unreached people group in Nepal for 10 years. And then the door opened, there was an opportunity for me to go on a mission trip. And we were there in the capital city of Kathmandu and we were at a restaurant, kind of open air restaurant waiting for lunch, and I heard the repetitive tap-tap-tap of hammer on metal. I thought we were near an auto body shop because I also saw the bluish glow of an acetylene torch. And as I mentioned those sites and sounds, the missionary that we are with says it's not an auto body shop, that's an idol factory. It's a Buddhist kingdom there, that mountainous kingdom, and there are statues of Buddha everywhere. They are manufactured continually. There's a big trade in idols there in Kathmandu. And it was hard to believe and it was actually kind of hard to keep eating my meal as we continued to hear the sounds of these idols being fashioned. But as I look back on that experience, I think about another thing that I read once and it was written by John Calvin in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, 16th century reformer in Geneva, said this very famously, "The human heart is a perpetual idol factory." The human heart is a perpetual idol factory. Now, we don't eat our meals near idol factories, hearing the tap-tap-tap of hammer on metal or other sounds of that kind of physical construction of our idols. Our very hearts are fashioning, continually fashioning the idols that are bringing us spiritual torment. We're making them ourselves. As we come this morning to 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, we're coming to as clear a command as you're gonna find in the New Testament on this matter. Flee idolatry, flee idolatry. I fear that many of us Americans think, "Well that's obsolete, we don't have to worry about that. At least in this culture, we don't make metal or stone or wood idols and bow down to them." That whole process seems as alien to us as Kathmandu itself, perhaps. So we think, perhaps that we're exempt from this command, but we're not. The idols of our hearts are tormenting us far more than we think they are. My desire, my prayer, as you just heard a moment ago and been praying, is that God would open the eyes of our hearts to see the idols that are troubling us. This has always been an issue with the human race. Therefore, the first two of the 10 Commandments have to do with this issue. Exodus 20:2-5, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God." God knew very well that He made us to worship Him. He made us for worship, we were crafted in our minds and hearts to worship. And if we do not worship the true God in the true way, in the biblical way, we will most certainly be guilty of false worship. We will worship an idol. We're not going to worship nothing. We will worship a God substitute if we do not worship the true God. Now, like I said, our idols are not generally made of wood, iron, bronze, marble, stone, gold or silver, shaped into some symbolic statue before which we bow. I saw that in Japan and their Shinto religion and I saw people going to shrines and clapping to get the deity's attention before they would pray. I've seen that in India, their idols, their statues, gods and goddesses by the thousands in Mumbai and Pune. And I've seen them with my own eyes in some of the most grotesque shapes you can imagine with all kinds of history behind it. I've seen all that. But we have idols and they torment us, they tempt us. Whatever dominates your mind, whatever engrosses the very core of your being, if it's not the triune God, if it's not the Father, Son, and the Spirit, it is a created thing. It is an idol. What you live for. What you cannot live without. That's what we're dealing with. In this sermon we're going to come face-to-face with the essential reason, frankly, why all of us engage in habitual sin. Behind all habitual sin is some idol somewhere. Now, if you look in the Old Testament, again and again when the godly kings and rulers and prophets would expose idolatry, they went on some wrecking expedition like Josiah, he was a wrecking ball. And God has been in the business of just toppling idols, just destroying them. Think about Dagon, remember when the Ark of the Covenant went into the Philistine land and was put in the temple to show the triumph of Dagon over the God of the Israelites, and how that statue fell down, and they thought it had just been toppled and it just needed some better hardware. Just nail it down a little bit better. And then the next day, it was basically broken to pieces. But why was the ark even there? It's because the Israelites worshipped the ark, thinking that if the ark was there, they wouldn't lose the battle. And so, even some Orthodox expressions of faith can become an idol if we worship what we think is the true God in a false way. Idolatry. I. The Urgent Command: Flee from Idolatry! (vs. 14) So we need to come face-to-face with this and take this seriously. And look right away at the urgent command, verse 14, "Therefore dear friends, flee from idolatry." Flee from idolatry. So now we need to understand the context, 1 Corinthians 8-10 is dealing with one main topic: Meat sacrificed to idols. The Apostle Paul had come to Corinth, a dark place, a pagan place, a wicked place, preached the gospel. He preached Christ and Him crucified. Some people were rescued out of the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light, the kingdom of the beloved Son, and they forsook their idolatry, they forsook their pagan worship practices, became the Church of Jesus Christ there in Corinth. The Context Now, in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul addresses the talk of meat sacrificed to idols by addressing those that are stronger, more orthodox in their doctrine or further along in sanctification, who are flaunting their freedoms and just eating meat sacrificed to idols. And in so doing they were wounding the new consciences, the consciences of the relatively new converted people. And Paul is saying effectively in 1 Corinthians 8, don't do that. Love limits liberty. Yes, you have the freedom to eat but if your eating is causing a brother or sister to stumble, don't do it. Then in Chapter 9, he gives himself as an example. He says effectively, like he was going to say, "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ." My example is I don't live for myself. Like take the issue of money. I could have gotten money for ministry, but I didn't do it, I didn't use that right, that privilege, so that I could preach the Gospel free of charge. And then just generally in my ministry, my ministry to the Greeks and to the Jews alike, I assess the situation and whatever is best for those people, Jew or Greek, I'm going to do, when it comes to amoral preferences. When it comes to food or clothing or mannerisms, I'm going to become a Jew to win the Jews. I'm going to become a Gentile to win the Gentiles. Again, not talking about immoral things but amoral preferences, I'm going to put my preferences behind me, I'm going to "become all things to all people so that by all possible means, I might save some." So I'll eat whatever they serve me, I will wear whatever clothes, I will take on mannerisms, I will become the missionary, I will do what I have to do to fit into their culture and win them. But then at the end of Chapter 9, I think he turns a corner. So, if you just remove the chapter divisions and just see the whole thing as an unfolding, I think he turns a corner when he talks about himself and he talks about running a race, and he says only those people that go into strict discipline win the race. They're the only ones. And so concerning myself, "I beat my body and I make it my slave, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified from the prize, for I don't want you to be ignorant" about the history of the Jews, and he goes right on into how the Jewish nation as a whole were rescued out of bondage, they were rescued out of slavery and they followed the pillar of cloud and they followed and went into the Red Sea and they were baptized, Paul says, into the Red Sea and they followed and they drank from the spiritual rock, and the rock was Christ. And so they're experiencing all of the trappings of that early version of Christianity effectively, but most of them never made it in the promised land. Their bodies were scattered all over the desert. So then if you go back to 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul says, "I'm worried about myself, I'm worried about my heart, I'm worried about idolatry." But Paul, you're an Orthodox Jew. Have you not read the history of idolatry in the Jewish nation? How the same combination of meat and sex and false gods and goddesses was extremely effective in destroying generation after generation of my forebearers? It wasn't just that first generation that fell into idolatry, and they did. And Paul talks about that very, very plainly. Look at verse 6 through 11, Chapter 10, "Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did." So that first generation of those that were rescued under Moses, they set their hearts on evil things, "Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry. We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did, and in one day, 23,000 of them died. We should not test the Lord as some of them did and they were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did, and they were killed by the destroying angel. Now, these things happened to them as examples, and they were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come." So we read all those Old Testament stories about what idolatry did to the Jewish nation, all of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Elijah and Elisha that just railed against idolatry. And we who live in the 21st century American context, we think we're exempt, we don't have to worry about idolatry. Paul was worried about it, but, Paul, look at you, you're a holy man, you're a preacher of the Gospel. I know, but I have to walk by that temple grounds, I have to smell that meat, I have to see those temple prostitutes, I have to walk by that and don't think that I don't know that the seeds of my own destruction are in my own heart. And Paul writes about it, doesn't he? Romans 7, "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." So Paul's saying there's a battle going on inside me. The Spirit wars against the flesh, the flesh against the Spirit. Galatians 5, that's going on inside me, Paul's saying. And so I beat my body and I make it my slave, so I won't be disqualified. And you Corinthians, you need to do the same. You may be one of the stronger ones, you may be one of the more mature ones but you're still under temptation. Look what he said, verse 12-13: "If you think you are standing firm, you better take heed lest you fall. No temptation has seized you except what is common to man." This is going on all over the world, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life, same menu, Satan is enticing you with these sins. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man, but God is faithful, He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted, he will also provide a way of escape so you can stand up under it." So that's the context. The Command: Run! So now let's look at the command, verse 14, "Therefore my dear friends, flee from my idolatry." Therefore, in light of all that I've been saying... Paul's epistles are very logical. He builds in arguments, he says in light of all of this, flee, flee from idolatry. And he says, "My dear friends," he uses a sweet tone with them, he loves them, they are his dear children. They have many guides and many teachers but they only had one spiritual father and in the gospel, he became their father by planting that church. He says he loves them and he calls them there his dear friends. They're beloved to him. Now, here's the simple verb, flee. Run for your lives. Run. It fits what he just said about temptation. God will... He's faithful. He won't allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but with the temptation will make what? A way of escape. What are you supposed to do with it? Take it. Run, get out the door, survive it, spiritually survive the temptation. Satan is going to spread a net for your feet. He's going to concoct a situation. It's a booby trap, it's on the path, get around it, get away from it, get out of it, go past it, so that you don't fall into what he has done, the trap he has set, flee. Now, Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," so don't be a fool and intentionally tempt yourself. You've fallen in certain areas and sinned before, don't set that up and do it again. So God, deliver us from the evil one. That's a better translation. We're used to deliver us from evil but it's literally deliver us from the evil one. Satan is intelligent, he is crafting temptation, so Lord, lead us not into temptation. Now, some temptations will seize you. They'll come upon you like an armed bandit back in the days of highway robbery. They seize you, they come upon you, and Jesus said, temptations are inevitable, they're going to come. Now woe to the one through whom they come, but they're going to come. In that situation, you need to fight, you need to stand firm by running. It's a weird image, isn't it? Stand by running. So in other words, you're still filled with the Spirit, you're still holy, you got past the moment, you got past the temptation, still walking with Jesus. Flee. That's what he's calling you to do. What is Idolatry? Now, the idolatry he's talking about here is that organized system of pagan religion, been worked out for centuries, and so they had a shrine, a temple, and they had offerings that were being offered, animals sacrificed to the gods and goddesses, and they would cook the meat and the priests would eat some of it, just like the Levitical priests, they had extra meat that would be sold in the meat market, we'll get to that, God willing, next week. So they have all this meat going on, it's just a carnival, that's literally what a carnival is, it's where flesh is being cooked. And the Corinthian Christians had to walk by this place, they knew it well, there was no way to get around it, they just had to walk by it to get to their homes or get to where they worked or different things they had to do in the city. And there it was, and they could smell it, and then they could see the temple of the shrine prostitutes, male and female. Maybe they knew some of those people by name, they knew them by name, and so he said, Look, that whole thing, the practice of bowing down... Like remember Daniel 3, when there was some kind of music, some weird kind of cacophonous music. Then everyone had to fall down and bow down to the golden statute. Daniel Chapter 3. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they wouldn't bow down. So there's this organized system of pagan religion. Flee that. Don't take part in that, but idolatry is much bigger than that. So what is idolatry? One writer gives this definition, worshipping anything other than the true God in the true way. I think it's a good definition. For me, probably the most significant biblical definition comes in Romans 1:25. You could turn and look there if you want, it's a key verse, Romans 1:25, or you can just listen, Romans 1:25 says, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things more than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen." So there it is. To worship and serve a created thing, a creature, more than the Creator who is forever praised, that's idolatry. Any created thing that seizes our souls. Another clue comes in Colossians 3, where Paul calls greed idolatry. Says the same thing in Ephesians. A greedy person is an idolater. Now, the simplest way to think about greed is money. If you're just living for money, you're an idolater. So the Wall Street investor or the CEO of a startup company and all they think about all day long is their business and how to make money and market share and all that. That's idolatry. That's idolatry. It's seizing their mind and their heart. But so is someone that's addicted to Internet pornography, that person's an idolater. Or to hobbies, or other forms of pleasure, movies, Netflix, that kind of thing. What about smartphones? Someone asked me, "Do you think there's any chance that a smartphone could be an idol?" I was at an airport recently, and I looked around, took a kind of a simple poll of human beings sitting within eyesight of me. 90% of them were on smartphones. 90%. I'm like, "Wow. What has Steve Jobs wrought?" Now here we are, and we almost can't get through a day... And I've seen it, the infiltration into my own mind, to my own habits. I was at a conference and I was sitting there, and I was listening and it was marginally interesting. And then it wasn't so interesting. And so I'm reaching for my phone, and I'm checking my emails and I'm doing some stuff. Well, here's the thing with the smartphone, it's two things. They both begin with T. It's tool and toy. And the thing are just woven together. And I go from tool to toy and back to tool again. And I think, "Oh, I'm working. I'm being productive." I am sometimes. But the fact is it is an idol. And I proved it because of my behavior. I started to be like an addict. I'm like, "I'm not going to. All right. I'm not going to touch it." And then my hand, it just start to move. And I'd, "Stop it. Don't look. You don't need it. No one cares where you are and no one is texting you or emailing you. Forget it. And besides which, you're here to listen. So learn and listen and do that." It was amazing what I had to do. I was ready to go across the room and hand it to a friend for like the next half hour just so I could focus. Well, all humor aside, the fact of the matter is indications of an idol. When you can't live without something. We humans were made to worship and serve. Now, the key thing then is created thing, I get it. Anything that is not the Triune God in this universe, in the spiritual realm or the physical realm, is a creature. That's the two great categories of being or essence there is in the world. There's God and everything else. Everything else is creature. Anything in that category that you put above God... Now here's where you have to understand what does it mean to worship and serve? We'll get to that. But it has to do with what consumes your mind and your emotions, your affections, the direction of your life, your stewardship decisions. We'll get to all that. And Paul's command is to flee. II. Reason #1: Christian Worship is Intimate Sharing with Christ (vs. 15-18) Then he gives some reasons. Reason number one, Christian worship is intimate sharing with Christ. Let's look at verse 15-17. "I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf." So he's talking here about Christian worship. Now he begins by reasoning with us. Paul is a very reasonable teacher of the Gospel. He reasons things out. There's a lot of logic in Paul's epistles. Now, all true religion begins with the mind. It begins with how you think. Paul's got to win the battle of the mind, the transformation of the mind by the Spirit, through the Word of God. That's how our religion changes. As you think differently, you'll live differently. So he says, "I speak as to sensible people." I'm speaking to reasonable people. Idolatry makes us fools. There's an essential foolishness to idolatry. As Romans 1:22-23 says, "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images." There's an essential foolishness, I believe Satan is mocking the human race by getting us to bow down before these kinds of statues, made to look like mortal man and animals and birds and reptiles. Look what he can make us do. Don't think that the Indian people and the people of Kathmandu and the people of Japan are idiots. But when they are worshipping idols, Satan has made them fools. He's made them foolish. And so also with us, with our idolatry. There's an essential foolishness to us. The Holy Spirit has come to rescue us from foolishness. Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is our wisdom. He makes us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. So Paul urges them to think in verse 15, to reason it out. "I'm speaking to sensible people. Judge this for yourself." Then he goes to the essence of worship. And you may not know this. You may have underestimated this. Worship is a spiritual union with a deity. There's a fellowship we share with an invisible spiritual being. An intimate sharing with the deity. There is a mystical union. That's true of either true worship of the Triune God by the Holy Spirit, or it's true of pagan worship. There is a mystical union that's going on in worship. That's what Paul is saying here. When we worship Christ, we are intimately spiritually connected with Him. When pagans worship idols, they're intimately spiritually connected with the idol. Don't underestimate that intimate spiritual connection that's going on. The Spiritual Intimacy of the Lord’s Supper Look at the example he gives, the spiritual intimacy of the Lord's Supper, verse 16-17. "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf." So Paul reaches for a central or main element of Christian worship, the Lord's Supper. Now he's going to talk in much more detail about it in Chapter 11. We'll get to that. You're very familiar with those verses. We'll get to that. But now, he just briefly reaches for the Lord's Supper. And he's talking about that. And he says, "Behind the actual elements of bread and wine, there's a spiritual reality." And I'm going to talk about this in Chapter 11, but this is the essence of my view of the Lord's Supper. The bread is just bread, and the juice is just juice. But there is a spiritual reality through the Holy Spirit behind it that I yearn to tap into every time we participate in the Lord's Supper. It's not a bare memorial. It's not some empty ritual. For me, I expect to eat and drink spiritually in Christ, through the Spirit. I think you should too. But he's saying that is, I think, a proper view of the Lord's Supper. The spiritual union we have. Look at the word that he uses. A participation. The Greek word is Koinonia. It is a sharing, a sharing in the blood of Christ. It's a Koinonia, a sharing together in the body of Christ. It's the same thing that he said, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life…" And so he says plainly, "If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection." There's a spiritual mystical union between us and Jesus. That's what he's saying. So that's the first example. III. Reason #2: Pagan Worship is Intimate Sharing with Demons (vs. 19-20) Then he gives the second example of Jewish sacrifice. Look at verse 18. "Consider the people of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?" Now, the animal sacrificial system Paul knew was obsolete by then, but he's looking back at Jewish history. When the animal sacrifices were offered in a right way through the Spirit, there was a participation of the people together with the altar. Let me give a good example of this. And that's the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Remember that? And do you remember how that was essentially a sacrifice? Two altars, two animals sacrificed, and then they were crying out for Baal. And the one that answered with fire from heaven, "No, let Him be. He's the true God." And we know that Baal never answered. But then Elijah pours water on the thing, so like it's drenched in water. And then he prays a simple prayer, and then fire falls from heaven and consumes the sacrifice. Everything is just consumed. What happened to the people at that moment? They all fell down and said, "The Lord, He is God." The Lord, He is God. It was really like a spiritual fire fell from heaven to their hearts and God was turning the idolatrous people of Israel back to worship Him and love Him. So that is a participation in the actual sacrifice. There was a physical fire on the altar, there was a spiritual fire that came in their hearts. That's what Paul means in verse 18. Then he goes to a second and deeper thing. And this is something perhaps you didn't know. But behind every false religious system, there is a demonic reality, a demonic presence. Look what he says in verses 19 and 20. "Do I mean then that the sacrifice offered to an idol is anything or an idol is anything? No. But the sacrifice of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons." So there is actually a real spiritual presence in all false worship. There is a demonic reality behind it. Now, Paul has to address the earlier basic teaching that we got in Chapter 8, Verse 4. "We know that an idol is nothing and that meat offered is just meat." Yeah well that's not the complete truth. An idol, a physical idol is just physical stuff. There's nothing there. But behind it is a demon. So, Zeus, Aphrodite, Venus, Hermes, Apollo, they don't exist. But there are demons that impersonate gods and goddesses, so to deceive people and lead them into false worship. It's demonic. Now, this is taught in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 32, The Song of Moses. Amazing, prophetic. It was a prediction before the Jews ever entered the Promised Land. Let me tell you what's going to happen to you in the future. I'm going to teach you a song. Songs are easy to remember. So he says ahead of time what's going to happen. This is Deuteronomy 32:15-18. "Israel made God jealous with their foreign gods and angered Him with their detestable idols." This is Deuteronomy 32 verse 17. "They sacrifice to demons, which are not God. Gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the rock who fathered you, you forgot the God who gave you birth." And you worship demons. Well, he said this ahead of time. This is exactly what they were going to go into the Promised Land and do. When they worshipped Baal, and Moloch, and Ashtoreth and all that. They weren't real, but the demons behind them were. I believe all false... This teaches effectively, all false religions in the world have a demonic origin. Think about Acts 19. Remember the Shrine or the Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians, remember that? Do you know the origin of that was something supernatural? It was an image of the goddess that fell from heaven. And you're like, "Well it's nothing. It was a meteorite." It's like the face of a goddess on a tortilla or something like that, and they see there it is, and it gets framed and put up. Or I don't know what it was, but there was something supernatural that fell. And they built a whole world-famous temple around it. I think this is an indication of the supernatural origin of false worship, false religion. Islam, I believe, is the same way. In the year 610 AD, Muhammad went into a cave and had an overpowering encounter with the supernatural being who he later identified as the angel Gabriel. And this powerful being seized him physically and shook him and basically effectively beat him up. And in the end, after a number of encounters, commanded him to recite. That's where the word Koran came from, and that's where the Koran had its origin in that supernatural encounter with, he believes, an angel of light. But we know from 2 Corinthians that even Satan can masquerade as an angel of light. Well what about Mormonism? Joseph Smith, the originator of that false religion, that false cult, had an encounter with an angel called Moroni. And he told him that there were these gold plates in a hill Cumorah in upstate New York and reciting from that gave us, gave the world the Book of Mormon. I think it's quite possible that there was a real supernatural encounter between a demon and Joseph Smith. And I think that this is true of all false cults and false world religion, religious system. All of them. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Shintoism. All of it. All of these false religious systems from this text, I would say, have demonic origin. There's a supernatural power behind them. IV. Reason #3: Idolatry Provokes the Lord to Jealousy (vs. 21-22) Reason number three, verse 21-22. Idolatry provokes the Lord to jealousy. Verse 21-22, "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too. You cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than He?" God will not share His bride with another. He is jealous still. His name is jealousy still. There's an exclusive love He has for the hearts of His people and He will not share you with demons and He will not share you with idols. Deuteronomy 32:21 says, "They made me jealous by what is no God, they angered me with their worthless idols." And then he says very powerfully, "Are we stronger than He?" Like the black preacher said years ago, "Your arm is too short to box with God." You don't want to take God on. You don't want to make Him jealous. For jealousy burns like a fire in the heart of the lover. And He will be jealous over us. The Spirit that He put to live in us is jealous over us, Peter says or James says. And so He will not share us with idols. V. Our 21st Century Applications Alright, so what about our 21st century applications? Well, it's easy to excuse ourselves in it. We're Western scientific materialists. We believe in the god of the gaps. And so, where there are gaps in scientific knowledge, we ascribe it to a deity. But once we study meteorology, we know where lightning comes from and thunder. And so, we don't worship the Thunder god anymore. You see, that's the way we think. Therefore we have a very materialistic, non-spiritual view of the world. And we think we actually don't think much about angels and demons. We don't think much as much as we should about Satan and the spiritual dimensions to what we do. So we're easy to say like, we're not the Aztecs or the Incas of the Mayans or whatever. We don't bow down like that. It's like, Yeah, well, we have our idols. Tim Keller calls them functional saviors. And if we think we're exempt, look at the final verse of 1 John 5:21, "Dear children, keep yourselves from idols." It's like the last thing John wanted to say in that epistle. This is an issue for us New Testament people. So we should not say, "I thank you God that I have no idols." That's not the way to go here on this topic. Instead, we should say as we frequently do Psalm 139:23-24, "Search me, Oh God, and know my heart. Show me if there's any offensive way in me." Behind the offensive way in us is an idol. Show me what the idol looks like in my life, in my heart. David Powlison put it this way. "The most basic question which God continually poses to each human heart: Has something or someone besides Jesus Christ taken the title to your heart's trust, preoccupation, loyalty, service, fear, and delight?" Trust, what you trust in. Preoccupation, what's in your mind. Loyalty, what you're loyal to, what you're fighting for. Service, what you get out energetically and serve. Fear and delight. What you fear losing, what you delight in having. Has something other than Jesus taken the title to those things? Anything more fundamental than God to our happiness, our sense of wellbeing, our definition of success. Tim Keller has done an excellent, excellent work on this. And I would commend his writings on idolatry. He says this. "Why do we ever fail to love or keep promises or live unselfishly? Of course, the general answer is because we're weak and sinful. But the specific answer is, there's always something besides Jesus Christ that we feel that we must have to be happy, and that is more important to our hearts than God, and that is enslaving the heart through inordinate desires." For example, we would not lie unless we first made something else, namely human approval, reputation, power over others, financial advantage, more important and valuable to us than Jesus. There's always an idol at the core of it. It could be money or possessions, it could be power, it could be physical pleasure. It could be food or alcohol, it could be some habit pattern or some hobby or interest. Could be a person, a specific person. We can make an idol of any created thing. So what Tim Keller does is he says, "How can I find them?" He looks at four things. First, look at your imagination. Look at your imagination. "Your religion", he says, "is what you do with your solitude." So what do you do when you're alone? What do you think about? What do you imagine? Where does your mind go? A single daydream doesn't prove an idol. But if you're just again and again fantasizing and thinking about something, and it's not Christ, it's not God, that's indication of an idol. Secondly, look at your money. What do you spend your money on? I would expand it to time and energy. Those three, time, energy, money. What do you spend yourself on? If it's not Christ, if it's not the advancement of the kingdom, relief for the poor, the ministry of the church, which the Lord tells us to give to cheerfully and sacrificially, if it's something else and you're just again and again and again spending yourself and your resources on that, there's likelihood an idol. Where your money is, there your heart will be also. Thirdly, "what about unanswered prayers and disappointment," says Tim Keller, "How do you react when you don't get you what you want in life?" If you have a reaction that is unbiblical to disappointments and unanswered prayer, there's likelihood an idol behind that. And then fourth, what about your uncontrollable emotions? What makes you enraged? Carnally angry. What makes you over-the-top happy that's not connected to Jesus? Uncontrollable emotions. Look at your anger. Is there some root idol here, where I have to have this, I have to have my way in this thing or I'm going to get angry. Those four things. Imagination, money, disappointments, and strong emotions indicate idols. What to do about it? Well, here's who I want to speak to: All of you, but especially those of you who came in here outside of Christ, you're not Christians. But the answer is the same for all of us. Jesus Christ is an idol destroyer. He will destroy your idols by putting Himself and all of His glory and beauty and power in its place. He will make a whip and clean your heart out through the Holy Spirit. Maybe this sermon is kind of like that whip, that Jesus wants to get in your heart and clean you out. And He wants to put Himself and all of His glory and His beauty and His majesty in its place. Remember, idols are what we follow when Jesus isn't enough. So that Jesus would be enough, Jesus came to die on the cross for all of your idolatry, all the ways you've sinned with idols. He came to take all that wrath on Himself and die. So give Him all of your burdens. Idols are burdens, they're heavy. I mean, think about precious metals. They're heavy. Alright? The idols of Babylon had to be put in an ox cart and the ox could barely drag them. They're heavy. So give your idols to Jesus. Give your sins to Him and let Him and His death on the cross be the substitute and the Savior for you and nothing else. Close with me in prayer.

I. The Constant Danger to Our Souls Turn in your Bibles to the text you just heard read, 1 Corinthians Chapter 10. We're looking this morning at two verses in particular, and zeroing in on the topic of temptations. And I want to begin by talking about something I know almost nothing about. So that's a bad idea, already. So we're already somewhat at a deficit position but I'm talking about fishing. I know nothing about, almost nothing about fishing. And I know that there's a number of expert fishermen in our congregation that are probably going to be willing, after this sermon to set me straight on some things I'm about to say. But despite the fact that I grew up across the street from a very good fishing hole, in Framingham, Massachusetts, and there were numbers of people that fished there. I never did, honestly, I didn't appreciate either the process or the product of fishing. So, just sitting there with a pole in my hand, and with my lack of knowledge, I was guaranteed to be unsuccessful. I'll talk about that more in a moment. But then, what did you get? You got a fish and I can't stand seafood, I can't stand fish of any sort, so why would I do that? So I'd worked all that through and I just didn't do that. But there are some expert fishermen here. My son was roommate to somebody who was on the NC State fishing team. I didn't know there was a fishing team at NC State, not only that, that they've won three national championships at Bass fishing. They go to local lakes here, and they just they go out in pairs and teams, and if anyone from that school wins the tournament, they're national champions. And they know a lot about Bass fishing. Some of you go like deep sea fishing. You go out to Wilmington and your charter a boat, and you're looking for a blue marlin or sailfish, some trophy fish and you're good at that. I don't know if there's any fly-fishermen here. I've heard that that takes some of the highest level of intelligence, to be able to skillfully tie a fly, make it look like exactly the kind of flies that'd be flying over a specific stream in a specific time. And not only that, but the casting technique to be able to lay the line down gently, so that those very apparently very intelligent trout who apparently have very good eyesight can tell the difference between a poor technique and one that's just right. So the concept though with fishing seems to be a study of the habit patterns of the fish, where they pool and congregate at different times of day and what they like to eat. And so, a study also of the bait. Number of years ago, I read a book by a Puritan, Thomas Brooks, entitled Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. And it talks about how we can be aware of and guard against the way the devil tempts us to sin. And the first precious remedy against Satan's, the first device he talked about was Satan's skill at lavishing on the bait and hiding the hook. He is really good at choosing, studying your habit patterns and knowing the right bait to use, but hiding the hook. What will happen to you if you swallow that bait in that hook in that line? And so my purpose today as I stand before you is to help you be aware of the baited hooks that are around you every day, and there are far more than you think there are. We are tempted continually towards sin, by a very shrewd expert angler or fisherman for our souls, and that is the devil. He's been at it a long time, he is skillful and he knows how to bait the hook and hide it from us. My job this morning is to take the bait off, so you can see the hook and the line and what it is Satan's trying to do. And how he is trying to destroy your soul, how he's trying to destroy my soul by sin. Look again at Verse 13, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man and God is faithful, He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear but with the temptation will make a way of escape so that you can bear up," or "stand up under it." So the word temptation is mentioned multiple times, "No temptation has seized you. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, with the temptation He'll provide the way of escape." So this is all about temptation. That's what we're studying here today. The Three-Fold Enemy: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil Now we're in enemy territory, we need to know that, while we live between now and the time we depart this earth, we will be in enemy territory. We have an ancient triad of enemies just like every generation of Christians has had to face. We have to face the same triad, generally called the world, the flesh and the devil. The Devil Let's take it with the devil first. Satan is portrayed in 1 Peter 5, like a lion that prowls around, a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He's constantly on the loose, he's vicious, powerful and skillful. And you have to be self-controlled and alert, you have to be aware of what the devil does. Now, one of the most disconcerting concepts here in this topic is the devil in some mysterious way, seems to have access to our minds. He's able to plant thoughts in our minds. Some people question this, they think it's not true. But think this way, do you remember how an angel warned Joseph in a dream to depart and take Mary and the baby Jesus and flee to Egypt? And then after that, after Herod had died, an angel spoke again to Joseph in a dream and told him that those who were seeking the child's life were dead. So, that's actual information imparted by an angel into Joseph's mind directly by a dream. Satan's a fallen angel. So in some mysterious way, he is able to plant thoughts in our minds. So the temptation is a matter of the battle for the mind, of taking every thought captive, as another verse says. And he has something that the Bible calls schemes. Schemes. For example, Ephesians 6:11 says, "Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." So that's the devil, that's what we're dealing with. He has demons who do his work. He has got a dark kingdom, he is very intelligent, he is skillful, and he has demons perhaps, that are assigned to you. Probably the opposite of a guardian angel would be a harassing demon or demons, that study you and are aware of your weaknesses and come after you with certain thoughts that lead you toward sin. So that's the devil. The World We also have the world. We studied some of that in the Bible for Life class I was teaching where there's that evil world system that's filled with alluring tempting things, tempting us toward a love of possessions of money, a love of pleasure, sexual pleasure, other types of pleasures, love of power and prestige. Those things that the world offers, that evil world system, Satan's masterpiece, is around us at all times constantly beckoning us and drawing us. The Flesh And then the enemy within: The flesh, sin nature, we have within us the seeds of our own destruction. And Paul talks about it very clearly in Romans 7, he says there "I do not understand what I do." There's a basic irrationality, a basic insanity to sin. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." And then he says, "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out." So I see this law at work in my mind and heart, which is to love God and to follow Him. But I see another law at work in my members making me a prisoner of a law of sin at work within my members, drawing me away from righteousness. "What a wretched man I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God." Some day we'll be delivered. But right now, we're not yet delivered and so we have to fight the flesh, and the flesh is the enemy within which gets up in the middle of the night and opens the gate to the outside enemies and connects with them. And so, there is both the external pulling of temptation, Satan prompting us, but then James said, "Each one is tempted when by his own desire he is dragged away and enticed." So there's an evil partnership between Satan in the world on the outside, and then us on the inside and we partner to achieve sin. So that's what we're talking about, temptation. Temptation: A Magnetic Pull So what is it, what is temptation? Well, for me as an ex-mechanical engineer, I tend to think of it like a magnetic pull, like a magnet, it's this invisible force on me. I remember when I was an engineer, I worked in semiconductor manufacturer, and we had these things called permanent magnets. Samarium-cobalt magnet, rare earth magnets 250 to 500 times stronger than a refrigerator magnet. This thing was amazing, it was a fun toy. You could do things with this magnet, like you could put it on one side of a wall, and stick paper clips, paper clips would just stick to the wall because the magnetic force was going right through the drywall. If you held it in your hand, you just take a paper clip, and throw it within about a five to seven-foot radius and it'll go, thunk, right to that magnet. It was awesome. Until you put it near your wallet and all your credit cards interacted with the magnetic flux lines, and the next time you tried to use it, gone, what a mystery. I shouldn't tell this, but I wrote a note to my roommate Paul, his name was Paul, "Very important that you," whatever, and covered it up with this magnet. He couldn't move it. And we both had to push as hard as we could to slide it to the edge of the refrigerator to pry it off. Strong magnet. So that's what we are in, we are in a magnetic pull that's outside of us, that corresponds to, I don't know, iron inside our souls in this analogy that connects and draws us off the path. So none of us is driving a straight path to heaven, but we're very swervey and crooked in the way we drive because we're constantly being pulled by temptations. So that's what it is. A magnetic pull, Satan has the power to get into our brains and pull us toward him. Let me give you some scenarios. Imagine somebody who had struggled in the past with alcoholism, struggled with drunkenness, comes to faith in Christ, is forgiven of all of his sins, but knows he now has a battle on his hands, he's gotta stop drinking. And so he's very serious about that. He put some distance between himself and his last drink. But one day he is driving home and there's a club where he used to go and there are people in there. He saw somebody going in there, he recognized him and he, as he's driving feels a pull to pull into the parking lot and go in. There's a pull on his heart and he's got to think certain things. Now, that pull wouldn't be there for maybe 90% plus of you, not there for me, but for him it's a pull and he feels it and he's got a fight and he starts to sweat, his heart rate goes up, he feels something pulling on him because of his past habits. So, that's temptation. We could think about a scenario that I myself sadly have gone through, get into a marital conflict. You're in a conflict, and as you're saying some things, you're getting heated up. And then suddenly something pops in your mind to say, and if you're not careful, you might say it. And that the weird thing is you don't even believe that it's true. It's not really you, but you didn't have the discernment at that moment because of your carnal anger, you're handed a weapon that isn't even from you and it says clearly in 2 Timothy 2, that the devil can take us captive to do his will, temporarily even. And so you can actually hurl something that is going to be very, very hard to unsay. And you're like, "Where did that come from? Where did those words come from?" It comes from an invisible spiritual force that's surrounding you and handing you concepts and if you're not careful, you'll have a lot of healing in that relationship to go through because you said something that was so hurtful. So it's just constantly a battle, we've got to fight these things. And so, this is of the essence of the Christian life. Romans Chapter 8 depicts the life of the Spirit versus the life of the flesh. It goes in, in Romans 8, to talking about the mind of the flesh which is death and the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace, and it's just two different ways to live: The Christian life, the non-Christian life. And then he brings the Roman Christians to this clear statement, Romans 8:13 and 14, he says there, "If you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Because those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God." So that's vital. If you live that life of the flesh, the mind of the flesh, and the lifestyle of the flesh, you're going to die and go to hell. You're going to be living in death now, spiritual death now, and it's going to be confirmed on Judgment Day, by the dreadful words Jesus speaks "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels", what the Bible calls the second death. If you live that kind of life, you will die that death. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. There's just two different ways to live. So don't be deceived. That life of the Spirit is a life of warfare, it's a life of battle, you're never going to get away from it while you live in this world. And you have to, you have to, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the body. And if you do, you will live. Because, you can almost put the word "only" in there, only those who are lead like this by the Spirit into battle are the children of God. If you are not battling sin by the Spirit, you're not a child of God, do not be deceived. And so this is the warfare that we're in. On the Mortification of Sin John Owen, in the 17th century, Puritan theologian, wrote On the Mortification of Sin, the putting to death of sin in believers. He had some powerful things to say, he said, "The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depend on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh." You will be weak therefore, powerless and comfortless in your Christian life, if you do not vigorously mortify sin. He said, "You must mortify, you must make it your daily work, you must be constantly at it while you live. Cease not a day from this work. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you." That's very clear, isn't it? We have got to fight sin by the power of the Spirit. II. Eternal Vigilance the Price of Freedom And so from the text, verse 12, it gives us this idea of a constant vigilance needed. Maybe you've heard about this statement that we need to be aware of the sin all the time. Now, he says, "If you think you're standing firm, take heed, lest ye fall." Let's try to understand the context. Paul is addressing for three chapters 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10, he is addressing the problem of meat sacrificed to idols, the lifestyle of paganism that the Corinthians had been living before. Alright, so it was a pagan city with pagan temples that offered animals in sacrifice to false gods and goddesses. And they combined that animal sacrifice with sexual immorality, with temple prostitutes, male and female, and that combination of eating delicious foods and sexual immorality was very powerful. It was alluring all over the world, it was very powerful there in Corinth. People worshipped these false gods and goddesses by having immoral relations with the temple prostitutes and by eating delicious meat. Then Paul came and preached the Gospel in that dark city and he resolved to know nothing while he was with them, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He preached that Jesus Christ has died on the cross for sins, for sinners like you and me, and God raised Him from the dead. And if you repent of your sins and trust in Christ, you'll be forgiven. And many Corinthians came out of that darkness and came to faith in Christ. And he organized them in this church, the church of the Corinthians. And as it turns out, there was an issue concerning, ongoing eating of meat at the temple or in the marketplace. What should we do? And some of the Corinthian Christians had understood the doctrine that there is only one God, and that gods and goddesses don't really exist and idols are nothing, they're just chunks of wood or metal or stone. And that meat is just meat and Jesus had declared all foods clean, so they were just living freely, and eating whatever they wanted. And in their freedom, they were dragging down some brothers and sisters who weren't quite there yet in their minds, who are weak in their consciences. And Paul gave a basic principle. He doesn't say it literally like this, but this is what we've been saying. Love limits liberty. Your freedom is limited by your love for your brothers and sisters. So just because you have the freedom to do something, don't do it if it's going to hurt your brother or sister. Then Paul gave himself in chapter 9 as an example of someone who lives like that. He didn't take money for preaching the Gospel, though he had the right, he limited his liberty. And then in terms of evangelism, if he went to a Gentile home, he became like a Gentile, in amoral things, in whatever way he could, what he ate, how he dressed, how he acted in amoral things, he became like a gentile to win the Gentiles. If he went to a Jewish home, he became like a Jew to win the Jews, he became all things to all people. So by all possible means, he might save some. And so just in general, he didn't worry about what he liked, what foods he enjoyed eating. He kept himself under control. He beat his own body and made his body like a slave, so that he could be maximally fruitful for the Gospel, but also, so that he wouldn't be disqualified for the prize. He had to watch himself. Like, "Paul you were never a pagan. You never got involved with idols and with temple prostitutes," he would stop and say just... Do you have any idea what a problem that was in Jewish history? What the Canaanite religion was about? What led Jewish men into wickedness? Don't you know our history? And so he goes right into the history of the Jews, he said, "It was because of idolatry and sexual immorality, that that generation of Jews that went through the Red Sea, never made it in the Promised Land. Don't you learn the lesson from that?" We've got to be vigilant over our own souls. And so, he's dealing with idolatry. So look what he says, "Therefore, if anyone thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall." I'm speaking to you strong ones, you got the doctrine all figured out, you know, you better watch out. You may be just one step from relapsing back into paganism. You think you're standing firm, take heed lest you fall. Now, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man." There are common temptations here, but God is faithful, He's not going to let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, with the temptation He's going to make the way of escape, so you can bear up under it. But then look at verse 14. We didn't read it this morning but go ahead, "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry." You see the context here, what he's saying. They are still in danger, even the strong ones among them. So that's the context. So if you think you're standing firm, take heed, watch lest you fall. At the entrance to the National Archives Building in Washington DC, there's an inscription in marble, it says this, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." So above that inscription, is a statue of a scary-looking warrior holding a helmet and a sword, ready to fight. Outside the National Archives in Washington DC. Many people think that Thomas Jefferson said it, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Actually, it was said by an Irish orator and politician John Philpot Curran, he said in Dublin 1790, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance." Now they're talking about political liberty in a world surrounded by military enemies and nations that want to come and take what you have. Well, you need to be on the walls, in your free world, on the walls all the time and be vigilant, because we have enemies and we got to watch. Well, if that's true, militarily and politically, how much more true is it for us as Christians? You want to be free in Christ, Christ has set you free, you're free from the condemnation of your sins, there is no condemnation for you, because you're in Christ Jesus. Great, Christ has set you free from condemnation, He set you free from sin itself. You are no longer a slave to sin, He's set you free from sin, so you're free. Well, if you think that you're free, you better be vigilant over sin, if you want to stay free and not go back into the chains of sin and wickedness. So if you think you're standing firm, you better take heed lest you fall. So what does that mean, to take heed? Take heed, literally, the Greek word is just be watchful, you better watch, be vigilant, watch, watch yourself, watch your temptations, watch your life, watch your behavior, find out what's happening, what habits are growing in your life, how are you living, what's actually going on, watch. Like Jesus said to Peter and James and John in Gethsemane, watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation. Spirit is willing, but the body is weak. So your enemy, the devil, is prowling around looking for someone to devour, you got to be alert every single day. III. The Worldwide Experience of Temptation For the Corinthians, getting into their world, it'd be just walking by the temple, they're just walking by and they can smell that meat, and then they see a temple prostitute, maybe they've interacted with multiple times before. And maybe she sees him, he sees her and she might call out to him, siren call to his own destruction, he's just got to walk on by. She even probably knows he's claiming to be a Christian now, and she's got special focus on him at that particular moment. But for us it's different, we don't struggle like that, we have our own struggles. Perhaps the allure of internet pornography, never been easier. Because of these smartphones that just deliver the world to your eyeballs instantly all the time, 24/7. We've got to look at that alluring call. Maybe it's the enticing call of a worldly prosperous life and material prosperity. And so you're being enticed toward materialism. Maybe it's an addiction to electronic games, maybe you just spend a lot of your time playing or entertaining yourself with movies and just living for that. Might be some other sin habit, overeating, oversleeping, maybe it's procrastination. Watch and pray, watch and pray, watch and pray. Maybe it's gossip, phone rings, friend on the other end of the phone, and you begin talking to this friend, and you're having a good conversation, but someone else comes up and you know that your friend, you and this friend have had a habit in the past of gossiping, of laying people low, of making yourself feel better because you're not like that. And you've become aware of that pattern in your life, and now, it's time to put an end to it, and say, "You know... Tell you what, why don't we pray for that person?" Or something. You're just going to have some new habit, but you got to watch and pray that you'll not go down a path you've been down so many times before, big sins and little sins. Perhaps it's complaining. What's your commute like these days? Mine's getting harder. I don't know if you've noticed that, and we've got the population of this area is just growing and growing and growing. And I used to have a way to get where I wanted to go that seemed like very few people knew about. Not anymore, they know. And so I've found myself more irritable while driving than I remember. It's starting to... There are some irritating moments that come. Everybody, it seems either they're too fast or too slow. I don't understand that. But there I am and I find myself complaining, or complaining about anything. Do you have that pattern of discontent in your life, where you just are complaining about something at least once a day? And it's like, the time has come to say no to that temptation. So if you think you're standing firm, you better watch lest you fall back into sin. Now, this temptation is a worldwide experience, it's not something we face alone. Look again at Verse 13. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man," temptations we face every day are common around the world, there's nothing unusual about you, or us. It's not some new menu that he's got, that Satan's got to concoct in every generation, same thing, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, boastful pride of life, every generation, it works, he's not very creative. It's just effective, these lusts, they work. And so the temptations we face are common to man, it's common to everybody. IV. God’s Faithfulness in Filtering our Temptations But God is faithful in filtering our temptations. Look what he says, "God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear." This is so marvelous, the faithfulness of God in all of this. It isn't just Satan and his demons that are studying you, God knows you better than you know yourself, and He knows you better than Satan knows you. And He will not allow you to be handed over to your enemy, to be tempted however the devil wants to tempt you, He's not going to permit it. Like in the hymn, How Firm A Foundation, listen to these words, "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake." That's the faithfulness of God. He is more committed to your final salvation than you are. We already heard 1 Thessalonians 5 earlier, I think it was Brian that cited it. 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24, says, "May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it." So God is faithful concerning your temptations, He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. He's faithful even concerning your sins, your failures. Satan baits a hook, drops it in the water, looks good and you bite. You know you're hooked, you know you've sinned, the Holy Spirit convicts you, you get on your knees, you ask forgiveness. "If we confess our sins," 1 John 1:9, "He is faithful,and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So like I do, I was working the image. So we're fish, we've swallowed a hook, what do we do now? Does he cut the line, does he get the hook out? It's more complicated than that, where you've been hooked before you can be hooked again. Maybe the line's still there, but you can still... You still are swimming. And he is teaching you how to get the hook out of your throat. This is complex. I would suggest don't swallow the hook to begin with. Because once you start bad habits, it's so hard to break them, but God is faithful and He will forgive you, whenever you take that baited hook, but He's also faithful to filter your temptations, and that's so powerful. When we first moved into our house in Bahama, we're on a well, still on a well system, and we had no water filter for our well. I had never heard of a whole house water filter, so for a period of time, we drank water from our well. Then I heard about whole house water filters, and so I put one in and I'll never forget the first time I changed the cartridge. Now, that was a bad moment for me. It was nasty. And all of this sludge was there caught by the filter. Now, the filter has a membrane, and it allows water to pass through, but not the impurities. So I want you to picture the filter that God has set around you, He will not allow certain temptations in. God knows our weaknesses, it says in Psalm 139:1, "Oh Lord, You have searched me and You know me," he says in Psalm 103:14, "He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust." He knows there are some temptations that would destroy you, and He won't let them come. You would fail and it would ruin your world, and He won't let it happen. So what that means is the tempter Satan is on a leash of some sort, he's limited. And we see this in Job chapter 1 and 2, don't we? How Satan has to come and ask permission. And he's frustrated, satanic frustration. I can't get at him, because you put a hedge around him and everything he has, remember that? That's what we mean by He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. He puts a wall of protection around us. And then the Lord lifts some of that protection, and Satan can get at him, and he assaults Job's possessions, everything he has, and kills all of his children in one day, one dreadful day. So in Job's case, the temptations were massive, far greater than you will ever face in your life. That's the godliness of Job. Case of others, He knows how weak we are, and He will not let Satan do what he would do in your life. He's on a leash. Pilgrim's Progress there's this image as he's walking along the path, Christian is walking, and he sees two lions on either side of the path, and he's terrified and he's frozen. Doesn't know what to do. But then a guide on the other side of the lions said, "Do not worry, the lions are leased, they're on a chain, you can't see it, if you stay on the path they cannot harm you. So that's the allegorical picture of Satan on a leash, he's limited. So what does that mean for you? Well, whatever temptations do come your way, what can you say about it? God allowed it to come, and He wants you to kill it. You can never say in a combination of temptations bringing you or your family through immense trial, say, "I can't handle this," it's just not true. God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. Also, if you should fall in one of those temptation to sin, it is your fault. You need to take responsibility and own up to it. But overall, isn't it comforting to know that God is faithful in this sense, and He won't allow you to be tempted, and you're going to make it through successful in this world. To me, that's the comfort of this verse. V. Standing Firm by Escaping So how then do we handle it, how do we stand firm? Look what it says, "God is faithful, and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, He will also provide a way of escape, so that you may be able to bear it" or stand firm under it. We are called to stand firm, we're called to take our stand on Christ, and to still stand. And so in Ephesians 6:10-13, it's in there four times, stand, stand firm, stand firm then, stand firm therefore, it's just very clear, we are to stand. So like a warrior fighting a battle, don't fall into sin. That's the image. Well, how do we bear up under it? Well, when the temptation comes, you just say no, by the power of the Spirit, there's nothing else for it. And it says in Titus 2, that the grace of God has come, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled and upright lives in this present age. We are to say no to that temptation. And look for God's way of escape. It's like, "Oh God, get me out of here. Get me out of here, find the door, find the escape, get out. Like Joseph with Potiphar's wife. He left his cloak and ran for his life. So there's a strange image here, standing by running, standing by escaping. So this is how I put it together. The way of escape is given, the net is laid for your feet. But you never fell in it. You escaped it, you were able to get around it, or to circumvent it, or the ditch that Satan dug for you, you didn't fall in. And now you're still standing in Jesus. You like Jesus entered the temptation filled with the Spirit went into the desert, and He left it filled with the Spirit, that's your goal. So every time temptation comes pulling on your heart, your goal is to say no, to resist and to flee. VI. Applications Alright, so what applications can we take from this? Well, first, I need to say that to any of you that came here today outside of Christ, you're not yet a Christian, call in this text is not for you to fight temptation, the call here is come to Christ. You cannot defeat sin apart from Christ. And you've already fallen into temptation, you're already condemned, you're under the law. The only hope for you is to flee to Christ. Jesus died on the cross for sinners like you and me who have failed and who will sadly continue to fail. Flee to Christ, and His death on the cross is God's only provision for our guilt, and His resurrection from the dead on the third day is His only provision for the energy and power by which we lead a holy life. Come to Christ. All you have to do is trust in Him, turn away from your temptations, away from your sins, and call on the name of the Lord, and you will be saved. And if that happens to you, then you have to heed this advice. So what do I say to you Christians? First, prepare for battle, do not expect an easy journey to heaven. Prepare to suffer, Jesus suffered when He was tempted, prepare to suffer when you are tempted. Think of what Jesus said to Peter, "Watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation." Let me give you some specific elements, 10 of them, and I'll finish this sermon with this. First of all, understand the eternal stakes of this battle. If you live according to the flesh, you'll die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you'll live. Eternity is at stake. Now, we're not saved by our sanctification, we're not saved by how well we fight, but if you don't fight you were never justified. Secondly, understand the mysterious partnership between you and the Spirit. You by the Spirit have to put to death the deeds of the body. You have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is working in you to will and to act according to His good purpose, it is by the Spirit alone you can fight temptation. Thirdly, as I've said, take personal responsibility. You by the Spirit have to put to death to deeds of the flesh. If you fail, it's not the Spirit's fault. So you need to take responsibility for your sins and for your temptations. You must mortify, you must make it your daily work, you must be constantly at it while you live. "Cease not a day from this work, be killing sin or sin will be killing you," John Owen. And so, therefore, fourthly, understand this is a relentless marathon, it's not a sprint, you're going to be in this fight from now until the day you die. Don't expect a day off, don't expect when you go on vacation that the world, the flesh and the devil will leave, you'll leave them behind. You might have to fight more, no, wait a minute, you probably will have to fight more on vacation then you do ordinarily, the flesh will be maybe more active. There's no day off from this, it's a marathon. Fifth, understand the role of Scripture. Jesus fought all of His temptations the same way, "It is written, it is written, it is written." So saturate your mind in Scripture, memorize specific scriptures that will help you in your weak areas. Psalm 119:9-11 says, "How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word… Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You." Give the Holy Spirit a flashing sword with which to fight your specific sins by memorizing. Sixth, understand that specific sins, categorical sins, can never be killed. No alcoholic will ever be able to say I know I will never sin in the area of alcoholism again. No one who is addicted to internet pornography will ever reach a point in his life where they say, "I know I'll never sin or fall in that place again, that sin has been mercifully removed," you cannot say that. But you can and must kill specific temptations from those sins. Seventh, kill temptation by being full of Christ, by the Spirit. So be filled with the power of Christ, be filled. It's not just negative, it's positive. Be filled with the Spirit, be filled with the joy of the Lord, be filled with the fact that you're going to heaven, be filled with all of the great gifts that God has given you. It's very hard to tempt full people. Jeremiah Burroughs, in his Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment said, "A contented Christian is as hard to tempt as an iron wall attacked by flaming arrows," so picture yourself as an iron wall and all of the flaming arrows of temptation just fall harmlessly, why? Because you're so filled with the Christian life, so filled with Christ. Eighth, make sin personal with Christ. What that means is, understand Jesus is behind all of His laws, the call to sexual purity, the call to mental purity, Jesus is behind each of them. Do you remember when Peter fell into the temptation of denying Jesus three times, then the rooster crowed? In Luke's gospel, just at that moment Jesus was passing by and He looked Peter right in the eyes. I would guess Peter would say, at the end of his life, he who was crucified upside down, Peter, would say, "That was the most painful moment of my life. When Jesus looked me right in the eye, right after that rooster crowed." And Peter went outside and wept bitterly, and then after the resurrection He asked him three times, "Peter, do you love me?" And that was painful to him. Some day, 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, you're going to have to give Jesus an account for everything you did in the body, whether good or bad. Realize that now. Make it very personal between you and Jesus, say, "Jesus I don't want to fail you, I want to please You today, so fill me with Your Spirit. Ninth, accountability in a healthy church. If you're not a member of a healthy church, I actually know a healthy church that I would commend to you for membership. But if not this one, be in a healthy church, where you can live out a commitment to watch over one another in brotherly love. Hebrews 3:13 says, "Encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." Home fellowships are going to start next Sunday evening, not this... Not tonight, we got the picnic tonight, but a week from now, home fellowships are going to start. Make your home fellowship experience more spiritual than you've ever made it before. In your prayer times ask for prayer, ask for help with things you're actually struggling with, be honest with people, find accountability partners, men with men, women with women. You can pair off and pray for each other. And then finally, saturate your minds with the fact that you're going to be in Heaven some day and you won't sin at all, you are going to win, you're going to win. Some day, all of the sins you struggle with will lie dead at your feet. So rejoice in that and trust in that for the glory of God. Close with me in prayer.

Running The Marathon So, turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians Chapter 9, we resume now series in 1 Corinthians. So we've been walking through this incredible book. Pretty much all my life I've been fascinated by the longest race that there is, the marathon. I know there's ultra marathons, but I don't even know what to think about people that run 50 miles or 100 miles, that's in a whole other category. But the marathon has always been fascinating to me. Perhaps that's because I lived in Framingham, and it was the 6 mile mark, basically the 10K mark of the Boston Marathon, one of the most famous marathons in the world. And for free, you could watch that race, you just go downtown, Framingham. I could ride on my bike down there and stand with the crowd and watch some of the best athletes in the world just run by and for free, you got to see them for about 1.5 seconds, as they went right by, and there they went. So there you can see some of the best marathoners in the world and then you could stand and see some of the not best marathoners in the world that would run by you and that was kind of exciting. I remember at Wellesley College, where my sisters went to college, that was later in the race, and that was heading towards something called Heartbreak Hill. And I've never run a marathon, I ran cross-country growing up, the longest I ever competed was 25K, which is about a little short of 16 miles, that was long enough, but people... And they've been members of our church that I just hold in high esteem that have run the 26.2 miles, incredible. But I'm told that psychologically how it feels, the race is about half over at the 20 mile mark. That last six miles takes a level of dedication, a level, let's be honest, of suffering that is hard to even fully understand if you've never competed in that race. And it just so happens in the Boston Marathon, there's a series of three hills right at the 20 mile mark, from small to medium to the largest, it goes in that order. And people for some reason, line-up along Heartbreak Hill to watch them fall like flies. I really think a lot of the spectators there are to watch failure. I don't know what it is, but they're there to watch people drop out of the race. Others will say, no, not at all. We're there to encourage and say, you can make it. It's all downhill from here. But that's Heartbreak Hill. And so, for me, I have an attraction, a fascination to the level of dedication, the level of suffering it takes to run that race, and I follow the best in the world. And the records now are incredible. The best marathon in the world right now is a Kenyan named Eliud Kipchoge and he is training, he's in training right now to break the two-hour mark in the marathon. Some of you will just knowing that will be aghast that that is even possible. This man runs on average every mile faster than my best mile time. I ran one mile at a certain time, he runs every mile three seconds faster than that one race, so I couldn't keep up with him for one mile at my best, and that was when I was a lot younger. But this guy runs 4:38 a mile and just fast for every mile. And the training, the level of training that goes into that, it's been a lifetime of preparation, the culture in Kenya is a running culture different than we have here. They use it as transportation to get from place to place. This man runs an average of 110 to 120 miles a week in training and he never takes a day off. And the level of training is almost staggering. Now, that's true of every Olympic athlete, everyone that competes at a high level in a sport has to put in that level of dedication, of self-denial, of sacrifice to succeed in his or her sport, whatever it is, figure skating, skeet shooting, running, anything requires that level of dedication. Now, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 uses that image, which was familiar to them back then, to urge all Christians to a similar pattern of self-denial for the glory of God, for the running of the race right to the end, to the upward calling of God, the heavenly prize in Christ Jesus. And in our day and age of constant alluring bodily temptations, of a lifestyle that tends toward comfort, and ease, we need to hear this call so that we can make progress in both the internal journey of holiness and the external journey of Gospel advanced through evangelism and missions. Both of those journeys kind of come together and meet in this text and this is a call on all of us to run. As a matter of fact, simply there is one command in this text, one imperative, run. In Verse 24, expanding a bit, so run or run in such a way that you may obtain it, that you may obtain the prize that's a command. The rest of it is just Paul using himself as an example on how we have to run. So this is a command to exertion, to self-denial for all of us, for the heavenly prize. And there is no better coach to yell at us than the Apostle Paul. There is no better drill instructor to come alongside us and give us the exhortations that we need to run this race with endurance. Now, here we have to just be cautioned a bit, because this is one of the most challenging passages in the Bible in terms of self-denial and discipline. And we need to understand salvation properly to understand this passage properly, we need to understand justification and sanctification and glorification, these stages of salvation properly. We need to understand that justification, the beginning of the Christian life, it starts with forgiveness of sin, the atonement of our sins, reconciliation with God, whereby we sinners are made right with a Holy God, and we are declared righteous, that is morally perfect in His sight, not by our own exertions, not by our own works but by simple faith in Christ. By His exertions, by his works, culminating in His death on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead, by that we are saved, not by our own exertions, not by our own running. We just need to know that again and again, it's so hard for us sinners to believe that, that we are forgiven by grace through faith in Christ alone. But having been forgiven, having begun the Christian life, we are then called on to run a race with endurance, and we're called on to run it to the very end, and the race from justification till death, or the second coming of Christ is called sanctification, a progressive growth in Christ-likeness through putting sin to death, and through habits of holiness that we acquire and development of Christian character, a Christian mindset that's the rest of the Christian life, and that takes exertion. It takes us denying ourselves, it takes us running a race with endurance, that's what we're talking about here. A race run to the end. And then glorification happens at the end of our lives, either at our own death or at the second coming of Christ, whereby in an instant we are made perfect and fit for Heaven, body, soul, and spirit, we are in every way conformed to Christ, that's the end of our salvation. And in that we will spend eternity radiantly glorious. Now if you don't understand salvation that way, this text could easily be misunderstood, you could be exhorted strongly and instead of being motivated you might be moved to despair, because you're comparing yourself to, other than Christ, I think probably the greatest spiritual runner there's ever been in the Apostle Paul. And it's easy to look at him and look at his level of dedication, his level of holiness, his level of sacrifice for the Gospel and say, I can't measure up to that and to give up and that's the very thing Paul's working against. He wants you to run, to run in such a way that you obtain the prize. And so, we need to understand that very plainly. I. Giving Up Rights and Privileges for the Sake of the Gospel So, Paul is calling on us to give up rights and privileges for the sake of the Gospel. Let's look at the context. It's been months since we looked at 1 Corinthians. So I just want to remind you where we're at in this incredible book. Paul is writing, he planted the church in Corinth. It was a gifted church, brothers and sisters in Christ, he loved them dearly, but they were pretty severely dysfunctional in a lot of levels. And so, he's got to address a bunch of topics, and we're in the middle of a bunch of topics that he's addressed. And in Chapters 8 through 10, in that three Chapter section he's addressing, big picture, the problem of their pagan religion, idolatry and the issues specifically of meat sacrificed to idols, and what Christians should do about that difficult topic. And so, it's really three chapters of a complex answer to that question. So what was happening in Chapter 8 is the more doctrinally mature Corinthian Christians understood from the preaching, understood from the Word of God, that idols are nothing, stone, wood, metal, they're nothing. There's no reality there, that the pagan religion is nothing, that there is only one God, and that meat is just meat, it can't catch a spiritual disease and that Christ is declared all foods clean, and therefore we can eat whatever we want. But the problem was, they were flaunting their freedoms in such a way that other more not so doctrinally mature Christians were being harmed, their consciences were being violated, they were being led astray by these more mature knowledgeable Christians. Basic Principle: Love Limits Liberty when it comes to evangelism And so, Paul gives them a very clear principle in Chapter 8 Love limits liberty. It's not all about your freedoms, what you get to do, what you want to do, but you need to look around at the consequences, and people are watching you and you need to care about your brothers and sisters, and just because you can eat and it doesn't damage you, what about people who are watching you? And so, he's addressing that, and so, if you love your brothers and sisters, you need to care what they're thinking, as they watch you. And then he uses himself as an example, of how love limited his own liberties. In Chapter 9 he talked about money being paid for ministry. And he said, I have the right to receive a salary for preaching the Gospel, the Lord has ordained that those who preach the Gospel should make their living from the Gospel. But I don't use that right. I don't take any money for my church planting, so I have that freedom to do that, but I don't use it. And then he goes beyond that, and broadens it, and he says, Actually, I turn my back on all of my freedoms. When it comes to food and cultural things and personal preferences to the Jews. I became like a Jews to win the Jews, so I ate the foods they ate, I kind of fit into the Jewish culture to win the Jews to the pagans to the gentiles, the Greeks to those not having the law. I became like one not having a law. Not in immorality, not all, but in cultural issues that separated the Jews from Gentiles, I just became like a gentile to win the Gentiles. I become all things to all people. So by all possible means, I might save some and I do this so that I might share in the benefits of the Gospel, I want a fruitful harvest. And so that's the context here. And the basic principle is love limits liberty when it comes here, first and foremost, linking it backward linking it here, love limits liberty when it comes to evangelism and missions. If you want to be fruitful in winning lost people you're going to have to deny yourself at some level, you're going to have to say no to what you prefer. If you live for your personal preferences in food and clothing, and culture and lifestyle you're not going to have a very fruitful life as an evangelist, or a missionary, you will not have much fruit. So if you ask Paul, Paul which do you prefer? Jewish food, or Gentile food? He would answer. I prefer whatever food would be maximally fruitful, for the Gospel at that moment. That's what I prefer. He would answer that way. Reminds me of something that George Mueller, the great leader in caretaking 1000 orphans in 19th century England, just a godly man, godly pastor, a man of faith, George Mueller, he said this though, this incredible statement, he made, "There was a day I died, utterly died to George Mueller, to his opinions, preferences, tastes and will, died to the world, its approval or censure, died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and my friends. And since that day I have studied only to show myself approved unto God." Intensely vertical, but first and foremost, started with himself. I died to me. I died to George Mueller, I died to what I prefer day-by-day. We all have preferences, we all have taste, we all have desires, stuff we like. Everybody does, that's God gave us those tastes and desires, those amoral pleasures, those are part of the richness of life that God's given us and He wants us to enjoy those amoral diverse pleasures and give glory to God. But if you make an idol of those things, if they become uppermost in your own affections then you will not have much fruit to show when it comes to winning others. Patrick Lai, who wrote a book on tent making, which is using business for mission, spoke of the food issue for himself when it came to missions. This is what he wrote: "In seminary, we learned the slogan, 'Where He leads I will follow, what He feeds I will swallow.' Food is a major issue, many argue that eating the local cuisine is not a big deal. But consider, if foreigners came to your country and if they rejected your national dishes how would you feel? As Americans, perhaps if we invite an international for a Thanksgiving dinner and they say, they hate turkey, and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, are we likely to invite them again the next year? To reject a person's food is to reject the person. Having grown up in a Midwestern American city, I never ate spicy food, but when we moved to Asia, I quickly realized that the people there loved hot chili peppers, on almost every dish. So what did I do? Stop eating? No. I simply trained myself to eat spicy food by going out and eating the hottest food I could find for several weeks. It was hard, I hated it, I felt sick to my stomach. However within a month, my taste buds adjusted, and my body adapted. Nowadays, I truly enjoy spicy food." Honestly, all over the world. Missionaries face these kinds of challenges. For me as some of you know, going to Japan, the problem was seafood, and I'm not changing. God gave me a special dispensation of grace for two years, and I prayed for it and God gave me the ability to actually enjoy Sashimi. Now, Sashimi, let me tell you something, it's not sushi, that's little bits of fish surrounded by other things, so you can survive that fine, but Sashimi is like a T-bone steak, of uncooked fish flesh with nowhere to hide right there on the plate. And I'll never forget the first time I sat at a restaurant, a Japanese man wanted to honor me for some things we had done in his house, we had helped them out in the missionary, we'd done some things, and he wanted to thank us and he thanked me with a bunch of raw fish flesh and there it was, and I said, Where now is the God of Elijah? So I said Please don't leave me now. But then I came to find out that Sashimi is super fresh in Japan, I would not advocate truck stop Sashimi here in the US. Not a good idea. But in Japan super fresh and almost flavorless. Pretty close to flavorless. Never bothered me that it wasn't cooked. What I liked was the Wasabi and the sudachi that you could dip it in. And the flavor of that sauce was good and it was a good... So for two years I enjoyed that. However, I never got so far as to enjoy what they call tako. It's not Mexican tacos, it's octopus. And the suction cups and the chewy demeanor, it's the gift that just keeps on giving. You can just enjoy tako for a long time. I never got used to it, and so I guess I wasn't there long enough. Patrick Lai would say, "That means you need to eat tako every day for a month and then you'll love it." The issue here, friends, is bigger than food. How much are you willing to be inconvenienced? To be put at a personal disadvantage for the sake of others? How are you willing to limit your liberties? You have the right to eat whatever you want, fine, but are you willing to give up that right for the sake of winning others? If we continue to stay safe in our bubbles of personal preference and comfort, choosing what we eat, what we watch, what music we like, what climate is best, what clothing looks best on us, if honestly, we live a life of me, we will not have much to show on judgment day, in terms of the Gospel. And we Americans are used to one of the highest standards of living in the world. We're used to air conditioning and central heat, we're used to very comfortable beds with something called a Sleep Number. I've heard, I've never used it, but you can dial in your personal comfort number, I guess, and then we're used to that. We're used to electronic entertainment. We're used to being continually connected with the rest of the world through wifi. We're used to personal transportation in America, especially the automobile to get in and go wherever you want at any points of the compass. Whenever you want. We're used to that. We're used to top-notch medical care, We're used to 911 in case we're in trouble, medical emergency and people will come and help us, We're used to roads that are almost continually worked on, so that there are not the kinds of pot holes that I've experienced in other countries. The types of damaged under the road that the government doesn't have the resources to continually repair. But we are used to a high level of treatment of the roads. We're used to credit card swipers, and chip readers and Walmart that has basically almost any physical thing you could want. And if it doesn't, Amazon Prime will bring it even faster than Walmart. And we're used to that lifestyle. Most of the world doesn't live that way. If we're going to be fruitful in global missions, we have to give up those kinds of preferences, and beyond that just within our own American culture as well. If we want to meet non-Christians, if we want to befriend them, get to know what's involved in their lives, you're going to have to make sacrifices. You're going to have to do things that you do not prefer to do. You have to open your home in hospitality. You have to do your hobbies, perhaps with other people, with non-Christians. You have to just change your lifestyle. If you just stayed within the Christian bubble you'll only know Christians and you won't be very impactful for eternity. And so you have to make habits, you have to make life choices for the sake of the Gospel. And if you decide to use your time, your energy, your money, your life for the sake of eternity, to as Jesus said, win friends for the gospel. He talks about winning friends in Luke 16:9. If you do that, you'll take up an entirely different way of thinking about your life. II. What is the Race? And Paul likens the sacrifices needed here, to running in a race. And he reaches for an image that the Corinthians would have been very familiar with. Look at verse 24, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." So what is the race? The cultural context there was something called the Isthmian Games. There were two ancient games of competition back then, we're very familiar with the Olympic Games that were centered in Athens, but the Isthmian Games were centered in Corinth the second most popular and well-known in Ancient Greece and they included many contests, like chariot races, running, boxing, feats of strength, and he chooses two of the images from the Isthmian Games, running and boxing, and he uses it here in this text as well, and the Central Command, he gives here is run. You should run, run this race run in such a way that you may win that you can obtain the prize. He says, Everyone competes, but only one gets the prize. Run in such a way that you get the prize. That's what he's saying, he's appealing to their competitive nature, a desire for excellence and achievement. Now, if I want to stop and pause and just say for a moment, what's amazing is as I've meditated about heaven and rewards, I have come to realize we are going to celebrate other people's rewards as though they were our own, that we are going to be so one so that in 1 Corinthians 12:24, it says, If one part of the body is honored, the whole body is honored with it. So we're not in competition actually with each other. If we were, I wouldn't be preaching the sermon I'd keep my secrets to myself on how I'm planning on running the race, and you all are just on your own. But I believe that my reward is wrapped up in yours and that the more I help you be rich on Judgment Day, the better for me as well, I will celebrate your rewards, you'll celebrate mine, we will be so set free from me in heaven, we will just be celebrating each other's honors. And so there is a competitive aspect here but we're not actually competing against each other, we're competing against a common enemy, the world, the flesh, the devil, that's what we're all competing against, not against each other. So we should help each other be as rich as possible, in rewards. Now, what is the race? Well, in this context as we follow his train of thought right up into 24-27, these verses the context here seems to be evangelistic or missions. Winning lost people, becoming all things to all people. So that by all possible means, we might save some. So saving lost people. That's what's in Paul's mind. And he says, uses this language in Acts 20-24. "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given to me, the task of testifying to the Gospel of God's grace." So Paul considers his Evangelistic mission to be a race that he's running, and he's challenging the Corinthians to run as well. However, the whole Christian life in other scriptures, is presented similarly as a race to be run. Paul says at the end of his own life, in 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." And it's very similar. The fighting and running analogy is just like in our text here. He's talking about his own Christian life, he's reached the end of his Christian life. And then more openly, the author to Hebrews says, plainly in Hebrews 12, "Since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with endurance the race marked out before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith." So there the whole Christian life is a race and we're called on to run to the end. So frankly, I think it's both, friends, it's the external journey, winning lost people, and it's the internal journey of holiness. How do I know that? Well, if you go on, if you remove the chapter division between Chapter 9 and 10 and just go right on, he's going to go on in the next chapter immediately linked by the words, "For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers…" he goes right into lessons from Israel's history and he says... Do you not realize that lots of Jews began the journey, but only some of them finished, and frankly most of them died in the desert, they didn't make it because of idolatry. So he's talking about holiness, he's talking about sin and temptations and all that. So there's a perfect connection here between the external journey of winning the lost, and the internal journey of making certain you make it all the way to Heaven by fighting sin. And they both come together in this one text of running the race, so it's not either or, it's both. The two races really in the end are of the same, the internal race of holiness and the external race of evangelism. What do we think we're doing with evangelism missions? We're calling on dead people to begin to run a race, and to obey every commandment that Christ has given them, that they would be in running that race. The two journeys are really just one and they come together here. III. What Is the Prize? And so what is the prize? He says, "Don't you know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way that you may get the prize." Verse 25. "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training, they do it to get a crown that will not last. We do it to get a crown that will last forever." What is the prize? What is the crown? Well, in the Isthmian Games, the prize was a wreath that would be woven together from some living vine maybe, some olive branches that we've woven together or maybe some pine, a garland, that was then set on the head of the victor to the cries and adulations of the crowd, they're all... And it's put there on their heads. Paul calls it a corruptible wreath, it's corruptible, it begins to fade the moment it's cut from the branch. Probably won't look that great the next day. And the athletes knew that. They'd seen it, maybe they won last time three years ago and they're going to go again, they know what's going to happen, but what they want are the cries and cheers of adulation, honor that come from their fellow citizens. But frankly even that goes away, even that echoes and then disappears. The modern Olympic Games were restarted in 1896 in Athens. I looked this up. I didn't know... Do you know how many gold medals, Olympic gold medals, have been awarded since 1896? I know you don't know, but I didn't either. So here's the answer: 18,553, gold medals. Now, I was amazed that there were that many. They're actually not all that uncommon except that there's billions of people and very rare do people win gold medals. But honestly, I don't know who won the gold medal in 1956 in skeet shooting, I don't know who won even the marathon that year. It disappears. They're running a race to get a crown that will not last, we're running to get a crown, he says that will last forever. And so here, this dovetails with Jesus' teaching. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So that's the crown, it's praise from God it's, "Well done, good and faithful servant," it's the crown of achievement of having served God faithfully in this life. James 1:12, says this: "Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him." So just making it to the end of the Christian journey, there's a crown of life awarded. But then Paul talks about his church planting efforts. And he frequently calls the churches he planted, and the people that he won to Christ, his crown, 1 Thessalonians 2, he says, "What is the hope, the joy and the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord when He comes. Is it not you? Indeed you are our glory and our joy." So Paul says the Thessalonian Christians that he won to faith in Christ, they are his crown. And so that's the crown. IV. How Should We Run? So how should we run? Well, Paul gives the secret to winning the prize and that is self-control in everything. Stern self-denial of the body. Look at verse 25, "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things." So for a world class athlete, there is no area of life off limits for their trainer, for their coach. Everything is worth discussing. So that would include everything they eat, everything they drink when and how long they sleep, all, of course, all of their exercises, what they're doing. How much lifting, how much flexibility, how much all of these things. So when it comes to eating amounts, nutritional value, caloric intake, protein, fats, carbohydrates, everything. Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots, actually eats something called avocado ice cream. And some of you are like, "What is the point? If you're going to eat avocado ice cream, better not to eat it," but apparently he finds something delicious in it. But for him that's what's been necessary to keep his body ready to compete. I was reading a number of years ago, a basketball player name Hakeem Olajuwon was a very, very good player, but he just wasn't reaching his potential and he said for him it was really when he gave up ice cream that he reached another level because that became just a symbol of a whole life of self-denial of discipline that was required, and then he started playing at the highest level. So that's the way it is for athletes. Everything, sleep patterns, all of that, but for us Christians it expands. Body counts, what you do with your body, what you eat, how much you sleep, all of those things matter, your exercise patterns. But we're talking about body, soul, and spirit, everything, the mind, the heart. And so we have to discipline ourselves not only physically, but mentally, spiritually, so that we can grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ. And Paul actually it seems takes a violent approach here. Look at Verse 26-27, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly, I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave." That's one translation. Another translation says, "I discipline my body and bring it under strict control so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified." So I looked up the Greek words. These are very severe in the one translation. Beat my body make it my slave, the Greek for beat my body is literally to strike beneath the eye or to give a black eye to. Metaphorically to brow-beat or to annoy greatly provoke or irritate. So Paul annoys his body, he irritates it, frustrates it. Now he talks against harsh treatment of the body in other places. He's not talking about a literal beating here like wearing a hair shirt or self-flagellation, like some people did in the Middle Ages. He's not talking about that, he's really talking about his flesh, his bodily drives that the flesh pushes to, where you have normal bodily drives, but they're pushed beyond boundaries that God's Word has set up, that's what the flesh does. And so, it's normal to want to eat dessert, that's a normal thing. The flesh pushes beyond to the second and third helping. So Paul says I irritate my flesh, I frustrate my flesh by pushing away from the table at that point. It's normal to sleep a right amount of time, so your body's refreshed and renewed, but all of us have an inner sluggard that we want that extra time asleep, more than we need. Many Americans are sleep-deprived, I'm not talking about that, but I'm saying, we're talking about getting that extra hour. I frustrate my flesh. Paul says, I get up when it's time to get up. When it comes to the sexual drive, it's normal for a husband and wife to desire to be together in marital relations, but the flesh pushes beyond boundaries that God has set up, those boundaries into sexual immorality, And so the text is calling on you to frustrate your flesh, to irritate it and push away from temptation and sexual immorality, to deny it and put it to death. So that's the first phrase. The second is make it my slave, it's literally in the Greek lead into servitude. So I lead my body into serving what? Serving Christ, serving my mind as it's led by Scripture. This is friends, this is the language of war. That's what he's talking about here and he talks about this war very plainly in Romans 7:22 and 23, he says, "In my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will set me free?" There is a war going on inside. We all know what we're talking about here, we know a battle against lusts. Galatians 5:17 says, "The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit desires what is contrary to the flesh. These are waging war against each other, they're in opposition to each other so that you do not do what you want." So Paul combines these images, he's actually boxing while running a marathon, But he's boxing himself. And he has a goal, his goal is to complete the race that God laid out in front of him. Let me quote this again, Acts 20:24, "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given to me." Of internal holiness and external witnessing to lost people. That's what I want to do. So that's his goal. And he says "I'm not running like a man running aimlessly." So we have a device in our home called a Roomba. Have you ever heard of these things? These robots that vacuum. I do not understand it. I don't understand what it does, this is what happens. It's got little bumpers and sensors that cause it to go as far as it can in one direction and then turn somewhere and go off in a straight line in another direction. What that means is, it could spend as much as 45 minutes in one corner of the room. If you give it enough time I guess, it'll get the whole room, so the idea is put it in a room, close the door and walk away And you come back some time later and the whole room is vacuumed. But if I'm in the kitchen there and it's bumping into me and comes around and then bumps on my other ankle, I don't understand its patterns, it's wandering aimlessly without any seeming strategy to approaching the room. Now, having said that, the Roomba's kind of fun and you put it in there and the room does get vacuumed and you don't have to do it, so that's pretty cool. I've heard they have them for lawns. Now that scares me. Just put it on your lawn, walk away. I'm like... But there are people that seem to live life like that, aimless. It even seems some Christians can live like that, they don't seem to have a purpose. Well your purpose is to be holy and to present your life as a holy offering to God, day after day. Put in a holy Monday tomorrow. Put in a holy rest of today, today. Put sin to death, give it to God as an offering, that's your goal. And then realize you're surrounded every day by people who are on their way to destruction, they're on their way to hell, say something to them about Christ, invite them to church, speak up, be inconvenienced, be willing to suffer, that's the purpose. As Jesus said, "The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life…" And "The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." So Paul was running a clearly marked race here. He's also boxing the entire way, he's not shadow boxing, though. He knows exactly what he's about, he is fighting himself and he's fighting his lust and he's fighting the temptation to quit, all of it. So Paul's saying, "I'm not going to be enslaved to my body's demands for food, I'm not in slave to my body's demand for drink, I'm not enslaved to the demand for sleep, I'm not slave to the demand for public encouragement and adulation. All of those things make me feel good, but I'm not enslaved to any of them, I want to serve Christ." V. What Is the Danger? So what's the danger? Verse 27, "I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." Disqualified. Disqualified. In the context, looking backward, at the external journey, it means that through your failure to watch yourself closely, you may no longer be of any use to God, You may be put on the shelf. And I know in Pastoral ministry, many pastors have been disqualified through sin, through sexual immorality, through financial malfeasance, through what's gone on in their marriage, or their family, or through their love of power and dominating of others. They have not kept their flesh in control and they've been disqualified from ministry. It's one of the greatest fears of my life, that some day I'll have to get up in front of you and confess sin and be disqualified. So you should pray for me, because if Paul has to do it, I have to do it, we all have to do it. As Richard Baxter, said in his classic, Reformed Pastor, "Be very careful, pastors, that you do not un-say with your life what you said with your lips." And so for us to keep careful watch over ourselves, but the deeper issue, I'm going to pick this up next week, is your own final salvation. We have to keep going in sanctification and frankly if you stop going in sanctification, there's a strong doubt that you ever were justified. So if you stop running the race of holiness, you have every good reason to wonder if you ever were born again to begin with. And so we have to keep running this race right to the end. Jesus said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved." VI. Applications So what application can we take from this? Well, isn't it wonderful that we're not saved from our sins by how well we run a race? We are saved from our sins by how well Jesus ran His race, and He got to the end of His race on the cross, and He said "It is finished" and He broke through that finishing line and then I was going to suggest, but I got to you too late that we sing today, Crown Him With Many Crowns, but brother, thank you. We already sang it. Jesus broke through the finish line, and we crown him Victor and Lord of all and in His victory we stand and we receive the gift of righteousness, He is our righteousness, we are not saved from our sins by how well we run a race, but how well Jesus ran the race. So let me just say to you who came in here on the outside of Christ, this is the gospel for you. You're not going to be saved by how well you live the rest of your life. Trust in Christ. He is the Savior, He never sinned, He died on the cross for sinners like you and me, all you need to do is call on Jesus' name. Say, "Be my Savior" and He will save you, He'll give you the gift of perfect righteousness, He'll give you the crown as a gift. But once that happens, now you're in here with the rest of us and we're called on to run race. And I say two races, those two journeys, we're called on to run that internal race of holiness. So what is the Holy Spirit speaking to you about right now? What ways do you need to beat your body and make it your slave? What ways are you showing excess? Lack of self-control. I don't know what it is. Might have to do with your eating habits, might have to do with your entertainment habits, might have to do with sexual immorality and lust, internet issues, might have to do with what you're doing with your money, your possessions, might be a materialism issue. I don't know what it is. What is the Holy Spirit saying where your flesh has gone beyond boundaries and you need to pull it back in and put strong self-discipline in your life so that you can run this race with endurance? What's going on, I don't know, But whatever the Holy Spirit speaking to you do it today, don't put it off. And then in the external journey for evangelism, how much are you willing to be inconvenienced for the salvation of lost people around you? What changes are you willing to make, how are you willing to step out of your comfortable bubble to meet people and win them to Christ? Close with me in prayer.

Has Christ Done Enough for You to Make you Happy? Just like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 7, as we continue our study in this incredible epistle. And I want to ask you a question that came powerfully into my life as I was writing my book on Christian contentment. It's something that stands over me every day, every moment of my life, it is this question: has Christ crucified for sins on the cross, raised to life again, by the power of God, ascended and seated at the right hand of God, interceding for you… Has Christ done enough for you to be happy today, or must he do a little more? And whatever, you would say, honestly, I really think he needs to do a little more that is apparently not enough based on my mental state right now, I would challenge you that whatever additional thing you want him to do is probably an idol. It's probably some created circumstance that you're putting too much weight on, you feel you need that in order to be happy, and it is not true, and the Lord wants to weed that out of your heart. And what's remarkable is that, I believe, though he doesn't use the language, the overt language of Christian contentment in this section that you heard Topher just read for us a moment ago, he is arguing from a perspective of Christian contentment and he's going to apply it to life status generally, and to marital status, specifically. We live in a discontented age we live in, a discontented world, we are surrounded by miserable people, people who are discontent, when they sit and when they rise when they leave home when they stay at home they're discontent with their jobs, they're discontent with their material possessions, they're discontent with their mode of transportation, they're discontent with the traffic and with the weather they're discontent with the season. In the winter, they say, if it were only summer, in the summer, they say if it were only winter. Now, I've learned in the Christian life, to see more and more, sin is never just out there with all those people. Sin is right here in my own heart. I am also discontent from time to time in all of those situations. Now, as I look at our world, I look at what we're facing. And I think about even the text that we're in in the section I think there may be no topic that brings as much discontentment in this world as marital status. People yearning, single people yearning to find their soul mate. Yearning to find someone who will bring meaning into their life, I'm talking about non-Christians, just listening to the songs that are sung and then if their relationship falls apart, they act as if they cannot go on living now without that person. And then, sadly, even once people get married, they seem to be discontent in that marriage. They finally got what they wanted and within a short amount of time, their disillusioned and their discontent, and so people are discontent in marital status. And so I think it's a beautiful thing that God wants to speak into all of this and give us words of wisdom as Jesus said so beautifully to the church, so many years ago, the night before he was crucified, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. And He comes to us by the Holy Spirit, and by the Scripture, and he comes to us today to speak into this situation of being content in any and every situation, the rare jewel of Christian contentment. Now, here in this context, let's try to understand the context. The Apostle Paul is answering a question that was put to him. I. The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment He is in a new section in the epistle 1 Corinthians 7:1 he said, "Now concerning what you wrote to me quote it is good for a man not to touch a woman." In other words, it's good for us as Christians who are now redeemed or in a whole new realm of the Spirit, and turn our backs on the realm of the flesh to abstain from all sexual interaction completely. Now that's what some of the Corinthians were thinking and had written to him. Now, in the context, we can see why some might think that they were living there in Corinth in a pagan world, super-sexualized and corrupt sexually, and we see the corruption even in the church, in 1 Corinthians 5, there's a man there that has his father's wife and Paul says you need to act decisively and excommunicate that man immediately. 1 Corinthians 5, then in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, he lists, a series of sinful life patterns that you have to be redeemed out of or you're not going to go to heaven. And four of them relate to sex, fornication, adultery, effeminacy, homosexuality and then other sins besides, and he says that When the Gospel came, and you believed in the message of Christ and him crucified, you are radically transformed as he will say In the next epistle, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone, everything has become new. And so He says there in that context, such were some of you, you are ex-fornicators, ex-adulterers, ex-effeminate, ex-homosexuals. And ready for the Kingdom of heaven, ready to enter eternity and then in the second half of that chapter, 1 Corinthians 6, he deals with some in the church that had not forsaken the habit of visiting temple prostitutes. And Paul has to address them very vigorously about sexual immorality, and the need for complete sexual purity. And then he brings up a new section, but it's right there in context. Problems with sexual purity, he says, "Some of you are saying to me it's good for a man not to touch a woman period. So even within marriage that we would have complete sexual abstinence. And Paul, in addressing that has said, "I don't deny, that for some people, that is true, people who are given the gift of singleness, celibate singleness." It is good for them not to touch a woman or vice versa for those women sisters in Christ to not be with a man that is true, but not everyone can accept it. Some have the one gift, and some have the other, and so he elevates the two gifts that God has given for sexual purity, in this world, which is celibate singleness, and then Holy marriage, and so he's going through and he's addressing all of these things, and he addresses various marital status to the single people, to the Christian couples, to those that are married to non-Christians, and he's been dealing with all of that. Now in the midst of all of this, practical advice about how to live a healthy God-honoring life, sexually. He gives us a central lesson, that's going to unify our text today, look at verse 17. "Nevertheless each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him in which God has called him. This is the rule that I lay down in all the churches." So, just retain the place in life you are in. He said, This is what I say all the time and he's going to go through various life situations and He's going to apply this same lesson in verse 18 to the circumcised. He says, "Stay circumcised." To the uncircumcised he says, "Stay uncircumcised." Then he gives this lesson again look at verse 20, "each one should remain in the situation, which he was in when God called him," or in which God called him verse 20. Then amazingly, he addresses slaves of which the overwhelming majority of the early Christian church, were slaves. There were millions of slaves in the Greco-Roman world, and so many of the early Christians were... You know, not many wise, not many influential, not many of noble birth, they were slaves, many of them and so he says to the slaves... To the slaves, he said don't let your slave... The fact that you're slaves bother you, that's incredible. Don't let it trouble you. But if you can get your freedom, do it. However, in verse 24, each person should remain with God, in whatever circumstance, he was in when called. So God is enough for you, that's what he's saying. You should remain in your walk with God in whatever circumstance in which he called you. Then in verses 25-28, he returns to home-base which is the topic of marriage and singleness, so he's been dealing with general life situations, but then he returns to the topic of marital status and he addresses virgins, unmarried single people, who've never been married. And the advice he gives generally to them is stay where you are. Don't be pining and yearning after marriage. Don't be yearning to change your circumstances. And he begins his overt advocacy of the single life which he continues in the next section, we're not going to address it today. And the central lesson again, verse 26, Look at it, because of the present crisis. I think it is good for you to remain as you are. It's the consistent teaching throughout this section of 1 Corinthians 7. Now I think in all of this, Paul is arguing not overtly, but from the perspective of Christian contentment. God gave me a great gift and a great privilege of studying this topic for a couple of years and writing a book on it, and I learned so much from it. Now, I wasn't going to tell you this, but this is kind of a low point in my life. Over the last week and a half, I was doing a radio interview based on this book and the radio host called me "the guru of Christian contentment." What in the world should I do with that? I was speechless, which is not a good way to be in an eight-minute interview. No, I'm not a guru of anything. Let's start there. And certainly not of Christian continent. I feel very much that God gave me the gift of studying this because I needed it as much as anyone I know. I'm not claiming like Paul did to have learned the secret of contentment in any and every situation. Just I am claiming I need it. And so I think he's arguing for that. I'm not going to try to force a square peg in a round hole. I think that's exactly what Paul's doing here. He's saying you should be content in your life situation. And frankly, that will be the best way you can possibly be single and the best way you can possibly be married is to be content in Christ. What is contentment? Now, what do we mean by contentment, what is that? Well, just in a simple kind of definitional sense, contentment, to me, is just in a mental or emotional state of peace and happiness that's just when you think of... It's a combo... A combination of peacefulness and happiness. So I think that's when we would use the word, I'm content. Worldly contentment is totally based on favorable circumstances. Your five senses are satisfied. So picture late in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day, alright? When that chemical in the Turkey is kicking in and nobody's really watching the football game any more half of the people they're asleep. So that would be kind of a picture of worldly contentment bellies full, people sleepy. So there's that picture. Or imagine a sports fan going to bed the night that their team has won the championship and all the adrenaline's worn off by them, but they're just laying there, going back over the game in their mind and they're just happy, follow this team all year and they won the championship. Or imagine a young married couple, on their honeymoon, and they're cuddling together, on a beach and the sun's going down and it's just really beautiful and they're just completely happy in each other and happy with their life circumstances. Or imagine a law school graduate has just gotten a pretty prestigious placement and everything's falling into place, and they're walking across the campus of the law school, and they're just happy with what happened today. Or imagine a baby nestling in her mommy's arms, warm, protected happy, trusting, wordless, but just everything's fine. So these are all pictures of normal, worldly, earthly contentment. Christian contentment is a supernatural thing, it is not worldly, it's not based on earthly circumstances, it is based on invisible spiritual realities. It is based on a fact of an Almighty God, who is your adoptive Father who loves you. A God, who sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for you. Not just for sinners in general, but for you, He died for you. And you know this by faith and your sins are forgiven and you have received the gift of the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing your future inheritance, in Heaven. And all of that, plus the promises that God has made for your future covering now until the day you die and then just really take off after that filling you with hope based on your faith and the promise of God contentment is based on those things, not on any earthly circumstance and you come to realize that your earthly circumstances are just props and window dressing or dress-ups like kids used to do which God has given you for a certain purpose in this world. He's got some work for you to do, and He's giving you that and that it includes prosperity and affliction both. He's just kind of dressing you up and putting you in a setting for his own purposes. And you just look at every earthly thing that way, all of it, including marriage. Paul and Contentment in the Philippian Jail Now, the Apostle Paul other than Jesus is the greatest teacher, an exemplar, a living example of Christian contentment there has ever been. And I think to me, one of the key moments I've mentioned it more times I can count from this pulpit and I never tire of mentioning it, because I think about it probably every day. And that is Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail, the greatest picture to me other than Christ, the picture of Christian contentment. You remember how they were arrested for preaching the Gospel, actually for doing an exorcism and they were beaten publicly. And they were thrown in a nasty dark dungeon and they were put in the inner cell where there's no light, and their feet were bound in stocks and their backs were bleeding, and their stomachs were empty and their tongues were burning with thirst and the stench must have been incredible, and they were hearing the curses, and the complaints of other prisoners and at midnight they began to sing praises to Jesus. I'm like, "Oh God, give me that contentment give me that life I want to be like that, I don't want to be like I have to be bought off God, if you don't buy me off, if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to be angry at you. I just want to be so filled with Christ that I can sing in whatever jail you put me in." So that's Paul and Silas. And so, they displayed it. And you remember what happened, how God moved it supernaturally and how there was this incredible earthquake and the prison doors flew open and everybody's chains, fell off, but no one ran away and the Philippian jailer was about to fall on his sword because he lost all of his prisoners no fault of his own, but Romans were merciless. But the voice comes out from the inner cell. Don't harm yourself. We're all here and the jailer calls for lights, rushed in, fell trembling before Paul and Silas, brought them out and said, "What must I do to be saved?" question that changed his eternity Believe in the Lord Jesus, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And that's true for all of us right now, that's the source of it. It may be that God brought you here today to hear this moment in the message not so much to think about marriage or singleness, but just to hear that statement, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, saved from what? Saved from hell. And saved from missing heaven. Which is so good that even if there were no hell, if you missed it, it'd be like, hell, did not be there. But there is a hell, there's a fire that never goes out and if you believe in Jesus, you will be delivered from what you and all of us as sinners deserve which is condemnation and hell. And that becomes the basis of lasting contentment for the rest of your life no matter what your marital status, is. Believe in the Lord Jesus and the Philippian jailer did he and his family, and they cared for Paul they washed his wounds, they fed them and beginning of the Philippian church along with the other converts that had already been made an amazing story. The "Thank You" Note Well, in the course of time that same Philippian church sent Paul, some money when he... They'd heard he was in prison again, and he was in prison in just about every city that he went and preached and it's incredible and he was in prison and they sent him money and Paul wants to thank them so he wrote an amazing thank you note. When I write a thank you, I write it on thank you note Stationary. It says thank you on the front. And then I just say Thanks for the money, something like that. And I try to put in some Scripture verses. Paul wrote the letter of Philippians. That's his thank you note, And as he's writing Philippians, he can't just say, thank you for the money when he gets to that topic in Chapter 4, he's got to say this about the money. Thanks for the money. But I want you to know I was fine before it came and I'll be fine after it's spent. Just wanted you to know. Please don't take offense. My real reason for being happy the money is not that my belly will be filled or I'll be a little bit warmer at night because I have a blanket. No, because actually, I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, I know what it is to be well-fed, and I know what it is to have nothing. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, living in plenty or in want. I can do everything, through Him who strengthens me. However, it was good of you to send the money. And off he goes. Now, the word that Paul uses for contentment, there in Philippians 4, translated content is self-sufficient. It's an amazing word, and it should blow your mind. He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait. That doesn't sound in Christianity to me. It seems like that's the very thing we're supposed to be weaned off of, is self-sufficiency. We're supposed to learn that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, and apart from him, we can do nothing. Paul knew that better than anyone. Now, what did he mean? I think he was referring to God's self-sufficiency. And basically, I have learned to be like God, is self-sufficient. I'm going to change it a little bit. I've learned to be God sufficient or Christ sufficient. If I have Christ, I don't need anything else. I don't need anything else if I have Christ. And he said earlier, in Philippians, he said, "For me, to live is Christ. And to die is... " Do you remember? Yeah, I now hear that this way, "more Christ." Not better than Christ or different than Christ, more of Christ in heaven. I get to see Him face-to-face. I get to be in his presence, so either way, I can't lose. So what does that mean? I don't actually need food. I don't need water. Wait, Paul. If you don't get food and water, you'll die. Mm-hmm, which is better by far. I don't have to eat. If God wants me to stay alive, he'll feed me. I don't need air. If God shuts off my air supply, I'll get there faster, but if God chooses to keep giving me air and food and water and enough, he wants me to keep living, I'm going to serve him. For me, to live is Christ, that's what I want. Like, wow, if that's true, then that's just pretty explosive. Yeah, this is a very explosive idea. What it means is, I don't need to be noticed by other people. I don't need to be praised by other people. I don't need my freedom. I can be in jail. Alright, I don't need any of the earthly circumstances I thought I used to think I need. I don't need them. If I have Christ, I have enough. That's the foundation of contentment. And so he's saying that. That is the power. Learning the Secret And the secret. Wait, he says, "I've learned the secret." Now. The secret means that Christian contentment is possible but not guaranteed. Want to use a secret language? Do you know it's possible to go to heaven as a discontent person? You can be discontent from now until the day you die and go to heaven. But why would you want to do that? Why be in such a miserable condition, when you could be praising and trusting God every day? So it's possible but it's not guaranteed. Paul says "It's a secret to be learned, but I learned it so it is possible." And what is the secret? It's right in the text. Philippians 4:13. "I can do everything through Him who strengthens me." There's an ongoing strengthening work that God does through the spirit that enables us to be content in any and every situation, to be filled with the Spirit. If you look at the fruit of the Spirit, two of the elements of the fruit of the Spirit are joy and peace. Does that sound familiar? Put them together. That's contentment, so I can be filled with the Spirit and displaying the fruit of the Spirit in any and every situation, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit in me. Conversely, when I meditated on the word strengthen, do you know that discontentment is a display of weakness? It is so weak to be discontent. Weak. I don't want to be a weak today. I don't want some circumstance to come and I'm blown or tossed by that circumstance, and now I'm complaining and I'm whining and moaning and murmuring against God, which is a great sin. Defining Christian Contentment Well, that's Paul on contentment. And I also had the privilege of reading Jeremiah Burroughs. Jeremiah Burroughs was a Puritan pastor, and he did a series of sermons on contentment based on Philippians 4. And he gave this dense, theological description of Christian contentment, which I will now recite to you. And then I will hope to unpack it a little bit. Jeremiah Burroughs wrote it, and he was published posthumously. Rare jewel of Christian contentment, is what he says. "Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submit to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition." Let me break it apart. First of all, it's a frame of spirit. It's an attitude or a demeanor of your soul. It's described with four adjectives. It is a sweet frame of spirit, as opposed to bitter or sour. Ever met somebody who was bitter or sour? You don't want to be around people like that. But someone who's content, it's sweet to be around him. It's an inward frame of spirit. In other words, it's not... We go to acting school and we learn how to act happy. It's a heart work. It is a quiet frame of spirit like when Jesus stilled the storm, you're just tranquil under your father's hand, you're tranquil in it. It's a peacefulness as opposed to murmuring and roiling and re-pining and controverting against God, and complaining and moaning against him. And it is a gracious frame of spirit. It's something that can only be worked in you by sovereign grace, supernatural grace. So that's the frame of spirit. The second part of the definition is God's wise and fatherly disposal, or let's keep it simple. God as your Father makes decisions about your life. He decided when you will be born, and he has already decided when and where you will die. And who of you by worrying can add a single day to his life? All the days ordained for you are written in God's book before one of them came to be. And not only that, not only is he the alpha and the omega of your earthly life, he is every day in between. He has made lots of fatherly decisions about you, and they are wise, these fatherly decisions. And he could have said kingly, because he's a king and you're the subject, and he's just going to do what's best for his Kingdom no matter whether it's best for you or not. But Burroughs used the word fatherly, meaning he just tenderly loves you and the two come together because what's best for His kingdom is what's best for his children. It's the same thing, and he is in a marvelous way making fatherly decisions about you. So the third aspect is, it's a frame of spirit that freely submits to that. You're not going to fight it anymore. You're not going to be angry about what God's doing in your life. But you're going to submit to it because He's your father, and you're a child. He's the king and you're the subject. He's the master, and you're the slave. You're going to submit, but not only that, you're going to delight in it. You're going to delight in what God is doing in your life, even if it brings great sorrow and suffering. How could Paul and Silas delight in being beaten and thrown in a jail? Well, at that time, maybe it's hard to delight, but looking back years later, and they saw what happened and the Philippian jailers family and how that church grew and all that, they can delight in it then. And you may not know everything that God's choosing for your life, but God has a wise plan and He is wisely bringing you through suffering, or through prosperity. He knows exactly what he's doing. That's Christian contentment. I could go on at length but I'm going to just move now to 1 Corinthians 7. I believe that Paul openly teaching Christian contentment, Philippians 4, clearly exemplifying Christian contentment in Acts 16, is teaching on marriage and singleness out of the perspective of Christmas contentment in 1 Corinthian 7. II. Christian Contentment Applied to Life Status So look. Look and see if you can't see that idea. Look at Verse 17. Now, I'm going to read the New American Standard Translation in verse 17. "Only as the Lord has assigned to each one as God has called each. In this manner, let him walk." That's powerful. As the Lord has assigned to each, the Greek word here is means to divide or measure out or separate, to put a boundary around you. Alright. As God has made an assignment to you. Now, that assigning language is the language of God's wise and fatherly decisions about your life. It's the language of providence. God has made a providential decision about you. Alright, Verse 17. "Only as the Lord has assigned to each one as God has called each…" There's an allotment here. Now, the grammar is a little unclear and you're going to see it in the different English translations. It has to do with the word call and what is God calling. Is it that he's calling you to follow Christ and to be a Christian, and you're in the middle of a specific life circumstance when he did that and the calling is to be a Christian in the midst of that life circumstance, or does the calling extend to the life circumstance itself? He called you to be single. He called you to be a slave. He called you to be circumcised. He called you to be uncircumcised. The grammar doesn't settle it. And as a matter of fact, most of the translations go about 50/50. Better safe to say, in the midst of your life, He called you to follow Christ. But I could say that the calling might extend also to these specific circumstances that he's addressing. Now, Paul repeats this mentality in all these life situations that we've seen. To the circumcised, that is to the Jews, he gives this advice. And to the uncircumcised, that is the Gentiles, he gives this advice. Look at Verse 18. "Was a man already circumcised when he was called?" In other words, was he a Jewish man. "He should not become uncircumcised. Conversely, was a man uncircumcised when he was called, he should not be circumcised." Now, this is interesting because it's pretty obvious to any who gives even a little amount of thought to it. There's no way you're going to become uncircumcised. But what He's saying is, if you are living as a Jew, in the pattern of life as a Jewish person, and he's going to deal with this in-depth in Chapter 9, he says to the Jews and became like a Jew. Had to do with your eating, your lifestyle, the patterns of your life. Don't stop all that. Just keep on living like a Jew. And conversely, if you were a Gentile, you don't have to become a Jew in order to be saved. He deals with this at length in the book of Galatians, saying, circumcision doesn't save you. You don't need to be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses in order to go to Heaven. And so, he gives that again in verse 19. "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing." It is not going to help you spiritually. Those days are over. Jesus died on the cross, He was raised from the dead, He destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, of those ceremonial rules like circumcision and dietary laws and all that. Blown up. Now we've got one new person, Christian, some Jews, some Gentiles, but one new person. So you don't need to become the opposite. You Gentiles don't have to become Jews. You Jews don't have to become Gentiles. Just be what you were in the midst of your life when you were called. And he says circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts. Now, that's a mind-blower. I can actually find commands concerning circumcision in the Old Testament. A law-abiding Jew would say, "What do you mean keeping God's commands? We're commanded to be circumcised?" No. Not anymore. Not anymore. And the same thing, we were commanded or forbidden concerning dietary laws. We'll get to that in chapters 8-10 about eating. Not anymore. Those things are fulfilled. What commands do you have in mind? Well, those moral laws that are timeless, which Jesus summarized powerfully for us. The first and greatest commandment is this, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength." And the second commandment is like this, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Keep those commandments. That's what matters, not circumcision or uncircumcision. So, be content in your daily lifestyle. In Verse 20, he says each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Next, amazingly, this is mind blowing. He addresses slaves. It's really quite remarkable. Look at Verses 21-24. "Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you, although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord, is the Lord's freed man, and similarly, he who was a free man when he was called, is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each one who is responsible to God should remain in the situation God called him to." This is incredible. If you are a slave, don't let it bother you. Now this is, it's revolutionary. You can reach such a place in your heart, in your soul, where the fact that you're even a slave and can't walk away doesn't bother you at all. You know you could spend the rest of your life in that condition. Most slaves did. And you can go from, as a Christian slave, you can go from that to being lavishly rewarded on Judgment Day by the master, for how you carried yourself. You actually belong to Jesus and all of the service that you're rendering your earthly master, if you do it right, you're really rendering it to Christ. He goes through all this in Ephesians and Colossians, so you actually can live free-er than your master, if your master is not a Christian. He's enslaved to sin. Jesus said, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." But if Jesus sets you free, you'll be free indeed, you are free in Christ from the real chains, which is it in and death and hell. You're set free from that. You are Christ's freed man. So don't be bothered by your status as a slave. Don't let it weigh on you day after day, saying, "I can't be happy as a slave." Yes, you can. However, he says, if you can get your freedom, do it. It's incredible. So, if an opportunity to get free and to become free comes, fine, but you need to carry the same attitude, because once you become a freed man, you're going to be Christ's slave in the midst of all that. You'll be free to do whatever you want, go wherever you want. You'll be free to go where the Lord tells you to go. And not only that, but you're going to be in bondage to other people based on circumstances like the parable of the Good Samaritan. You're walking by and somebody's bleeding by the side of the road, you're not free to walk on by. You need to serve that man in love. So, you're going to end up being even horizontally serving to everybody. It's a whole different way of thinking, isn't it? It's powerful. So I love it. He says, If you can get your freedom, do it. Think. Let's go back to the Philippian jail. Alright. When the chains fell off and the doors came open, Paul didn't run away. Why? Because it would have been illegal, and they would have had to send someone after him to bring him back. And do you realize, if he and the other prisoners had done so, the Philippian jailer would be in hell right now? He would have committed suicide that very night. Never in all the Bible do you see anyone so dangling over hell that's later rescued. This man had drawn his swords ready to fall on it. But because Paul was submissive to God's will in his life, he stayed put. He stayed as a prisoner until the law said it was time for him to go, which they did the next morning. And they sent messengers saying, "Okay, you're free to go." Paul said, "Wait, wait, wait a minute now. You enslaved us and beat us without a trial, and now you just want us to go away? No. You come and escort us out." But one thing Paul didn't do is say, "Actually, we found a kind of a home here in the dungeon. We love it here. I know there's nothing to eat or drink and I know it stinks and it's dark, but we have learned to be content here and we're going to stay in prison." Not at all. If you can get your freedom, do it, but it's not why he's alive. He's alive and whether he's in prison or free, he belongs to Christ. III. Christian Contentment Applied to Marital Status Alright, so now let's take all that and apply it to marital status. Look at verses 25-28. "Now, about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one, who by the Lord's mercy, is trustworthy. Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned." So he begins by addressing virgins or the unmarried. They were perhaps they had been betrothed, but not yet married. Paul says, I do not have a specific command from Jesus on this. So he didn't have a word from Jesus in terms of the catalog of sayings of Jesus, but he speaks as someone who has been trained by God's mercy to speak wisdom into situations. So, he's going to give them advice. And what is that advice? It's predictable. Stay in the condition in which you were called. That's what he's saying. If you are married, then stay married. He's already covered that. The only way to end the marriage would be a divorce and that is not lawful. But it's more than that, isn't it? Stay married as a content man or content woman. Don't be pining after a better marital status. Don't wish you had a different spouse. Be content in your life situation. Bloom where you're planted, flourish where you're planted, stay in the condition. But if you're single, he says, stay single if you can. Don't allow your mind to be dominated by worldly things. This life is brief. Our time here is temporary. And verse 26, he says, "Because of the present crisis, I think it's good for you to remain as you are." That means just the difficulties of life in this world, and even more, if you're in a persecuted setting. If you might die any day as a Christian, it's better to die as a single person than to leave behind a spouse and kids. So he says, in light of the present crisis, stay single if you can. So, be content in the circumstance of your life. Don't say, "My life will begin when I find my spouse. Until then, it's all a waste." Don't think like that. Verse 27, "Are you on married? Don't seek for a wife." Don't seek. The keyword here is seek. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. Seek the face of God and prayer. Seek what pleases God and find out what God is seeking in the world. He's seeking people to worship Him in Spirit and truth. John 4. He is seeking and saving the lost, Luke 19:10. Don't seek for a wife or a husband. Do you not see, that's not why we're here on Earth. Even if you had found the most godly spouse and have the most wonderful decades together, at some point, you may well become a widow or a widower. What, does your life end at that point? Your life is not your wife, your life is not your husband. Your life is Christ. Just as Bob was praying from Colossians 3, Christ is your life. When Christ who is your life appears, your wife isn't your life, your husband isn't your life. And so, think like that. Don't seek for this, but he does give this tepid endorsement. If you do marry, you have not sinned. Thank you, Paul. Alright, that's not the final Bible's final word on the blessings of marriage. We covered that already, but he said I just want you to know, if you do choose to marry, you found sin. Now he's about to make his extended defense of singleness and we'll get to that, God-willing, in the future. So, let me just apply this as we finish. Have you learned the secret of Christian contentment? Are you learning it? Is Christ crucified, resurrected enough for you today, or does he have to do more? If you're a single person, is Christ crucified and resurrected enough for you or do you have to have a spouse? If you are married, is Christ's crucified and resurrected enough for you to be genuinely happy in your marriage, no matter what the situation is with your spouse? Are you able to be content in Christ, in any and every situation? Are you able to look at your life circumstances? Maybe your medical situation, maybe you're hurting, you're in pain, maybe your spouse is. Maybe your housing situation is not what you want it to be, maybe your job situation is not what you want it to be. Again, if you can improve those things, do so, but don't live for them. Christ is your life. A final advice here is, bloom where you're planted. Don't be yearning for what God hasn't given you yet. The other day I was watching with one of my kids, the original clip from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And do you remember how she was singing "Someday My Prince Will Come." Do you remember that? Oh yeah, I forgot that song. It's an interesting song musically, it's a little quirky. Jazz musicians did bunches of riffs on that tune. But it's like, no. I mean, and you could just say, "Oh it's so hokey all that," but I'm telling you, it's incredible. Discontentment is like, "Someday, my X will come. And when that X comes, then I'm going to be happy and fulfilled." Don't live like that. Christ has already given you everything you need to be content today. Live like it. Close with me in prayer.

The Soul is Restless Until it Finds Christ So turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians Chapter 6. We continue to make our way through this incredible book 1 Corinthians. In the year 397 AD, Augustine, writing his confessions wrote these timeless words, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and the heart of man is restless until it finds it rest in you." Restless, un-quiet, discontent, roaming ravenous, like the devil in Job Chapter 1, roaming over the surface of the earth looking for something, some way to cause trouble. Or the demons that Jesus spoke of when he said that when the demon is set out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and doesn't find it. Or in Isaiah 57, it says, "The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 'There is no peace says' my God 'for the wicked.'" Restless. Sin is what we do when we're not at rest with God. We try to find rest in lawful pleasures, and we become addicted to them, to food, and to hobbies and other lawful pleasures and they ensnare our souls and make us idolatrous. Or we find rest in sinful immoral pleasures, illicit sex and other things, and we become enslaved by that. Sin is what we do when we haven't found rest in God. Now, here's the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And good news, hope is woven through the text that Alex just read. Some day every Christian will be perfectly at rest in God. Some day, we're going to be in a glorious world surrounded by the glory of God, we're going to be in the new Jerusalem, we're going to be in the new heaven, new earth, the glory of God will be freely revealed to us, and we'll be able to handle it, unlike Moses on that mountain when he said, "Show me your glory," and God said, "No one can see me and live." And as the apostle Paul said, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." We are not ready for a full display of the glory of God, but then we will be ready. And we will come into our Sabbath rest, our final perfect rest in Christ. There's a picture in my mind this morning from one of my mission trips. Shared with you before, but it's powerfully on my mind this morning, of a swim that I took in a Salt Lake in the Karakoram mountains in a very remote area in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, the most unearthly earthly place I've ever been in. Karakoram mountain is over 20,000 feet high, snow cap year round and we're floating in this salty lake. We were so... Our buoyancy was so powerful, we could barely stay submerged for a few seconds and we will be pushed back up. And I just picture myself floating in a sea of the glory of God in heaven. And all of the lusts that ensnared our souls in this world will be gone from me, cast into the lake of fire forever and I will be drinking in the Glory of God, so will you if you're a Christian. And the more you can by faith see that future day, the more powerfully you'll be able to fight your present sins. You'll be able to cast aside every sin that so easily entangles your feet and run with endurance this race marked out in front of you, as the author of Hebrews put it. As Satan cast nets around our feet every moment of every day, you'll be able to cast them aside if you have a vision of what you will be some day in heaven and through the Holy Spirit have a foretaste of that heavenly joy, and you will find your rest in God even today and sin will be nothing to you. A content person is as hard to tempt as an iron wall is to ignite with a flaming arrow. So to be totally content in Christ, but friends, we're not there yet, are we? We're not in Heaven yet, in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 speaks of the warfare that we have to fight, now, while we're in this present era, while we are assaulted every day by the world of flesh and the devil we have to fight for joy, we have to fight for holiness, we have to fight in order to be witnesses to the people around us who are not yet set free, they're dead in their transgressions and sins. And so the two journeys internal journey of holiness, external journey of Gospel advance are woven together throughout this book of 1 Corinthians. I. Our Sexual Crisis is Nothing New And as we read these Verses, we see that our sexual crisis is nothing new. The struggle that we are having, that's so evident, it's in the news of the church, sadly, it's in the news in the world. Much of it is tied to Internet pornography and to the allure, the continual allure and the enticements of those images, but it's not only that. The recent stories have exposed people's sexual immorality, their sexual abuse, the relentless disquiet that's in the hearts of individuals and they seek an outlet in illicit sex. Internet pornography is especially devastating. Statistics are terrible. 2.5 billion emails containing porn are sent or received every single day, 2.5 billion. 68 million search queries related to pornography. 25% of all searches are related to porn on the Internet. About 200,000 Americans are classified as porn addicts. One third of porn viewers are women, two-thirds are men. Beyond Internet pornography, there are there devastating statistics. 40% of kids in public high schools have had intercourse at least once, 40%. Half of the 20 million new STDs reported each year are among young people between the ages of 15 to 24. Back in 2002, an online dating agency called Ashley Madison was founded with this tagline "Life is short, have an affair." In 2015 hacker stole the customer data and some noteworthy Christian leaders who were found to have been enrolled in the service much to their shame and the shame of the Church of Jesus Christ. Overall 25% of those enrolled claim to be Christians. All this points to what I've been talking about the last few weeks, a devastating weakness of sexuality for us human beings, it's the weak part of our character, of our lives. And this has been so since Adam and Eve ate the fruit and their eyes were open, they realized they were naked, and they were filled with shame. So, our sexual crisis is nothing new and we read about it right here in the pages of this ancient epistle, 2000 years old. The Corinthians were involving themselves in illicit sex. It appears that some members of the Corinthian church were frequenting temple prostitutes. This was a regular part of the pagan religion and Corinth, and indeed around the pagan world. The natural drives of food and sex were woven together in a very satanic demonic kind of way, woven together and were harnessed in the service of pagan religions. Gods and Goddesses were worshipped in part by indulging these drives, especially the sexual drive, and also the desire to eat meat. This is the very thing that the Jews encountered when they entered the Promised Land with the Canaanites, and the religions that they had was the same kinds of things. Even worse, it seems that the members of this... Some members of the Corinthian church were arguing doctrinally for their right to frequent temple prostitutes. Basically saying, "We are people of the spirit, our faith in Christ has moved us to a higher plane, the grace of God has freed us from all guilt for sin. And what we do with our bodies is nothing, because our bodies are not important." So that's the doctrinal underpinning that Paul is seeking to address here. There is a false view of Christian freedom here in this slogan twice repeated in this text, four times in the epistle. "All things are lawful for me." And it shows a misunderstanding of Christian freedom. So Paul has to address this ethical problem, this moral problem doctrinally. He assesses false doctrine or addresses false doctrine about their bodies and about their freedoms. And a key text is in Verse 13, look at it with me Verse 13, it says, "The body was not meant, or is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body." That's an incredibly important statement. That's why I began with the Augustine quote. "You have made us for yourself." Our bodies are for Christ and He is for our bodies. They match together. This assertion is proved by the doctrine of the resurrection, both Christ's resurrection from the dead, His bodily resurrection, and our future bodily resurrection. If God doesn't care about the body then why was Christ physically raised from the dead. And why will he raise our bodies from the dead in the future? So, a Christian's body does matter. And what we do with our bodies matters. Next Paul goes arguing against temple prostitutes, frequenting temple prostitutes, the Corinthian church members failed to understand the true nature, both of sex, the two become one flesh and of Christian conversion. One is joined to the Lord, so we become one with Jesus spiritually, and therefore, you can't take Christ members and join them to a prostitute. Next, he directly forbids sexual immorality with a clear command, "Flee sexual immorality." Greek word is "porneia," flee, porneia, flee sexual immorality. And then he shows how sexual immorality is an assault, not only on our souls, but actually on our bodies as well. And finally, he roots all of this, and the fact that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, whom we have received from God. It's a very powerful argument here and he's speaking individually. We're going to unfold this. I'm just walking through the whole text now. We have received the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, so our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And then he says very powerfully. You are not your own, you won't get to do whatever you want with your body. You have been bought at a price. This is the language of slavery. We are Christ's slaves, he bought us and therefore the culminating statement, so beautifully. Therefore, glorify God with your body. An incredible text and how much we needed to hear it. II. “All Things Are Lawful”: Christian Freedom Rightly Understood So let's just walk through it and it begins with this slogan in Verse 12, "'All things are lawful for me,' but not everything is beneficial. 'All things are lawful for me' but I will not be mastered by anything." So he's dealing here with the issue of Christian freedom and Paul is probably quoting some slogan here, some Corinthian slogan. That's why many of the English translations have it in quotation marks. Because he says it four times in 1 Corinthians, twice here in Chapter 6, twice in Chapter 10. And it seems that they are saying, "Look, now that I'm a Christian, anything goes. I can do whatever I want." So that's misunderstanding Christ freedom. Now, there is a powerful doctrine of Christian freedom, Romans 6:14 says, "You are not under law, but under grace." We have been set free from the law and its condemning power. The law has no power to condemn us to help. Christ drank in our condemnation at the cross. So we're set free from the law in that sense. Paul also taught that idols themselves are nothing. They're just chunks of material made of stone or wood or metal. So there's nothing in an idol in and of itself, and so, meat sacrifice to idols is still just meat. And so, he's going to unfold all this in Chapters 8 through 10, on meat sacrifice to idols. But they took this and they brought it too far, they applied it to something that they shouldn't have applied it to, and that was sexual immorality with the temple prostitutes. Well then, whatever they're doing down at the temple, we can do. He's like, "No, no, you're misunderstanding Christian freedom." So Paul restricts the slogan. "All things are lawful for me," or "Everything is permissible for me." In all four times that he quotes it, twice here in Chapter 6, twice in Chapter 10, he answers it back, restricts it. It's kind of like this, "All things are lawful for me, as you say, fine, but not everything's beneficial. All things are lawful for me. So you say, but I will not be enslaved by anything." He does it again in Chapter 10. So, true freedom there, Christian freedom is not doing whatever your flesh wants to do. If it feels good, do it. No, not at all. That's not what freedom is. True Christian freedom is being delivered from sin to serve God, that's what freedom is. As Psalm 119 says, "I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free." Jesus said in John 8, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin, but if the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed." Jesus by his life, by his demeanor toward his father defines freedom for us, in that same Chapter, John 8:29, he says, "I always do what pleases my Father," that's freedom. Jesus was the only truly free man that ever lived. And he was free to serve his father every moment of his life, that's freedom. Everything else is slavery. We are enslaved by hidden spiritual chains towards sin. That's not freedom. And so Paul says in Verse 12, "All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything [or enslaved] by anything." The image is definitely one of enslavement. We are mastered by anything we habitually do. We can't break the habit of that pattern. The drive of the flesh toward food and sex, and sleep, and pleasure, five cents pleasure is normal, but in sin, it's relentless and inevitably pushes across boundaries that God has set. So we're jumping fences that he's set up in his moral law. And as it pushes us towards satisfying those sensual desires, it also pushes us toward habits that end up in addictions. We end up being enslaved by what we do over and over. This is the essence of the flesh. It takes normal bodily desires and pushes them beyond boundaries and toward enslavement. So the Corinthians who are going to temple prostitutes were actually enslaved by their lusts and their habits. Paul addresses also the food aspect of it, the eating aspect of it. In verse 13 he says, "Food for the stomach, and the stomach for food, but God will destroy them both." Probably another slogan from the Corinthians, seems they had written him a letter and so he's addressing certain things, he's going to do the same at the beginning of Chapter 7, when someone said it's good not to touch a woman, and he's going to address that. They say things to him and he has to answer them back and give them a better understanding of what they're saying. It's like, food for the stomach and stomach for food seems to be something you're saying. Well, Paul sees that and would like to point to their fleshly mindset. It is true that the stomach and food were meant to go together, that makes sense, alright? God knows that we need food, he feeds us, because Jesus said he feeds the birds of the air, and he feeds us too, he feeds every living creature. He knows we need food. And not only that, he knows that he designed food to be delicious. There are different... So many different flavors. And so, the tongue with its taste buds was designed to sense the flavors that God put into food and to enjoy them. God knows that. But here's the point. We were not put on the planet to eat. That wasn't the reason God created us. Both food, and the stomach are temporary and neither one are the reason why God created you. They were a means to an end. And the end is to glorify God with your body. We were made for eternity, we were made for heaven, we were made for God. We were made to enjoy him, not to eat. So he's addressing this drive toward food. Now, at this point, I just want you to see the two different themes Paul's dealing with. There's one issue, and that's the enslavement of our habits and he just wants us to be free. Lawful Pleasures and Illicit Pleasures But there are two different types of habits that he's looking at: Lawful pleasures and illicit pleasures. Do you see them both in the text? You got the food aspect and the porneuo or the sexual immorality aspect. So I want to put two kind of substances in front of you: Honey and poison. So we're dealing with the issue of honey and the issue of poison. Why do I choose honey? Because the Book of Proverbs uses honey as a metaphor, a literal thing, true, but a metaphor for lawful pleasures, and it gives you kind of the rules of the road on honey consumption. The first time honey is mentioned in the Book of Proverbs, Proverbs 24:13, where we are told under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste." Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it. Honey is sweet, so you should eat some. It's right there in the word of God. So what is this saying? Well, I think symbolically what we're saying is we're not called on to an aesthetic life of denying physical pleasures. That's not the answer here is asceticism. We're supposed to enjoy the sweet things of life, but that's not all the Book of Proverbs has to say about honey, and the next three proverbs about honey are all restrictive, like Proverbs 25:16. "If you find honey, eat jut enough- too much or and you will vomit." Well, that's just good advice, friends. Don't glut yourself on honey or you'll throw up. Okay. And then Proverbs 27:7 says, "He who is full, loathes honey." So what's going on there? The more you partake of things you enjoy, the less you will enjoy them. All of this says let's not be ascetics, but let's live self-controlled, upright lives when it comes to lawful pleasures. And all of that is packed into this statement, certainly food for the stomach, but I'm not going to be enslaved by anything. I don't want to be enslaved by anything I do. American Christians are surrounded at all times by a sea of amoral pleasures more I think than any generation of Christians in 20 centuries of church history. We have lawful pleasures galore, food and drink and possessions, things you can buy on Amazon Prime, and you have movies that you can stream and music you can listen to and you're just... We are swimming in an Olympic-size swimming pool of honey, and the question is, "Are these lawful pleasures enslaving us? Are we enslaved by our habits by the things we say we can do?" One simple test: If any one thing is enslaving you is fast from it. Give it up for a time. The harder it is for you to do, the more you may suspect that you're enslaved. Let me give you an example. Let's talk about the smartphone. I got my smart phone right here. It's timing my sermon, 20 minutes and 27 seconds. I'm very well aware. But the smartphone is a marvelous thing. It's just staggering the technology in this thing. It's amazing. I've found that there are two words that sum up what it does for me: Tool and toy. Tool and tool. Tool, it helps me work. It helps me to be productive. Toy, not so much. So those would be apps, things you can stream, all that kind of thing. You know. Well, however you define toy, you know what I'm talking about. So, how can you tell whether you're enslaved to your smartphone? Well, if it's near you, can you avoid reaching out for it every 47 seconds? Someone once was talking quite recently, say, "Something's wrong with my hand. It just has... It just keep reaching for this thing and checking it." So try fasting from at least perhaps toy aspect of the smartphone. The harder it is for you to do, the more you may suspect that you're enslaved. Same thing for streaming videos or food. Try fasting. Try a day of the week for a month, let's say Tuesday, a Thursday, something like that, and just not eat and just spend the time praying. Fasting is a Biblical theme, but this is one way also a diagnostic tool to say, "Is food enslaving me? Am I living for sweets, or I'm living for meat or I'm living for something?" You're not put on the planet for that, and so a life of self-control, "I will not be mastered by anything. I'll not be enslaved by my habits." So that's the honey aspect. Now, let's talk about the poison aspect. It's like, "Oh, how much poison should I ingest and how much?" It's like that's the wrong question. The answer: None. None. So, he addressed his sexual immorality and there is an enslavement there too. Sex is a very powerful thing, and the allure through the eye, very attractive. Proverbs 7, for example, describes an immoral woman who uses alluring techniques to draw young men into committing adultery with her. And you know the account, and she's beautiful and she's dressed. It says like a harlot, and she speaks enticing, flattering words, and she is spreading a net around him. You can't see it, but that's what's going on. And then it says, "All at once, he turned and went in with her little knowing it would cost him his life." An arrow would pierce his liver and he would die. So there is that enslavement, and that's I think what's going on with internet pornography. There's just that enticing and that alluring that goes on and the beauty, and there's an attraction to it. So many people are addicted. They are enslaved by poison, and Christ has set us free. You're set free. If you're a Christian, you're set free. You're not a slave to sin. You don't ever need to sin again ever the rest of your life. Every single temptation that comes to you, you can see dead at your feet by the power of the Holy Spirit by specific Scripture, just like Jesus did in Matthew 4. You can kill every temptation. III. A Holy Understanding of Our Bodies You don't ever need to sin again. You're set free. So why be a fool and why allow yourself to go in for the poison that Satan's handing to you? We need to have therefore a holy understanding of our bodies. Look at Verse 13 and 14, "The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body, and by his power, God raised the Lord from the dead and he will raise us also." So God did not design us for food as we've been saying, but even more, he did not design our bodies for porneia, for sexual immorality. He built us for himself, for his own glory. Therefore, honor God. Glorify God with your body. The reason God will raise your body from the dead is he wants you to have a body in the New Heaven, the New Earth. He wants you to be physical. Like Jesus is right now, you will be conformed to his image in every respect, and you will be energetically able to serve him in that new world. He wants you to have a body. So we need to understand that. We need to understand our bodies are a marvelous gift from Almighty God, part of his redemptive plan. The Greek philosophers, in which these Corinthians were swimming in these mentalities, were very dualistic, many of them, and they looked on the physical body as not worthy of even being mentioned. They were wanting to ascend to a higher, mental, spiritual plane. And so, the idea of the resurrection from the dead make no sense to them. Why would you want to spend eternity in a body? And bodily processes were disgusting and repulsive to that Greek philosophical, dualistic mindset. But the biblical view is quite different. The biblical view says I will praise you. Psalms 139, "I will praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made." So many marvelous things about the human body, like the fact that there're as many neurological interconnections in a single human brain as there are leaves in the Amazonian rainforest. It's incredible. 2The human brain is the most complex, physical thing God ever made. And then think about the hand. I used to be a mechanical engineer. First thing that I designed was robots. I worked on robotic things. There's nothing that we can make that even comes close to the marvels of the human hand, the dexterity, the gentle, skillful movements of the fingers, the powerful grip of the hand, the fact that fingers can play a sonata by Beethoven, where you could see a rock climber hanging by four fingers over the valley of Yosemite and his entire life is entrusted to the strength of his four fingers. It's incredible and in an incredibly small package. This is a very small area and this is what God has made. Or the ability of the ear. The ear is more remarkable than you might think. The fact is that you get, the ear is responding to pressure waves, and they become composite pressure waves. All the things are kind of summed up in one composite pressure wave, and then your ear sorts them out. So you can, for example, take a quarter and a dime and drop it on a hard surface like a glass countertop or something like that or a marble countertop and you can hear two coins, one large, one small... You could probably even say what the denomination is, quarter and a dime, and you can say how many there are. You can listen to instruments, a guitar and a piano playing the same note, different spaces in your ears just sorting that. Well, our bodies are amazing, fearfully and wonderfully made, and God intends for us to have for all eternity, only perfected. And so we are to celebrate that, and Christ's incarnation is proof of that. God wanted his son to be physical. And so, the second person of the trinity, the word, became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and he experienced a physical, fleshly life in this world. He knew what it was like to be hungry and then have his hunger satisfied by chewing and swallowing food. I'm getting that physically. He knew what it was like to have searing first when from the cross, he said, "I thirst." When they flogged him, he felt pain. When they crucified him, he died. He was physical. But that wasn't the end of his physicality. God raised him from the dead on the third day, and he took on a perfect resurrection body that you could touch. You could put your hands, your fingers, in the nail marks. He said, "A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have." He was completely physical. And he is the first fruit from among the dead, so we're going to be conformed to him. We're going to spend eternity in physical bodies that you can touch and we'll spend eternity in that. And all of 1 Corinthians 15 deals with the doctrine of our resurrection from the dead based on Christ's resurrection. So what this means is in Verse 14, "By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead and he will raise us also." So that means the body is a major part of God's salvation plan for us. The body matters. What you do with your body matters. So you should have a holy esteem for your body, and the doctrine that I would commend you is in Romans Chapter 6, Verse 13 and 14. Listen to this. This is exactly what I think Paul would say to the Corinthians. He doesn't say it here, but he says in Romans. "Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness, for sin shall not be your master, for you are not under law but under grace." That's what you're supposed to do with your body as you'll say later in a recap, present your body to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. IV. Sexual Immorality Offends the Lord Jesus Now, sexual immorality offends God. It is offensive. Look what he says in verses 15-17, it offends Jesus. "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body, for it is said the two will become one flesh. But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit." So he expands the doctrine here. The body was made for the Lord. That means our bodies are members of Jesus Christ. Christ is intimately connected with our bodies. He is our head spiritually. We are his physical bodies here on earth. And so he uses our bodies to reach out and do things, controlling our minds and hearts by the Spirit, he uses your hands to reach out and care for the poor and needy, do acts of service to the sick and dying, to do actual things. He uses your actual physical feet to walk, beautiful feet to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. I mean, he uses our bodies to serve him. We are one with Christ physically. And then he asked the question then, "If that's true, then how could I take the members of Christ and then unite them with a prostitute? Never!" There's a sense of horror here. It's not, "I'd rather not." It's not that at all. It's a sense of horror. Never, may it never be. It should be considered impossible. There's like an emotional reaction to this. How could we take this body which is consecrated in Christ and united immorally? It's kind of like the logic of James 3 where he's talking about our tongues. Remember how he says, "With the tongue, you praise our God and Father, and with it you curse men who have been made in the likeness of God, out of the same mouth come praising and cursing, my brothers. This should not be." We'll just take that and expand it to the whole body. With the body, we serve our Lord and savior, and with the body, we send sexually. How could this be? May it never be. And he says in Verse 16: "Do you not understand what's actually going on with the temple prostitute, what's actually happening when you're with her?" Look at Verse 16: "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body for it is said the two will become one flesh." They were underestimating sex, underestimating the sexual union as we all tend to do, looking on as a casual thing, a physical function. Well, it's not. Our language tends to minimize it like an affair. An affair is just something that happens, right? That's what we use. The affair was a such and such affair like in history. This is not an affair or a fling or modern terms like hooking up. It's minimizing. But Paul says, going back to Genesis 2, "Do you not understand what's happening here with the act of marriage, the marital act?" Which is sexual intercourse, the actual act. "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." That's the exact same thing that Jesus quoted in Matthew 19 to talk about marriage, what marriage is. Paul applies it to the time you visited the temple prostitute last week. So you just in some sense married that girl. Do you not understand what's happening there? It's never casual. There's no such thing as casual sex. It's just not biblically true. It's significant what's going on. So we need to make our sexual lives then deeply connected to our lives as Christians. Verse 17, "But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit." Our union with Christ is deep and it is eternal. We tend to think that I'm with Jesus most of the day, but if he would just leave me alone for a while, and then you go do whatever you want to do and then get reconnected with Jesus later on, it's just not how it is. And it extends to imaginary union with pornographic images online. In Matthew 5:28, Jesus said, "Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And so he prescribed in the Sermon of the Mount radical measures. If your right hand causes you to sin, then cut it off and throw it away. "If your right eye causes you to sin, then gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." And you may say, "I don't need to think about hell. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ." Yes, that's true. For those who walk by the power of the spirit as described in the following verses in Romans 8, but if you're walking according to the flesh, you have no right to say, "I'm certain that there's no condemnation for me." So if you're enslaved to sexual sin, how do you know you're a Christian? That's the question. So Jesus does mention hell, and we need to fear it and flee to Christ. V. Sexual Immorality Offends Our Bodies Sexual immorality also offends our bodies. Look at Verse 18: "Flee sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body but he who sins sexually, sins against his own body." So here's the clear command. Flee. Run for your lives. As Greg said in his prayer, make like Joseph with potter for his wife. Remember that woman? She saw that he was attractive, was coming after him, and he wouldn't even talk to her or be with her, and then when she had orchestrated time for them to just be alone, he would not be in the house, but ran, left his garment in her hand and ran. So that's a physical thing that happened, but it's a metaphor also for us. We need to run. We need to escape, escape the temptation. So First Corinthians 10:13 says, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. But God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but with the temptation, will provide a way of escape so you can stand up under it." Now that's a strange image. Escape so you can stand. It's exactly what I'm talking about. Escape the temptation so you can stand spiritually in Christ still holy. So find the door, whatever door God opened up for you in that tempting situation, and run through it, and also pray, "Lead us not into temptation." Don't be a fool and lead yourself into tempting situations which you've already shown you can't handle. So escape. And he says... The reasoning here is that sexual immorality assaults the body. Now, it is true other sins hurt the body, no doubt about it. Overeating can produce heart failure. Drunkenness can produce liver failure, cirrhosis of the liver. There's no doubt about that. But Paul's saying there's a unique assault of sexual immorality on the human body and we're talking about clearly STDs, AIDS, HPV, chlamydia, syphilis. All of these terrible diseases assault the body and they're gained sexually. As it says in Romans 1:27, speaking there about homosexuality, but it's true also of illicit heterosexual sex, "Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." I think that's talking about the destruction of the body through sex. VI. Sexual Immorality Offends the Holy Spirit Sexual immorality also offends the Holy Spirit. Look at verses 19 and 20: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price, therefore honor or glorify God with your body." This is powerful. We've had many times, and I love the image in Ephesians 2, also in 1 Peter 2, of the whole universal church as a temple. And there's this massive architectural project going on. Living stones quarried out of Satan's dark kingdom put in the walls of this rising temple, and it's just awesome. Here, the image is totally individual. We are individually, individually temples of the Holy Spirit. And why is that? Because Jesus promised that the counselor, the Holy Spirit, would come and be with us and live in us. That's staggering. You have the third person of the trinity inside you if you're a Christian. The Holy Spirit is in you, and Christ promised, if we obey his teachings, he said, "My father will come to him and I will come to him and make our dwelling with him." So you have the trinity, the Father, the Son, the Spirit, dwelling inside you if you're a Christian. It's powerful. Powerful. So therefore, he says, "You are not your own." You don't get to do whatever you want with your body. You don't get to do whatever you want with your time. "You were bought at price." That's slavery language. We are... That's why Paul calls himself Christ's bondslave. I am a purchased slave. And so Jesus bought me with his blood and that means he gets to tell you what to do. Every single day, he can tell you what to do. So this is something that I am continually having to remind myself and learn. Don't just say, "Hmm, what shall I do today? What shall I do with my afternoon? What shall I do with Sunday after we go home from church? What shall I eat? Where shall we go?" I would say, "No, don't." Say, "Lord, what do you want me to do with my afternoon? How do you want me to spend my time? I'm not my own. I'm bought with the price of your blood." Therefore glorify God with your body. That's what you're called on to do. Use your body as a vehicle for the glory of God. VII. Applications Applications: first and foremost is the Gospel. I pray every week that God would bring people to hear the Gospel here to First Baptist Church. And if you are not yet a Christian, if you weren't a Christian when you walked in here, only Jesus Christ can set you free from sin. You can't set yourself free. There's not enough different 12-step programs for all the sins you're doing, and even then those resolutions could only make a temporary moral change in your drinking of alcohol or your sex addiction or whatever. The problem of sin is comprehensive and Jesus came. Our Savior died on the cross for sin universal and all of the individual sins that we committed. And so trust in Christ. Come to Christ and he will set you free and forgive you and make you his own. Now, if you're a Christian, you've already done that. The clear command here is be very careful what you do with your body. Are you enslaved to anything? Are you enslaved to any honey? Are you enslaved any poison? So look at your lawful pleasures. Are there things that you own that really own you? Are there things that habits that you do that are amoral, they're pleasures, but you can't seem to live without them? And frankly, you seem to do them more and more, but you enjoy them less and less. Is it food? Is it entertainment? Is it hobbies? What is it? So just look at that and say, "Am I enslaved to any of the honey here?" And then, even more deadly, "Am I enslaved to drinking poison? Is there any illicit sexual aspect of my life?" The answer this week is the same as it was last week. Put the sin to death by the power of the Spirit, death by starvation. The longer it's been since you last yielded to a lust, the weaker that lust gets. So put it to death by the Spirit. Close with me in prayer.

One Night in Babylon Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 3:5-9. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, was a staggeringly talented man. He was the ruler of the greatest empire the world had ever seen up to that point, he was a military genius, an amazingly gifted administrator, and he was a shrewd judge of men. He had penetrating discernment. He was able to organize lesser talented men, to maximize their abilities, and through sheer willpower and fear, he galvanized the Babylonian people into a force for world domination. By his conquests, he made Babylon amazingly wealthy. Gold and silver and jewels flowed into the city from the distant corners of his mighty empire, and with the wealth of his conquest, he made the city of Babylon brilliant. The walls were heightened and fortified, the houses were embellished and enriched with the finest materials. His own palace was the envy of the world. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, mythological perhaps, but a symbol of the beauty of the capital city of that empire. It was planted with trees from all over the world, and the fruit trees were lush and abundant. Now, one night, King Nebuchadnezzar was walking on the roof of his palace, and he looked out over his capital city with deep-seated pride. He was looking out over the city that his genius had built. He was in awe of what he had done, the things that he had built, and he breathed in the fragrant air of his creations and his successes, and he spoke in self-worship. "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" He didn't, it seemed, speak these words to anyone in particular, for I don't think he really much cared what any other human being thought. He was drunk with self-worship at that moment, but Almighty God heard what he said and he read accurately the pride of his heart. God knew that the spirit of Babylon was dominating this man's heart, it was a spirit of soaring arrogance that led the Babylonians centuries before that to build a lofty tower, the Tower of Babel, to make a name for themselves. And it was also the spirit of self-worship that led the true king of Babylon, Satan, to ascend in heaven to topple Almighty God from his throne, as it's reported for us in Isaiah 14. The king of Babylon, Satan. "You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." God hates that arrogance in Satan's heart, and he hates the fact that we, the human race, have joined Satan in the same arrogant rebellion. And so, he had warned Nebuchadnezzar in a dream, a year before that evening walk out over the rooftop palace, that if he didn't repent of his pride and give God the glory for his empire, he would be struck by God and given the mind of an animal for seven years, until he acknowledged that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men, and gives them to whoever he chooses. Now, friends, there's nothing wrong with a certain level of joy in accomplishment. God has created human beings in his image, and has given us remarkable brains and dexterous fingers. And we can make beautiful things, even amazing things. With our skillful labors, we can build strong, soaring buildings, we can paint masterpiece paintings, we can compose concertos for violin, and some of us have the skill to play them. And there's nothing wrong with working hard at our tasks in our jobs and feeling a certain level of satisfaction in our labors. As Ecclesiastes 2:24 says, "A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God." However, everything we put our hands to in this world, every physical thing, is temporary, and someday it will all become dust in the wind. God’s Servants Must be Humbled Everything that God builds through the church, by the power of the Spirit, is eternal. All of the work that we do in the spiritual fields, the harvest field, spiritually, is eternal. The building that we do in the spiritual structure that is rising to be a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit, is eternal. The glorious work of the harvest, the glorious work of the building of the spiritual church of Jesus Christ, that's eternal. And to be qualified for this work, the highest and most glorious work there is, God's servants must first be humbled, and I mean humbled to the core. We must acknowledge, from the depths of our hearts, that we are merely servants who can accomplish nothing apart from Christ and apart from his Spirit. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Someday, we'll be in Heaven, we'll be in a far more glorious city than Babylon ever was. And I can imagine we might walk on the rooftops of aspects of the new Jerusalem, and when we do, God will not have a single one of his servants walking arrogantly before him, as Nebuchadnezzar did that night, saying, "Is this not the new Jerusalem I have built by my courageous missionary work, or by my boldness and workplace evangelism, or by my skillful teaching or preaching of the Word of God, or by my faithful hidden prayer life, or by my lavishly generous financial giving to the work of the Kingdom, or by my tireless unsung labors as a servant behind the scenes, or by my works, my sacrificial works of mercy to the poor and needy?" He will not listen to any of that and we will not want to do it, for we will be so completely humbled and understand that every one of the living stones that went into building that city were quarried by the sovereign power of Almighty God, and we're just part of it, and God was gracious to us. And if God is going to use you greatly, brothers and sisters, he must humble you greatly, and this text will do it. This text has the power to humble the servants of God, to humble us deeply. Remember the context here, the Corinthians were carnal in their mindset, they were focusing too much on hero leaders, great leaders. They loved the philosopher, the traveling philosopher types that would set up schools of philosophy and, by their skillful rhetoric, would gain followers for themselves. They were used to that in Greece. And along comes Paul, and he does this kind of thing, and they say, "Okay, he's our new leader." Apollos came later. And so we have that division uncovered for us in 1 Corinthians 1:12. "One of you says, 'I follow Paul;' and another, 'I follow Apollos;' and another, 'I follow Cephas.'" (Cephas is Peter). Paul returns to this in 1 Corinthians 3:3-4, says "You're still worldly, you're still carnal" "For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one of you says 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not acting like mere men?" The gospel trains us in a whole new way of thinking about everything, and here, especially about human leaders. A humble way that recognizes that God alone can make this field produce a harvest. God alone can build the spiritual edifice, the structure, that is the living church of Jesus Christ. Yet, though God could have done all this himself, or he could have chosen to use angels to do all of this work, instead, he chose to redeem us from being his enemies and serving his enemy, king Satan. He redeemed us from that dark domain and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved son, and enlisted him in his service, adopted us as his sons and daughters, and involves us in the family business. And we have a role to play in that family business, which is salvation for the elect to the ends of the earth, that's what God is doing. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. And so he will assign to each of us, as we walk with him, helpful, beneficial tasks to the end of building that kingdom, but it is vital for us, as his servants, to be humbled as we do those tasks. I. What Are Paul and Apollos? Only Servants And that's what 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 is all about. So Paul begins by asking, in verse 5, some rhetorical question. This question's for impact. "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe, as the Lord has assigned to each his task." So Paul humbles himself and humbles Apollos. What are we? For the effective power behind the church, the Corinthians were looking at the wrong place, they were looking at human leaders, human hero leaders that God had used to plant and develop the church. Now, some of your Bibles, some of the translations say, "Who is Paul and who is Apollos?" Possible that that's what the text says, the original text. As though we are men with no name, no reputation, nothing special, no suitable qualifications. You remember when the Lord called Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt, and when Moses realized, as he's looking into the flames of that burning bush, the magnitude of the calling, he said to God, "'Who am I, that I should go to pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?' And God said, 'I will be with you.'" As though Moses were saying, "I'm not the kind of man you would choose for an important mission like this. I'm not qualified for it. I didn't go to prophet school, or ambassador school, or public speaking school. I'm not qualified for such a challenging mission, so who am I that I should do that? My credentials don't line up." God's answer to Moses' question, "Who am I, that I should go to pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Was no answer at all, at one level. He didn't build up his ego or his self-esteem, like in a counseling session. "Oh Moses, you're underestimating yourself, you're exactly the kind of person that I need. You are qualified in ways you don't even really imagine." He didn't do anything of the kind. Instead, he just simply said, "I will be with you," and that's all that matters. The power for the deliverance of the Jews from physical slavery in Egypt was not going to be human, it was not all about Moses' skill set, not his eloquence, not his clever diplomacy, not his military tactical skill. Just the outstretched arm of Almighty God. Now, if that was true with the Exodus, how much more true is it with hearts and souls being won to Christ and an invisible, spiritual church rising to the glory of God? Even more true, when it comes to that task. But actually, I think the text doesn't say, "Who is Paul, and who is Apollos?" I think it, rather, it goes even deeper. "What are we?" It's almost more dehumanizing. Like, "what am I?" Not "who am I?" But "what am I?" It's more humbling. It goes to the core of what we are. I am a clod of dirt that was scooped up in the hand of God and God breathed breath into me. It's the same feeling, I think, that came over King David when he wrote Psalm 8, "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place…" one thought dominates my mind: "What is man that you are even of him?" So I think it goes to that level. What is Apollos, and what is Paul? Then Paul answers the question. We are "only servants, through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each his task." Compared to Christ, compared to the Holy Spirit, we played a minor role. So your focus, oh Corinthians, on Paul and on Apollos is twisted, and it's actually bizarre, if you see it properly. So imagine you and your friends have been invited to a lavish banquet at an incredible palace by a monarch. And he welcomes you in warmly, and commands his servants to care for your every need, and his servants seat you at your place at the banqueting table. And the servants are there to feed you and to give you whatever drink you desire, and they come and go, and you're eating, and you're amazed, you're looking around. It's just an incredible atmosphere, just an amazing time, but then you and your friends start to argue about which of the table waiters is the best. "Well, mine brings our food a little more quickly than the other." It's like, "No, no, but this guy knows how to pour the drink like I've never seen, didn't spill a drop." And they go on and on for hours about the servants. Bizarre. In this analogy, you should be thinking about the king and his generosity and his lavish kindness to you in letting you be seated at the table. The servants don't matter. II. The Lord Assigns to Each His Task That's about the point that Paul's making here. "And we are just servants, as the Lord assigned to each his task." We had a task assigned to us. Now, the goal is the same, and that is the saving faith of the Corinthians. We are "only servants, through whom you came to believe, as the Lord has assigned to each his task." God used human instruments to bring the Corinthians to saving faith in Jesus Christ, an eternally consequential work. He used humans as servants to that end, through whom you came to believe in Jesus. So God assigned to Paul to arrive first in Corinth, and to serve as a trailblazing, church planting apostle to the Gentiles, that was his call. He was called, we're told in Romans 15, not to build on someone else's foundation, but to go to some new place, where no one had ever heard the name of Jesus, and do that kind of work. That was Paul's calling. And so he went first, like he always did, to the Jews, and he reasoned, Sabbath by Sabbath in the synagogue with the Jews, seeking to prove, from the Old Testament scriptures, that Jesus was the Messiah that had been prophesied. And if he followed the same pattern that he did in other Gentile cities, he would go, during the day, to the marketplace, and would reason, day by day, with those who were there to buy and sell. After his work in Corinth was done, because he was just a trailblazing church planter, it was time for him to move on and go do that same work in another Gentile city. Along came a different man, Apollos. And in Acts 18, we learned about Apollos. That he was "a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, he had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately." Now Priscilla and Aquila had to instruct him a little more accurately about the facts concerning Jesus' life, but once he got that, he just took off. And he was powerful in speech, and "he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate [Acts 18:28], proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ." That was Apollos. And he seems to have been a better speaker than Paul, very polished in his public presentation, very gifted. Now, through both of them, Paul says, the Corinthians came to believe in Christ, but they had different tasks as the Lord assigned. Look at verse 6, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it." So Paul uses actually two images here, but first an agricultural image he's going to move for the rest of the chapter to an architectural image. They're just teaching the same thing different ways. But he starts with the agricultural image, the farming image as Jesus often did. The Kingdom of heaven is like a seed that a farmer went out and scattered or like a single seed in the garden that grows. It's a lot of agricultural images. In verse 9 he makes plain what this field is, "we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building." So Paul's task is the planting of the seed with the Word. That would be initial evangelism, reasoning from scripture to the end that God's elect will first hear about Jesus, and begin to come to faith in Christ. Maybe just like we heard in the testimony that it's like a light switch for some, or like a dimmer switch for others. So maybe it was a process for some people, maybe others got it right away the same day they heard they could see it. But that was Paul's task, planting the seed. And along came Apollos and his task was to water seed that had already been planted to build on someone else's foundation, and continue the work. So I don't know a lot about agriculture, I know a lot about Biology. I know I can kill any seed that God has ever made. We can put it in the ground and nothing can come of it. I've proven that. My wife has a little more skill, she can put seeds in the ground and things come from it, good things that we can eat. So, I'm out of that business but I appreciate it. But I think my understanding is the seed has a hard shell that protects it until the time has come for it to grow. So it can be in a bag of seeds, nothing's happening, but you put it in the soil and there's moisture in the soil, and then you add water. And I think the hard shell dissolves, to some degree, like Jesus said it dies, the seed dies and the internal genetic material starts to flourish. Tap root goes out and a root system starts to develop, and the thing starts to grow. That's as far as I'm going to go with that analogy, I can't carry it any further. But we see here, Paul planting the initial seed, Apollos coming and adding the necessary water. They had different tasks, different roles. And God is very wise. Jesus is very wise in dividing the labor. He talks about this, Jesus does in John 4. You remember the encounter he had with the Samaritan woman at the well. And Jesus's disciples were in that town in Samaria, they were probably saying to each other. What are we doing here? Because they're Jewish people, they hated the Samaritans, Samaritans hated them, and they're like, "look, let's go and get lunch, buy lunch, and let's get out of here. I don't know why we're even in Samaria…" I don't know that they actually said this, that's not in the Bible, but you have that indication they're there to buy lunch and come back. Jesus is winning a soul. And he wins her. And she is so excited she leaves her water jar there and goes into the town and says to the Samaritans, "Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" And they all come immediately, and follow her to go find out more about Jesus. In the meantime Jesus's disciples have come back and said, "Okay we got lunch. Let's eat. Oh, they're about to get a spiritual lesson and if you look for it properly, a spiritual rebuke. I have food to eat, that apparently you know nothing about. My food is not the food, you went and bought in Samaria. "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and finish his work." And then he said this. "Do you not say four months more and then comes the harvest? I tell you open your eyes and look at the fields. They are white for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages. Even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, One sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard labor and you have entered into their labor." It's the exact same teaching. God’s Division of Gospel Labor God wisely does a division of labor in the advancement of the gospel. In mission work, in evangelism, very rarely is it one person from beginning to end that brings a soul to Christ. In the history of the Christian church and especially in the history of missions, it is often the case that a trail blazer goes out ahead of everyone else, like a morning star and sees very little return on the costly investment. And then someone else comes along and things start to flourish. But it could never have happened without the hard initial trail blazing work. I get the image of our forbearers, the settlers, the colonial settlers, they were just a different level of human being than us. You get that feeling? I actually once tried to chop a tree with an axe that had blocked... My chain saw wouldn't start and I was swinging at a tree that was about eye level and after five strokes, this is a shameful thing to admit, I was done. And after about five minutes, I could give another four whacks. I'm like, If Daniel Boone could see me now. But what were they like? They went through the Cumberland Gap on the wilderness road and settled in some valley somewhere in Kentucky. It was covered with trees and they got to work and they started cutting those trees down. Maybe they girdled it by taking the bark 360 degrees around and it eventually would die, but it would not produce leaves and so they could... The sunlight could stream through and they could plant a small crop, subsistence crop of beans, but it was a work in progress. And as the winter went on, they would chop down these trees cut it up for fire wood or for building timber. I just can't... It's staggering the amount of labor. And then you got stumps and you got your team of oxen out there. And they use a certain kind of hewing axe to get the root system out and they pull up those stumps and they begin to plow. And they bump into some rocks and they pry them up and at some point they have a plow-able field and then they can start planting a crop. So, I have a similar image here with evangelism. Jesus uses a similar image. Others have done hard labor before you. You came along and you reaped what others have labored for. There's an example of this in church history in the Puritan era in England, Medieval Roman Catholicism had not preached the true Gospel, there was centuries of spiritual darkness in England and then the Reformation came, and rediscovered the true gospel of justification by faith alone apart from works of the law and the Puritans came along and began preaching that true gospel but it was hard work. The earliest Puritan pastors had to plow some tough, hard soil. Richard Greenham was an example of this, he was a pastor in a place called Dry Drayton. Seems to be like a spiritually a suitable name for the analogy here. Seven miles from Cambridge during the years 1570 to 1590, he worked extremely hard. He rose daily at 4:00 in the morning and each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, he preached a Morning sermon at day break to catch his people before they dispersed into the fields for they were farmers and he preached twice on Sundays, and he preached with such fervor that his shirt was drenched in sweat, and he catechized their children every morning and then spent every afternoon in evangelism, walking from field to field preaching the gospel among the farmers. He would walk along plowing farmers as they're plowing, sharing the gospel as they walked. He was renowned especially as a skillful counselor of souls, he was really skillful at marshalling biblical truth to help troubled souls, but no one in his immediate vicinity cared about that counsel. People would come from miles away, to come and listen to his counsel. He had very little visible fruit in his own parish. JI Packer said about him, For all his godliness, insight, evangelical message and hard work, his ministry was virtually fruitless. There was, at the time, a little rhyme that was spoken of his, Greenham had pastures green, but his flocks were full lean, meaning they were like starving. But the generation that followed, other pastors came and reaped a bountiful harvest in that area. He did the hard work, others reaped the benefits of his labor. Packer said about England at that time, "There was much fallow ground to be broken up. It was a time for plowing and sowing but the reaping time was still in the future." And so it is on the mission field. Missionaries may work among an unreached people group for a decade or more and see very little fruit but then God blesses and all of them are working for the glory of God. And Christ, I want you to notice is very wise in doing this, to assign to each is task. People have different gifts, different talents, spiritual gifts, different personalities and different callings and this division of labor humbles all of us. Because no one person is all competent, independent, able to do the whole thing himself or herself. III. God Alone Gives Spiritual Growth So verse 6 and 7, it's plain, God alone gives spiritual growth. "I planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants, nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow." Biological growth is a gift of God. The apple farmer can do all the right things, but he cannot make the seed grow into a sapling or the sapling grow into a sturdy tree with vigorous branches or the tree produce buds, or the buds turn into apples, or the apples come to full fruition. We can't do any of those intermediate steps. Something only God can do. Every step of the way is produced by the secret activity of God in the plant and the farmer cannot say he produced any of it. In the same way only God can give spiritual growth, this is what we've been seeing in 1 Corinthians 2. Remember the Apostle Paul came to Corinth, and when he came, he resolved to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified. He was with them in weakness and fear and much trembling. And his preaching were not a display of human skill, human rhetoric, but of God's power through the Holy Spirit, so that their faith would not rest on man's skill and effort but on God who sends his Spirit. He told us very plainly in chapter 2:14, The natural man cannot accept the things that come from the Spirit of God because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot accept them, because they're spiritually discerned, and those people are blind, and we have not the cure to that blindness. And so, in all evangelism and in all missions, we have a limited role to play. The real work can only be done by God, through his Holy Spirit. So also, once an individual has come to faith in Christ, their growth, their progress and sanctification, is only by the sovereign Spirit of God. A pastor like me, I can preach the Word week after week, godly parents can raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, a discipler can meet with a disciple and pour out scripture and exemplify the Christian walk, but we can only do so much only God actually produces spiritual growth in a human heart. And so Paul goes so far as to say we're nothing. We are nothing. So neither he who plants, nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. So that's the answer. What am I? What is Apollos? We are nothing. God is everything. Now, listen, Paul isn't meaning to insult us, he's not trying to insult Apollos or any human being, we are created in the image of God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, God knit us together in our mother's wombs and God sent his only begotten Son into the world to save human beings. "It's not angels he helps, says in Hebrews 2, but human beings. So he's not saying we're nothing in that sense, but what he is saying is God doesn't need us for any of this. No one man or one woman, is indispensable to the work of the Kingdom. God is able to raise up from stones, preachers of the gospel, and evangelists and missionaries as John the Baptist said. God doesn't need us, but he graciously gives us a role to play, Isn't that marvelous? So that you're not wasting your life on dust in the wind, you actually are called to do something of eternal consequence. Look at the next verse, in the next passage, that I'll preach on, God willing. Verse 10, where he says, "By the grace God gave me I lay the foundation, as an expert builder, and someone else is... " But God's grace gave me a role. God's grace gave me a ministry. It is by the mercy of God that we have this ministry, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:1. IV. The Servants are One, and Each Will Be Rewarded for their Labor And he says The servants, all of whom are called by Christ and empowered by the Spirit, we're all one. Look what he says again in verse 8, he who plants, and he waters are one and each will receive his wages or rewards for his labor. So, we're one strong assertions of unity here. We're part of the same body. He will talk about that in Chapter 12, one may be a hand, another foot we're all part of the same body with Christ as the head. Different roles, different function, same body, and we have the same purpose. Apollos, and I we're on the same page. We have the same goal. And that is your completion your perfection in Christ, and Heaven. That's our goal. We have the same purpose, same Lord same calling. Different tasks, but we are one. Essentially he's saying, we're not in competition with each other, we're not rival factions. Paul versus Apollos like an MMA bout. Come and watch big fight Friday night. We'll see who wins. Not at all, they didn't have MMA back then, but you know what I mean. They did have wrestling. But no, it's nothing like that. We are actually one in purpose. And we're not in competition. Like you're saying. I follow Paul and not Apollos? Oh yeah, I follow Apollos and not Paul. That whole thing's wrong. It's foolish. Picture you're out in an orchard and it's planting time and you see two people wearing the shirt of the orchard with the logo on the back and this one individual is planting all these little saplings and someone else is coming along with this sprinkler hose system. And as you're watching, you're not saying, Alright they're in competition, I wonder which one's going to win. They have the same purpose, and that is that the orchard will eventually be even more fruitful at harvest time, the same purpose. That's what he's saying. And then he mentions rewards the one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. Now I'm not going to talk about this at all today. I'm just saying God in His grace will reward faithful service. We're going to talk about this for the next two sermons in 1 Corinthians as we talk about gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay and straw, and how God will reward, faithful service for His glory. V. Applications Applications. To all you who are hard-working, servants of God. I just want this passage to humble you. Just be humbled by this. Learn to say I am an unworthy servant. I've only done my duty. Luke 17. Someday we're going to be there. Brothers and sisters, we're going to be there, we're going to see the glorious city, and I believe that God is going to show the human labor that went into building it. I think the rewards don't mean anything apart from that, the crowns don't mean anything if we don't know the story so we're going to learn the story, but all of us are going to be so thoroughly saturated in the mindset of the glory of God, we're going to see all of the human labor that went into building the new Jerusalem in the proper light. And we're going to recognize and honor the human servants, but we're going to know to God be the glory, for all of it. So we're going to see that and we're going to be filled with a sense of the greatness of God in Christ. So the more you can do that now the better, don't think of yourself as indispensable. If you're a hard-working, fruitful servant of God, think of yourself with sober judgment, not too highly of yourself, or too lowly. However, I think you should celebrate the kindness and mercy of God in involving you in this work. Isn't it a good thing that you're not going to see all of your works, torched and turned to ash on Judgment Day? You actually get to do something that's going to survive and last, if you are serving God faithfully now. Now to those of you who are believers in Christ, but maybe you're feeling some conviction, you're like... I actually just don't know what my ministry is. I would not say that I actually have a definable ministry. I mean I have a life and I go to church on Sunday and we pray, we give God thanks before the meal, and we do some things but I don't actually honestly have a ministry. Well, this passage then should convict you. It should convict you to say, God, would you please show me what my spiritual gifts are, and get me going, get me busy in the building of the kingdom of God, so I don't waste my life on an empire that will become dust, in the wind. Babylon is gone. All of the things that mighty Nebuchadnezzar built are dust in the wind. They're gone. I don't want any of you, my brothers and sisters, to see that happen to your life work. So this may be a call to a fork in the road for you to say, "What can I do for the spread of the gospel here in Durham and to the ends of the earth? How can I be involved with the International Mission Board? How can I encourage some missionaries? How can I give more money, financially? What can I do to lost people in my company or on my college campus? What can I do to be involved? How can I encourage brothers and sisters that are already Christians, how can I help them grow?" Now to you who are not yet Christians, I just want to give a final word, I just thank God you're here. Week after week, we pray that God would bring us people who are not yet converted. And I just want to reach out to you and say, "Oh that today would be for you the day of salvation. That you would realize through the preaching of the Word, that there is a creator, God who made the universe, and who made you. And because He made everything, he is a mighty king and because he is a king, he has a right to make laws and he has made laws, the Ten Commandments and the two great commandments, and we don't follow them, none of us do, all of us have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God and we are convicted by the law as law breakers. And we have no hope, we cannot make it right. But God in His love and His mercy, sent His Son Jesus, who was born of a virgin, and who lived a sinless life, and walked on this earth. And taught many parables and teachings and did incredible miracles but He came especially to die. "All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him on Jesus the iniquity of us all." He is our substitute. And all you need to do to be completely forgiven of all your sins is trust in Jesus, repent, turn away from the darkness, turn away from the sin and trust in Jesus and you will be forgiven. Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the time that we've had to study your Word. We thank you for the wisdom that flows to us from that Word. We thank you that you have taught us not to boast about men, but to trust in you, the one who gives good gifts to all of us. Thank you for the ministry of the Word. Thank you for faithful servants who bring it to us, but Lord, we know that the true growth, the real growth only comes from you, and so we give you all the glory in Jesus' name. Amen.

Introduction: The “Carnal Christian” False Doctrine Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. And as we come to this text, we're coming to a text that has been a battle ground text for many decades. For here, we come face-to-face with the idea of the "Carnal Christian." The "Carnal Christian” doctrine wrestles with the perplexing problem of sin in the lives of Christians. It's a problem for all of us. It's the greatest problem you have in your life as a Christian, your own indwelling sin, and also trying to understand the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of a genuine Christian. But along with that has come, some, I think, false explanations that results in this idea of the "Carnal Christian." What do we mean by that? Well, John Reisinger put it this way. "Many who regularly occupy church pews or don't regularly occupy church pews but filled church roles and are intellectually acquainted with the facts of the Gospel, never strike one blow for Christ. They seem to be at peace with his enemies, they have no quarrel with sin, it seems. And apart from a few sentimental expressions about Christ, there's no Biblical evidence that they have experienced anything of the power of the Gospel in their lives. Yet in spite of the evidence against them, they consider themselves to be just what their teachers tell them - that they are, 'Carnal Christians.' And as carnal Christians, they believe they go to heaven, though perhaps not first class and with few rewards. The most serious aspect of the situation… is not the carelessness of these church goers, it is the error of their teachers who by preaching this theory of "the carnal Christian," have led them to believe that there are three groups of people, The unconverted person, the carnal Christian, and the spiritual Christians." Well, this is an issue that I had to begin wrestling with early in my Christian life. As I've mentioned before, I was led to faith in Christ, by a fellow fraternity brother, who was involved with campus crusade for Christ ministry, now known as Cru. And the first time I ever heard the Gospel, they used a booklet called "The Four Spiritual Laws." And Cru members or workers have used this for years. It's a good tool that divides the Gospel into four headings, God, man, Christ, response. But soon after I was converted, I began to be discipled through the Cru ministry there at MIT and the discipleship I received was incredibly helpful. One of the tools they used, was another booklet that Campus Crusade for Christ put out called the spirit, the Holy Spirit booklet or the blue booklet or sometimes called The Bird booklet, because it showed a picture of the Holy Spirit as a bird on the front. And it was teaching, basically, how to live the Spirit-filled life. And the audience was people who had prayed to receive Christ, maybe they have already been through the four spiritual laws but now they wanted to know how to live. Or perhaps the audience was for people who have done that years and years ago, but weren't living anything of the Christian life and wanted to know now what they should do, how they should live spirit-filled life. And in that way it was incredibly helpful tool for many people, because it gave them very practical aspects of what I would call sanctification or the progressive life of the Christian. Which is very, very important to know. But the idea that the human race can be divided into three categories, the unconverted person or the natural person, the spirit-filled Christian and the carnal Christian, I think has progressively become for me a dangerous idea. And I want to try to skate through two different things. One is to show why it's a dangerous idea, but on the other hand to show how beneficial it is for us to understand the role of the Spirit, Holy Spirit in our lives. Now, to illustrate this idea, the Blue Booklet, the Holy Spirit booklet use three diagrams. The first is the non-Christian diagram. So in the booklet they showed a circle representing the person's life with a chair in the center, representing the throne or control center of the person's life. And then many random various sized dots inside the circle representing the various interests and issues of that person's life. The letter S representing self, is on the throne ruling the life. The cross representing Christ is outside the circle entirely. The person is not a Christian. This is a lost person, this is a non-Christian, the unregenerate person, the person who's not born again. The second diagram is the spirit-filled Christian. They showed the circle, again, representing the person's life. The chair in the center representing the control center or the throne of that person's life. But then they show the circles representing all of the interests and ideas and issues of that person's life in a kind of a concentric array around the throne with lines going toward the center, showing that the issues of that person's life are in harmony with Christ who's on the throne of that life. So you can see the cross representing Christ is on the throne, S representing self as dethroned, yielding to Christ's Lordship. This represents the Christian who is a spirit-filled Christian leading the spirit-filled life. And all the issues of this person's life are focused on Christ and His will, on Christ in His glory. The third diagram is the one that's of interest to us now, the carnal Christian diagram. This is a third kind of person according to this teaching. It's exactly like the non-Christian diagram. No difference at all except one thing, the cross is no longer outside the circle, but is now inside the circle, but as you'll notice, at the foot of the throne. The self is still ruling this person's life and the random various sized dots are still all over the place, not in any way aligned to Christ. Honestly, the diagram implies that there's no difference at all between this person's life and the non-Christian life, except that Christ is in the life. Sometimes the disciple there would go on and describe the carnal Christian and his or her lifestyle, such as legalistic attitude, impure thoughts, jealousy, guilt worry, discouragement, critical spirit, frustration, aimlessness, fear, ignorance of spiritual heritage, disobedience, loss of love for God and others, a poor prayer life, critical spirit, no desire for Bible study and many other such things. But for all of that, a Christian with their sins forgiven, living a consistently sinful life but forgiven the whole time for all of their sins. And you may well ask how do you know that the cross is in the life, how do you know that the sins are forgiven? On what basis? Well, the answer would be given because they prayed the sinners prayer sometime in the past. Or they signed a commitment card or they came forward at an evangelistic rally, or having watched on TV or online some evangelistic presentation at a certain moment, they gave some kind of ascent to the Gospel. And then in comes at that point, a teaching known as "Once saved, always saved." So if you have at any time in your life, prayed that prayer, you will most certainly be going to heaven no matter how you live. And that the entire human race can be broken into these three categories. This is the carnal Christian teaching. Now, there are larger issues with this that factor in in our geographical region, sometimes known as the Bible Belt, but more extensively across the US, with evangelical churches that have an understanding of the Protestant Gospel of justification by faith alone apart from works. They're familiar with the language of evangelicalism, the language of the Gospel, they've been around at their whole lives perhaps, and they have in the Bible Belt at some point, in high school or at some point they, maybe when they were children, came forward Sunday morning invitation at the end of a sermon, or prayed the sinner's prayer or did some kind of commitment card, and that happened at some time in the past. And they became at that moment, maybe a member of a Bible-believing church and their names are on the roll, but then for years after that, have done nothing different at all. It's really not impacted their lives at all. And the membership rolls of churches just like ours, Baptist churches, evangelical churches, are filled with people like this, who have made these kind of one-time off commitments, and then became members of the church, even that very day. By the way, that's why FBC has a membership process. You can't become a member of our church today. So there's a process to slow all that down. But in other churches you could become a member right there and then, and then the names are taken down, and so the churches like ours are filled with these kinds of people who are members of the church, but they haven't been seen in years. Churches like us. Then would have something called like a homecoming Sunday, once a year, maybe in the fall sometime. You can see them advertised on churches with sign ministries. And what they're trying to do is get those folks that are members to just come back for one Sunday at least. And a percentage of them do come back for one Sunday, at least. Maybe they will come back at Christmas time or at Easter or whatever, but then they're just going to settle back into their normal way of living their lives. And yet for all of that, and this is the key issue here, they are assured of their final salvation no matter how they live, apart from any works. So their understanding of justification by faith alone, which is a precious doctrine, is skewed because their faith doesn't have any works that follow it at all. And the idea of assurance of salvation, what many call "Once saved, always saved," others call it "perseverance of the saints," is skewed as well. And these two things, I think poisonously work together to give a false assurance to literally tens of thousands of people, and that's what I think is in front of us as we look at 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. Along with this finally is something called the Lordship controversy, which flared up a number of years ago. And that has a question; can you accept Jesus as savior but not as Lord? It's really just a cousin or a brother of the same theological issue here. Can you have Jesus save you from your sins, but not recognize his Lordship as king over your life? And some people think that to link Jesus as Savior and Jesus as Lord is bad doctrine because you're adding works, and you're perverting the free grace of the Gospel. And you're adding a lifetime of works and uncertainty to the simple free offer of believe in Jesus and you'll be saved. And so they would say something like; Jesus plus nothing gives you everything. Just believe in Jesus and it... And the implied aspect here is, it doesn't really matter how you live after that. Well, this morning as we come to 1 Corinthians 3:1-4, we're wading through all of these things, we're wading into all of this. And why is that? Well, because any who try to route these ideas in a text of Scripture will inevitably come to 1 Corinthians 3:1-4, at some point. And they will see how the Apostle Paul addresses these Corinthians as carnal in the KJV translation. Other translations have a different translation, like you heard the ESV a few minutes ago. He calls them brothers and Carnal, and so thus some would claim that they are "Carnal Christians," and so that's the approach. Two Categories of People So I'm going to lay my cards on the table. I do not believe that the Bible divides the human race into three categories of people, but two categories of people. You're either dead in your transgressions and sins or you're alive in Christ Jesus. Those are the two categories. If you are dead in your transgressions and sins, the Bible would also call you a child of the devil. If you're born again, you would be called conversely a child of God. Those are the two categories. Jesus spoke like this all the time. There was wheat and weeds, there were good fish and bad fish, there was light and darkness. There's not three categories. And yet all of us, every single one of us struggles with sin. And we all have moments, like when you look at that carnal Christian diagram, it's like, "Yeah, that was me Thursday afternoon, and again Thursday evening, actually. Friday morning, repented of my sin, filled with the spirit but by lunch not so much." Any of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Christ is definitely in your life but things are a mess right now. And so can I get some help for all that, please? Can I get some help for living the Spirit-filled life in the midst of what's actually happening for me? And so things are not so clear and easy but I just think it's important to know you're either alive in Christ or you're dead outside of him. And that three categories is just not a helpful way to think. I. Paul Rebukes the “Carnal” Christians at Corinth Alright. So let's walk through 1 Corinthians 3:1-4, that's our primary job now, and show why we cannot root that carnal Christian teaching in this text. What is Paul actually doing here? Well, he's rebuking the so-called carnal Christians at Corinth. This is a scathing rebuke from a loving spiritual father. Next chapter in 4:15, Paul says "In Christ Jesus I became your father through the Gospel." So he is giving them a verbal spanking here. And sometimes a loving father has to do that. So look what he says in verse 1-4, "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly." Carnal in the KJV. "Mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed you are still not ready, you are still worldly, for since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men or ordinary people. For when one of you says, "I follow Paul" and another, "I follow Apollos", are you not mere men or ordinary people?" So he begins by saying, "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual." Even as he's rebuking them, he takes a loving stance toward them. He's not being harsh with them here, he loves them, they are his brothers and sisters in Christ, they are equally part of the body of Christ. He wanted to teach them the fullness of God's teaching at every level, but he was evaluating their ability to accept his teaching. "Brothers I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly or carnal, mere infants in Christ." Now this is actually very important for a teacher of the Word of God to do, evaluate in a feedback loop, are the people able to understand what you're saying? Jesus did this the night before He was crucified with His own apostles. John 16:12, He said, "I have much to say to you, more than you can now bear." That's a feedback loop isn't it? You can't handle everything, I would say to you. When the Holy Spirit comes, He'll teach you the rest, but you're not ready for it, now. So you need to do that. If people are not ready to hear what you're teaching, then it's a waste of time. And so Paul has to slow down and address them. And he says, "Not as spiritual but as worldly," or carnal, in the KJV. People of the flesh as though they were non-Christians. Now, the word spiritual goes back to the end of the last chapter. Remember how we were seeing that the world thinks Christ crucified as foolishness and a stumbling block, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. In chapter 2, he shows us why because the Holy Spirit has come into our lives to show us, the wisdom and power of Christ crucified. Look back in Chapter 2 verse 12, he said, "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God is freely giving us." So it's the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of these Corinthians, that changed everything. And at the end of the sermon, I'm going to give you some marks of regeneration. I'm going to put it all in the line of what the Spirit does in the life of a true Christian. And I'm going to ask you, is the Spirit doing this in your life? Is the Spirit doing that in your life? Everything is focused on the spirit. And then at the end of Chapter 2, as you know, the last thing he said is, "But we have the mind of Christ." So the Holy Spirit has come into the genuinely converted Corinthians, to teach them to think about Christ crucified and then everything else like Jesus does, and gives them a new mind. We know that the natural person, in 2:14, cannot accept the things of God, because they are foolishness and spiritually discerned, he's not able to understand them. But you Corinthians, the genuinely converted people have been brought out of darkness in to light. You now have the Holy Spirit, you can understand spiritual things. That's where we were at the end of Chapter 3. But now Paul is saying to the Corinthians, "But I couldn't talk to you like that. I couldn't address you as I want to as spiritual people, I have to talk to you as though you're not converted, as you're unconverted people. Or, he calls them infants in Christ. A new born baby is immature but still human. A full member of the family, a son or daughter of that family, human definitely, but a baby. Now you cannot be a Christian without having the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. Romans 8:9, says, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." So again, there's two types of people. Either the Spirit is in your life, or he's not. Alright, but the spirit was in them, but they were thinking and acting like babies, and as babies in Christ they needed baby food. Look at verse 2, "I gave you milk, not solid food or meat, for you are not yet ready for it, indeed, you were still not ready." Babies have no teeth, thank God, say the mothers. Thank God. They are not able to handle a T-bone steak. It'd be child abuse to do it. But we know in the normal progression of things they develop teeth, they grow their teeth, and then little by little you give them more and more solid food, more and more adult food, as time goes on. That's the image, the analogy. Milk Teaching and Meat Teaching So when it comes to Christian doctrine, there is milk and then there's meat. So what does that mean? Well, milk are those basic Christian doctrines that you would explain in an evangelistic setting to a non-Christian, the basic facts of the gospel, who Jesus is, who God is, who Jesus, who we are, what sin is what Christ came to do, His death on the cross atoning for sins, His bodily resurrection from the dead, the need for faith and repentance in Christ, that's all milk. All the things you would explain to a non-Christian or then you would go back over with somebody who had just become a Christian. That's milk. So, what's meat. Well, meat are harder aspects of the Christian life. Ironically, we would go back to the cross. There are aspects of the Cross-centered life that are meat for us. To learn every day to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Jesus, no matter where it lives, that's meat. And it's hard to do. So that would be an example of meat, how the cross as it preaches self-denial and self-sacrifice at every moment and what that practically, how that works out, that would be an example of meat, but that's not the only meat I would think of. I also think meat would be any doctrines that are hard for immature Christians to accept, but are biblically true. They run contrary to the normal way of thinking. And it takes a while to be able to process the truth of it. For example, God's sovereignty and salvation, the aspects of that, eternal predestination of individuals, who God knows by name before they're even born, predestination. God's sovereign activity and Providence, how God controls even the sparrows that fall to the ground or the hairs on your head. And yet there's all this evil in the world, that's hard to understand. And then the higher levels of theology, for example, the author to Hebrews use the exact same kind of illustration, I like to give you meat but you still need milk. Does the same thing in Hebrews 5. Why? Because he wants to tell them about Melchizedek You're like, "Who's Melchizedek?" Friends, this is not a sermon on Hebrews 7, so we could do that another time, but Melchizedek's an image, a type of Christ, in the Old Testament. So it's just a higher level of theology and of illustration that at some point you need to come into as a Christian, to fully understand Christ, who he was, what he did. And the author to Hebrews there, and Hebrews 5 and 7, says, "I'd like to have given that but you're not ready." That's milk and that's meat. Meat would be the harder aspects of Christian theology that'd just take a while to be able to absorb. And it takes spiritual teeth to chew on it for a while, think about it, reason it through and then come to a peace with it. Paul's saying that the Corinthians weren't before able to chew on this meat and they're still not able to chew it. So he's rebuking them for their own spirituality and their immaturity. Look at verse 3, "You are still worldly, for since there is jealousy and quarreling among you. Are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?" Paul says they are worldly, other translations as I said, of the flesh, carnal, fleshly. Also saying, it's like they're unconverted, they're not unconverted, but they're acting as though they're unconverted. Now, in Verse 1, the Greek adjective is fleshy, that is of the flesh. But in verse 3, the adjective is, fleshly or that is like the flesh. So what's the difference? Well, take, let's say a woman's blouse, you could say that the blouse is silky meaning it feels and acts like silk but it's not silk or you could say the blouse is silk, meaning it's made of silk. And so what he is saying here by that shift, that subtle shift of language, he's saying, You're acting unconverted, you're not unconverted but you're acting it. Now, let me just pause. I would say all of our sin moments, we're acting like we're unconverted at that moment, we all do it, we all act like pagans, from time to time. And we're learning little by little, to stop doing that, that's sanctification, that progressive growth in holiness, stop thinking like a non-Christian. But that's what he's saying, here. And the proof he gives is their jealousy and quarreling. One says, "I follow Paul" one says, "I follow Apollos." That jealousy was just pagan. That's what the Corinthians did all the time, with rhetorical philosophical leaders. I follow Plato, I follow Aristotle, I follow Socrates, etcetera. He's saying you're doing the same things, which you've always done. And he says in Verse 4, "For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' Are you not mere men? It's an interesting expression. You're acting like natural humans and you should be acting like super natural humans. There should be a super natural aspect of your life as a Christian. Something that to some degree makes no sense to the non-Christians. Remember Jesus does this exact same thing at the end of Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Then He said this. "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" Do you see how he's arguing? You shouldn't be living like that. There should be a supernatural aspect of your life as a disciple of mine. Look, pagans know how to greet people who greet them. Non-Christians know how to invite their relatives over for a meal. I'm asking you to love your enemies. I'm asking to act like God. And then He cinches it by saying you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. That's a supernatural life. But Paul's saying, these Corinthians are not acting supernatural, they're acting just like unconverted people. II. The Carnal Christian Teaching Refuted Alright. Now I've walked through 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. There is no ground here for the carnal Christian teaching. He's not saying you can have all your sins forgiven and live however you want. He's not teaching that at all. So what is the problem with this? So what can we do with this carnal Christian teaching? How can we adjust it? Well, I think as we walk through, we have to see what's wrong with it. First, it misinterprets 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. Whatever doctrine, I want you to ask, I want you to have the instinct to say "show me the scriptures." How do the scriptures teach this? And actually, the preponderance in the New Testament is directly the opposite of this. Almost all of these Epistles; Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, they're written to people who claim to be Christians to teach them what the Christian life should look like. Not giving any one ground to live like pagans, not at all. So it misinterprets this. It misinterprets the vital connection between justification and sanctification. Well, let me put it simply, between how your sins are forgiven and how you should then live after that. Justification is how you are made right with God, how can your sins be forgiven? The Bible teaches plainly, it's by faith and not by works, by trusting in Christ, His death on the cross, His resurrection for you, all of your sins will be forgiven, and that's going to be true the rest of your life. If you ever sin, if you ever violate God's word your forgiveness will come from the same place every time, Christ crucified in your simple faith in that, for the rest of your life that is true. But that's not all of salvation, there's more of salvation than justification. There is a transformed nature that comes, your heart is changed. The heart of stone is removed and a heart of flesh is put in, and you begin to think differently by the power of the Holy Spirit, you begin to live differently and you begin to grow and imitate Christ more and more, that's called sanctification or Christian growth. And this teaching just doesn't seem to harmonize that at all, doesn't seem to understand that. It separates the blessings of the New Covenant, the blessing of the New Covenant. You get it all. You get everything. In Hebrews 8, the author to Hebrews quoting Jeremiah, says, "I will write my laws on your minds and put them in your hearts. I will be your God and you'll be my people. And I'll forgive your wickedness and remember your sins no more." They're linked together. A transformed nature and the forgiveness of sins are linked together. If God forgives you your sins, He transforms your nature. If He transformed your nature, He's forgiven, your sins. They go together. You cannot separate them. Therefore, it makes no distinction at all between true or genuine saving faith and between fake faith, spurious faith, counterfeit faith. Saving Faith vs Counterfeit Faith Wait a minute, is there such a thing? Yes, biblically. There is such a thing. In John 2, Jesus was talking about people who were excited about His miracles, and they believed in Him. That's what the text says, but Jesus didn't entrust Himself to them because He knew all people, He didn't need anyone's testimony about their hearts because He knew what was inside them, they were not genuinely converted. They were scintillated by His miracles, but they didn't really believe in Him. Or James chapter 2 makes this very plain. It asked what kind of faith justifies. The demons know the right facts about God and they're not forgiven. They just tremble, they shudder. So knowing the right facts, that's not enough. Faith apart from works is dead. So dead faith and demon faith, does not justify. So this carnal Christian teaching doesn't seem to make any distinction there. What kind of faith saves? Well, the kind of faith, says James, that produces good works. It also emits repentance, a genuine biblical presentation of the gospel involves repentance, it's a call from Christ the King to stop living the way you were living. To turn around from it. To turn your back on sexual immorality, to turn your back on lying and arrogance and pride and selfishness, to turn your back on all of that wickedness turn your back on it and live a new life. So it's repentance and faith, but this carnal Christian teaching seems to deny that repentance is even needed. And it teaches wrongly on assurance. Reisinger puts it this way: When a person professes he belong to Christ and he yet lives like the world. How do we know that his profession is genuine?" How do we know it's not genuine? There are always two possibilities. He may be a true Christian after all, who is just in a season of back-sliding, or he may be deceived and not ever have genuinely come to Christ, only God knows. Two errors therefore must be avoided. One, saying, unequivocally that he is not a Christian, or saying unequivocally that he is a Christian, and this is very dangerous for churches like ours. In the 20 years I've been here, we have worked progressively, little by little, to get our church roles to reflect one of two healthy relationships as church members with our church. Number one: Able-bodied and regularly attending corporate worship here on Sunday mornings, or number two, physically unable to do that. That's it. Those are the two categories of healthy church membership. The third able-bodied, but not regularly attending must be ruled out. If they're going to work, if they're going shopping, if they're playing golf on Saturday, they could and should be in some Bible believing church on Sunday, the church they are a covenant member of, if they can. So for us as elders, we're going to progressively just rule out that third category based on this entire Doctrine. And the carnal Christian view also has a low view of sin and its dangers, sin is poison, it is dangerous to our souls. And just because we're forgiven doesn't mean we can do it. It has a hardening effect on our hearts. And so to get good solid teaching about the Gospel, if you begin to sin, the Holy Spirit will come around you, and start pressing on you to hate that sin and repent from it and turn from it. Or bring brothers and sisters around you, the church will get around you until you repent and start living healthy again. That's just what he does in a Christian life. And finally, the carnal Christian teaching has a low view of Christ and His United offices. You cannot separate Christ the Savior, from Christ the King. He is Savior and He is Lord all at once. As a matter of fact, I think His greatest gospel invitation that you will find; He had a lot of great ones, but it's in Matthew 11:28-30, He says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. And I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for My yoke is easy and My burden is light." I believe the yoke is His kingly authority, the Gospel of Matthew is all about the Kingdom of Heaven, it's about I am the King, the King of Heaven. You've been rebelling against my authority. Now stop that rebellion and put your stiff neck, now softened by the Holy Spirit under My yoke and follow Me. And you will not find it burdensome, you'll find My commands are not burdensome, you'll find a whole full rich way of life. But you must take My yoke upon you, if you want to be saved, you can't separate Jesus as savior and Jesus as Lord. III. A Healthy Understanding of Christian Growth Alright. Well, we have to have instead a healthy understanding of Christian growth. I was listening to a John Piper sermon on this, and he gave a very interesting analogy, based on that diagram that I gave you. He kind of expanded out and made it more three-dimensional. So imagine an empire with a capital city and a palace fortress representing the non-Christians life, that whole thing is non-Christian life. And the Holy Spirit, Christ through the Holy Spirit leads an amazing commando raid, blast through the walls of the palace fortress, gets into the throne room and assassinates the old King. Kills him, dead. So the person we were in Adam died the moment we generally came to faith in Christ, we died with Jesus. That old king is dead, and there's a new king ruling. But the palace hasn't heard anything about it. And so like any other Palace coup, the word has to spread. And more and more the palace gets subdued to the new king, and then eventually the capital city gets subdued but in the outlying districts there's still a civil war going on. And that war may last the rest of your life until various aspects of your life get the word that Christ is king. I find that helpful, if you don't, then don't use it. But the idea is that it takes time for Christ's reign over different parts of your life to be extended. Alright. So what then shall we do? Let's understand saving genuine, saving faith. Genuine saving faith involves repentance. And what you've done the moment you came to Christ, is you began a work of seeing accurately sin and hating it, and that will go on the rest of your life. At that moment that you trusteed in Christ, all your sins, past, present and future are most certainly forgiven by simple faith in Christ. But you're going to need again and again to come back and confess your sins, why? Because you have an indwelling sin nature that's still vibrantly alive. Paul talks about it in Romans 7. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do, and if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good, as it is, it is no longer I myself who do it but it's sin living in me that does it." It says at the end of Romans 7, "What a wretched man I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" "From this indwelling battle with sin?" Thanks, be to God through Jesus Christ. Jesus is someday going to deliver us. But in the meantime, we have to fight, we have to fight, fight, fight every day. We have to fight the good fight of faith. And how do you do that? Well, understand the role of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:16-21, says this. "So I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They're in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want, but if you are led by the Spirit. You're not under law. Now, the acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, Impurity, and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God." Well, those words are the death knell for the carnal Christian idea. As I've described it, that you can live however you want and still go to heaven. Don't be deceived. "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control." The Holy Spirit works these beautiful virtues in a genuine Christian. So the rest of your life, you are going to continue to be weird. As a matter of fact, you're going to be surpassingly supernaturally weird. You are going to be inconsistent and struggling. The angels in heaven aren't like you and neither are the demons like you. There's no struggle with either of them, and those that are dead in their transgressions and sins, they don't struggle, they are dead in sin every day. And the redeemed in heaven, they don't struggle, they're done at last with sin. That leaves us, friends. And what that means is you're goanna go in and out of carnal moments by the power of the Spirit, you're goanna be renewed, refreshed, convicted and then you're goanna keep living and guess what's goanna happen, you're goanna sin again. But as you continue to walk in the light as He is in the light, you'll be able to confess your sins and the blood of Jesus will keep cleansing you from all sin. That's the Christian life, that's what's laying out ahead of you. The Marks of Regeneration Now, you may ask, what are the marks of regeneration? How can I know that I have been saved? I wrote them out right after BFL, I actually left BFL early, sorry. But I was like, I got to write these out. But as usual, I can't read my writing. It happens all the time. But I'll do the best I can. First of all, let me just say, 1 John, is the book to answer this question. That's what it's given for. How can I know? This is how we know, this is how we know. This is what the book is all about. What I want to do is take some ideas from 1 John and just put it in the work of the Spirit and we'll be done today. Is the Holy Spirit in your life or not? That's the question we're having to ask. Does the Spirit testify with your heart that you're a child of God? Is the Spirit active in these ways? In what ways? Well first, it says in 1 John 3:9, "Whoever is born of God does not sin." Wow. But that's not teaching sinless perfection, because he said in the 1 John 1, you can walk in the light, and still need cleansing from the blood of Jesus. So it's not perfectionism, but what it means is your relationship with sin has radically changed once you become a Christian. Now that you're genuinely Christian, you hate sin, it's the greatest grief in your life. You don't sin willingly. You sin bitterly and reluctantly, you're not just comfortable with sin, with the enemies of Christ, not at all. You grieve over your sin, not right away, but if the spirit in you, He will make you grieve. Is that happening for you? Does the Holy spirit make you grieve over your own sin? Because He's grieved over it. Does He then make you grieve over it? That's a genuine Christian. You hate sin, you hunger and thirst for righteousness. You may not always achieve it, but it is what you want. Number two, 1 John 5:1 says, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." Ours is a Christ-centered faith. The Holy Spirit ministers Christ to you. So do you believe that Jesus is your savior and your only savor? You can't save yourself. You have no hope of saving yourself. Christ is your only hope. Do you believe that? That's what the Spirit works. You believe that Christ is the Son of God, He died on the cross for you, He rose from the dead. Anyone who believes that, 1 John 5:1, is born of God. Thirdly, 1 John 2:29, says, "Everyone that does righteousness is born of God." But what does righteousness mean? It means obeying God's laws, His moral law. And so, if you're born again, you have taken on and brought into yourself the whole moral law of God, and you delight in it, you say not just part of it. You want it all. You want to love God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbors yourself in all the particulars. And whatever the word of God teaches you as healthy righteous living, that's what you want. You delight in all of God's law, and you're consistently seeking to obey God's laws and do righteous acts by the law of God. Fourthly, "we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers." The brothers and sisters in Christ. That's 1 John 3:14. Love other Christians, enjoy fellowship with other Christians. You don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as Hebrews 10 says. But you come to church. You come to Bible study, you come to home fellowship. You're involved. You've got people speak in your life, and you love it. You're delighted when brothers and sisters do well, when they're growing. When you hear that somebody becomes a Christian it makes you happy. Psalm 16:3 says that the faithful ones in the land, they are the glorious ones and whom is all your delight. You just love other Christians. And again, not perfectly, I know we don't perfectly because we're all sinners, but you enjoy Christian fellowship. And then fifth, whoever is born of God, overcomes the world. 1 John 5:4. You see the corruption in the world. Not excited, and in love with the world. You'd know first John 2 says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world." And so you hate the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. Wherever you get drawn in and sucked in by them. You're defiled by it and you know that's not what you want. And so you overcome the world by the power of the Holy Spirit. So I'm asking you, is the Spirit working these five things in you? And if you came here today and you were outside of Christ, I'm just going to urge you cross over from darkness to light, right now. Trust in Jesus, you've heard the Gospel this morning, that God sent His son to die on the cross for sinners like you and me. All you need to do is believe in Him. We don't call people to come to the front and talk to the pastor. You can talk to me actually at the back, you can come to the back and talk to a pastor after the service is over, but it's not required at all. What is required? Hearing with faith, the Gospel. That's it. But then if you do that, do you understand the kind of life that the Holy Spirit will work in you if you're genuinely born again? Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the things that we've learned today, God help us to be discerning in our thinking. Help us to be discerning about this carnal Christian idea. Help us to be discerning that there are only two kinds of people. Help us to grieve whenever we behave carnally as the Corinthians were doing. Help us to grieve over it, help us to grow and grace in the knowledge of Christ. Strengthen us, O Lord, and help us to follow you and to be pure, in your sight and the live lives that are pleasing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thanksgiving Connected to Relationship Well, I am so thankful to be back with you. I think I may be the only person that was both in Dallas where it was 100 degrees and Newfoundland where it was 31 degrees in the same week. I'm thinking I'm the only one, there might be others. I had the privilege of ministering in different settings, and I'm glad to be back with you today. And really, the idea of thankfulness unifies this sermon that I'm about to preach as we begin a verse-by-verse study in this challenging book in 1 Corinthians, it is challenging because Paul systematically goes through many issues that were facing that local church in almost 2000 years ago, 20 centuries ago, and we find how relevant it still is today. And we're going to see that as we begin that journey today. But we begin with the idea of thankfulness. And I feel just an overwhelming thankfulness to be a pastor in this church, an overwhelming thankfulness to be at First Baptist Durham. I love you, I love being here. There's nowhere I'd rather be than here. I am delighted with the wisdom of God in setting up local church so that we can know and be known and we're drawn together. And so the idea of Paul giving thanks for the Corinthians unifies this for me. And so, I was meditating on thankfulness even this very morning, and I was thinking about how much thankfulness is tied to relationship. Imagine that you were just walking along in your life and some valuable material object just came in your path randomly. I don't know, I'm trying to picture... (I was working on this in the pew and I didn't come up with a real good solution because of the ethical obligations where you would need to give that back to whoever it was). But set all that aside, set the ethics aside, just go with me on the illustration. Some incredibly valuable thing falls into your lap. You're walking along the beach, or you're in a city urban park, and there's no one around, and there it is. And it's now yours. But there's literally no one to thank. Imagine getting the same valuable possession from a friend who loves you and has sacrificed financially, and is thinking about you and is giving it to you, how different that is. It's the exact same thing that's come into your life, but it's come through a heart of love, it's come through relationship. And I think about all the unbelievers, the atheists that have many of the same common grace blessings that come into their life: Sunrise, sunsets, food that they eat, fun experiences, material possessions, clothes, all of that, but they have no one to thank. I wonder what they do at Thanksgiving. I've heard some of the strangest things in November where they say, "Well, Thanksgiving is a time where we thank each other." And I think we should thank each other, but that's not what the Puritans thought. The Pilgrims were thinking that we should thank God because every good and perfect gift comes from God. And one of the greatest joys of my life is to realize that there are no random blessings in my life. None. They have all passed through the hands of God and have come into my life. Every good and perfect gift was intentional. It was thoughtful. And that this goes to the very issue of the sin problem and that there's this separation between us and our Heavenly Creator. By redemption in Christ, he is our adoptive Heavenly Father, and he wants us to know that he has good gifts to give us and that it's very personal. And so, as we go through 1 Corinthians, we're going to see more and more just how divided and dysfunctional and messed up this Corinthian church really was. And yet, how richly, fully, grateful the Apostle Paul was for them, and how thankful he was for them. I. Paul’s Apostolic Greeting (verses 1-3) So, we begin at Verses 1-3 as Paul gives his usual apostolic greeting. He starts in Verse 1, "Paul called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God." Paul was not an accidental apostle. He was not an accidental random Christian. He was called by God to be a Christian and to be an apostle. The will of God overruled Paul's will for his life. And you know the story is well-known how Paul was a zealous, ladder-climbing Jewish person who is seeking to advance in Judaism far beyond any of his fellow Jews in his day. And he was making that progress. And that was his desire, but suddenly on the road to Damascus he had an experience that he never forgot. Blinding light surrounded him, the light of the resurrected, glorified Christ. And Jesus called to him from heaven saying, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus." Those three words changed Paul's life forever. "I am Jesus, the whom you are persecuting… Now get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you must do." I think Paul, looking back on that time from that moment on, realized how much grace was shown him in that he wasn't struck dead at that moment. As he was in route to be persecuting Christ's precious church, and Paul himself would write later in this epistle, "If anyone destroys God's church, God will destroy him." He was making himself an enemy of God. It says in the Book of Acts, Saul began to destroy the church. Put those two together, then why didn't God destroy Saul of Tarsus breathing out murderous threats? Because of grace. Because of the sovereign, loving grace of God. And so Paul, called to be an apostle by the will of God, God's will overruled. And I say that's true of all of us who are Christians. A boy who we just heard a moment ago, God overruled his will for his life, he overruled my will when I was 19 years old. And the same thing, even if you were converted at an early age in a wonderful Christian family, your will was to sin and to rebel, but God overruled your will if you're a Christian. And so praise be to God. Paul’s apostolic authority attacked in Corinth Now Paul is establishing himself right from the beginning. And this is going to be a unifying theme in these two epistles, 1 and 2 Corinthians, how he has to defend his apostolic status. He has to defend his apostolic ministry because it was under attack by some false teachers that came in afterwards, after he had planted that church in Corinth and they disparaged Paul. They said his letters are awesome, but in presence, he is not much to listen to. And that was one of the nicer things they said about Paul. Now, Paul wasn't on some kind of an ego trip here where he's defending his apostolic ministry because he's a power hungry person, not at all. He knows that the doctrine that we get in Christianity is tied together in some very rich ways with the people that give it to us. Remember how Timothy was led to faith, through the genuine faith of his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, and how Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, "You know those from whom you learned it." And so, it's truth through relationship, through personality it flows. And so, he's got to defend himself, not because he necessarily in and of itself wants them to think well of him, but he wants them, the Corinthians, to receive the truths that God is going to be pouring into their souls through him. And if the false teachers can disparage the source, they're going to start questioning the doctrine, and that's the issue. So he has to defend himself. He also mentioned Sosthenes our brother. Now Sosthenes did not, as far as I can tell, help in any direct way writing the letter. It's not from Sosthenes because throughout the letter he's using the first person singular, "I this, I that, etcetera." Paul's speaking in his own voice. This is a letter from Paul, ultimately from God through Paul. But he mentioned Sosthenes, Sosthenes was one of their own. He's a Corinthian man, he was a Jewish man, and he pops up in the account in the Book of Acts, in Acts 18, where the Jewish people of that area made a united attack against Paul and drag them up in front of Gallio, the Roman procurator, the judge there, and Christ kept his promise to Paul, "No one's going to attack you and harm you in the city. I'm going to put a bubble around you." And so he got accused, but they threw it out of court, Gallio had no interest. So then the Jews turned and attacked Sosthenes there in front of the court, beat him up, the synagogue ruler. Now, I don't know if he was already a believer in Christ or following Christ at that point, or if Paul came later and said, "Let me tell you about Christ," and just picked them up out of that beating and led him to Christ. We don't know the order, but anyway he became a follower of Christ, and so he's Greek. And then he describes the Corinthian church and it's so beautiful, look in Verse 2, "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy." Now, those are timeless words. It's true of our church here in First Baptist Church Durham, this is true of us. "The church of God in Corinth." We belong to God, our God is a jealous God, and we are his possession, purchased at infinite price. We belong to God, the church of God, and it's in a locality. That's what local church is all about, it's the church of God in Corinth. That was going to be their sight of ministry, that was going to be their sight of temptation. You remember how in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus said, "I know where you live, where Satan has his throne." And so there's a challenge in every city. And in Corinth, their Corinth, that's where they were going to reach. those are the people they're going to reach with the gospel. We're called to the Raleigh-Durham, The Triangle area, this is our region, it's what we're called to do. Now Corinth (we've already talked some about it a few weeks ago) is a city that is 50 miles southwest of Athens. Some years ago, a good friend, church member, Allen Carlson and I, we had the opportunity of traveling after I spoke to a group of missionaries to travel in Southern Greece in the Peloponnese and then we went to Corinth. It's one of the few Bible places I've ever been. And we were there checking into our hotel and it was owned by these two brothers. And so I said to these brothers who spoke good English, I said to these brothers, "Do you realize that your city is famous all over the world?" He had no idea. So I showed him 1 and 2 Corinthians, and he'd never seen it at all. It was funny but tragic. Funny but tragic. I think they would consider themselves Orthodox Christians, but they'd never heard of 1 Corinthians or 2 Corinthians. Called to Be Holy But then Paul says, "sanctified in Christ Jesus." And this word, sanctified, is very important. It's a little bit different than the way I usually use the word sanctification. What it means is, "set apart unto God as his own possession," that's what it means here. It's like a religious term, and it's rooted in the Old Testament and the Old Testament animal sacrificial system. There were many aspects, physical aspects of the animal sacrificial system in the tabernacle later in the temple that were called to be holy to the Lord or set apart unto the Lord. For example, the priest had a golden plate on their turban which said, "Holy to the Lord." So the priest was set apart unto God, the priest was his. And then other aspects, like they had this incense… They had a special recipe, and it could only be used there in the sacrificial system by the Levitical priests. It was holy to the Lord, it was sanctified unto God. It could not be used for common use. Or the same thing with all of their tithes. You're to set aside a tithe, the tenth of all of your flocks or your crop, whatever. It was to be set apart and given to God, it was holy to the Lord, it belonged to him. And so here, he's extending that to the church. You are all, all of you who are Christians, you are holy to the Lord, you're sanctified unto God, once for all. So it's a once for all sanctification that he mentions here. The moment you're converted, you become holy to God. Out of all of the world, you are set apart and to be God's special possession, that's what it means here. And he says, "called to be saints." Some of the translation say saints, but one of the translation is "called to be holy." I think that's a little bit better. If you just say saints, you check out and it's like "called to be saints," and you think of it in a certain way. But the word saint means holy one. And so, I really prefer the translation, "we're sanctified and called to be holy." You're thinking, "Well, isn't that redundant?" No, it really isn't. Now we're going to get into the other use of the word sanctification. That's not really found much in the New Testament, but the idea is there. And that is that we're called upon to become more and more holy in our thoughts and in our lives. We're called little by little, more and more to put sin to death by the power of the Holy Spirit, to become sexually pure, to be pure in our minds, to be pure with our money, to be pure in the way that we do everything, to be pure in our lives. We're called to that. And so there's this progressive idea of holiness. Now, all of the issues of holiness that this dysfunctional, divided, immature church was facing, it was challenging their holiness. I mean, they would have problems with factions and divisions, they had a church discipline problem, which there was egregious sexual sin. And then in the next Chapter, Chapter 6, Paul goes on to general sexual ethics and purity in terms of temple prostitutes and things like that. Then there's just the issue of marriage, divorce and marriage, single people and marriage, sexual purity in that area, and also just healthy married life. And then the problem of meat sacrifice to idols... It's a struggle for this church. And they were called to be holy in the midst of all of that. This Letter is For Us Now, this letter that we're walking through today is intended for us. We're not reading somebody else's mail. Look what it says in Verse 2, "To the church of God in Corinth, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ-their Lord and ours." Well, that is our official permission to read this letter. That's us. Not only to that church in Corinth in that location and in that time 2000 years ago, but to all Christians everywhere. We are called on to read this. Just like in Revelation 2 and 3, where Jesus spoke to each of the seven churches, and then at the end of each of those letters to the seven churches, he says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Plural. By the way, whenever the word "church" is plural, you're talking about local church. There aren't plural brides of Christ. But whenever you see churches, you're talking about local churches. And so, that was a local church in Corinth, we are to read their letter because we're going to face the same things and look how he describes who we are, "All those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ-their Lord and ours." Those are Christians. That's one way of talking about Christians. We are those who are in the process of calling on the name of the Lord. It's so important that you hear that. Yes, that's the sinner's prayer. Yes, it's true that when you call on the name of the Lord, you will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's the essence of the sinner's prayer. What I would say is, any genuine sinner's prayer that was prayed by a person who's right there in the midst of the process of being converted, and you share the gospel and they say, "What do I do?" And you say, "Call on the name of the Lord. Call on him, call on Jesus to save you from your sins." And then he prays, and I never feed them the lines on the prayer. If they say "I don't know what to pray," I say, "What do you want?" If you don't know what you want, then we need to go back over the gospel, including heaven and hell. Do you want heaven and not hell? "Yes." "Alright, good, then ask for that." "Do you want forgiveness of sins?" "Yes." "Ask for that." "Alright, I got it now, I got it. I'm alright." "Good. Now pray." Alright? If you don't know what you want, then we got to talk some more. But if you are ready now to call on the name of Jesus, he will give you what you ask for in his name. But here's the thing, that's just the first of many times you're going to do that. Let me ask each one of you veteran Christians… Are you done calling on the name of the Lord? No. Oh, you need him. And you actually, the more you grow and you're growing healthy, the more you see you need Him. And so you're actually continuing to call on the name of the Lord. "Their Lord and ours." And I love that statement. There's only one Lord, there's one God and Father of all, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. One. There is one work going on in this world. Only one. There's only one Lord, and He is both their Lord and ours. And you're wondering right now, "Pastor, only at Verse 2?" Are we going to get through this? I'm not worried about that. I actually forgot my iPhone, it's in my office. So I brought my watch. I'll glance at it from time to time. Let's keep going. The Riches of Grace and Peace Verse 3, "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Now one thing, this is a very common greeting. Any of you read the epistles? You hear it again and again. It's always the same and in the same order, it's always grace and peace to you. It's never peace and grace. Why is that? Well, you just need to understand what grace is. It is by grace that we are saved. What is grace? Grace is a determination in the heart of God. It's a disposition in God's heart towards sinners. I like to use the word "settled." It's a settled determination in the heart of God to do you good at many levels though you deserve to be condemned at every level. So that's a kind of a working definition of grace. It is a determination, a settled determination in the heart of God to do you good, you could add through Christ, it's only by his blood, to do you good who deserve wrath and condemnation. So I give a broad definition. There are big gifts of grace and little gifts of grace, but it's all grace. And so when Paul writes in all of his epistles, "Grace to you," he's saying this epistle is grace. The things you're going to learn and get from this is grace. God wants to give you more grace. So just like a moment ago, I said you're not done calling on the name of the Lord so you are not done receiving grace, you need more grace, yet more grace. Oh, God, would you give me more grace? Now, we've already have received grace if we're Christians. "For it is by grace we have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not by works so that no one could boast." So we have received the grace of full forgiveness of sins, adoption into the family of God, the indwelling Holy Spirit. These are all by grace. But here's the thing, you need more grace, you're not done fighting sin, you're not done with this dangerous journey that you're on, you need more grace, and this epistle gives it to you. And so with Romans and so with Thessalonians, all of these… "Grace to you and peace." So he adds peace. So grace first then peace. It's never peace then grace. Why? Because you have a sin problem and if that's not dealt with, you will not be at peace with God, and He will not be at peace with you. We read in Romans 5:6-8, it was up there while they were playing music. While we were still sinners, when we were still enemies, we were redeemed. At one point, we were enemies of God, but now, in Christ, you have been reconciled to God. You have been reconciled. You who are at one point alienated from him, enemies and hostile to God because of your evil behavior and evil mind now he has reconciled. And so you're in a status of peace with God. And what's the worth and value of that to you? God is not at war with you, He is at peace with you and will be for all eternity, a status of peace. Therefore, Romans 5:1, "Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." But now this is talking about peace to you, so there's yet more peace. And this is where I would call it peacefulness or a sense or feeling of peace, being feeling at peace with God. And what's that worth to you? That you're not anxious, you're not troubled, you have a strong assurance of your salvation, and you have a feeling of peacefulness. And so we're told, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." So grace and peace flow into you as you study this epistle. II. Paul’s Thanksgiving for the Corinthian Church (verses 4-9) Alright. So now let's look at the thanksgiving, Verses 4-9. Paul gives thanksgiving for the Corinthian church. I just want to stop and just give you an application right here. The more thankful you are, the happier you'll be in your Christian life, and the more fruitful you'll be. The more thankful you are for the gifts of God's grace to you, the happier you'll be, and the more fruitful you'll be, the better your marriage will be, the better your friendships will be, the better local church life will be. So start with thankfulness. If you're having problems with someone, if you're having problems with the church or whatever, start thanking God. Start thanking God for the grace you see in them, start thanking God for the gifts. And that's what he does here. Paul's very well aware where he's going in this epistle. We have some problems to deal with. We have some mopping up to do. We have some construction work to do. But I want to just begin by thanking God for you. And it's not a minor thing, it's not a light thing. He is genuinely thankful in his heart, look what he says, Verse 4, "I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus." I'm just thankful for the grace I see in your life. This was in CJ Mahaney's Humility book. Just one of the most humble and building things you can do is think it and then say it. I just thank God for the grace I see in your life. It's a beautiful thing to do. It really joins Christians together. So he says, "I thank God always because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus." Now, here's a key theological principle. If you thank someone for something, you think they are responsible for giving it to you. Are you tracking me? Alright. You don't open a Christmas gift and then thank another person in the room for that gift. That would be confusing to everybody, especially to the person giving the gift. If your wife gives you a beautiful sweater, you open it up and you thank your daughter, that's a bad moment. Don't do that, alright? And so, when Paul thanks God for the salvation of other Christians, what is he saying theologically? God is responsible. One of my favorite sermon titles that I've ever done, did it years ago. And it's theologically accurate… And if you don't think it's exegetically true, let's come and talk afterwards. It was Romans 6:17, "Thank God you obeyed." Wow! "Thank God you obeyed." To God be the glory that I obeyed. You got to believe it and the more you go on in the Christian life, you'll know exactly how true that is. If God had not worked, I would not have obeyed. And it comes right from Romans 6:17, "Thanks be to God that though you used to be slave to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed that form of teaching to which you entrusted." Take all the words out and have "Thank God you obeyed the gospel." And so he gives credit and he's going to say it at the end. Look down at Verse 30. I know we're not quite going to get there today. We might not quite get to Verse 8 today, I'm doing my best. But look at Verse 30, you see what it says? "It is because of him, [God] that you are in Christ Jesus." Wow! That's a theologically explosive statement. It is because of God that you are a Christian. And so he's just thanking God for them. I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. I'm just so thankful that we're going to spend eternity together in heaven. I'm so thankful that all these problems I'm about to write in this epistle, some day they'll all be gone and we're going to spend eternity one in Christ, and I just thank God for that. I thank God he knit you together in your mother's womb. I thank God that at the right time he saved you by the same gospel I was saved with. I thank God that we're now brothers and sisters in Christ. You have the same indwelling Spirit I have. I thank God for the grace I see in your life. And beyond that, he thanks God for their gifts, their spiritual gifts, look at Verses 5-7, "For in him, you have been enriched in every way, in all your speaking and in all your knowledge, because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift, as you eagerly await our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." So they've been richly gifted or richly blessed with spiritual gifts. Now, three whole Chapters are devoted to spiritual gifts later in this epistle. Chapters 12, 13 and 14 all deal with spiritual gifts, including the famous Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, is really about spiritual gifts. So he's going to get to that. But what are spiritual gifts? Spiritual gifts, we talked about many times, it's very, very important you understand. Spiritual gifts are special abilities given to individual Christians for the purpose of building the entire body of Christ up to full maturity. Special abilities for building the church, and every single Christian has a spiritual gift package. It's the way I like to look at it. Not one gift, but an array of special abilities that enables you or should be plugged into a regular repeatable habit pattern of ministry. For me, it's preaching and teaching, there's no doubt, and I should be doing this. This is what I do. So I study commentaries, I write sermons and other things. And so I have a gift package. Every one of you Christians has a gift package. So the question you have to ask is, "Am I using it? Is there a consistent pattern of ministry in my life? Am I using my gifts?" But he's thanking God there because this is a super talented or super gifted church, the Corinthians were. And he zeroes in specifically on all their speaking and knowledge. They've been enriched in every way through speaking and knowledge. Now I want to reverse it: knowledge and speaking. Isn't it better to know first then speak? Just think about it, you'll come to the same conclusion. But anyway, I'm grateful for your deep, rich theological knowledge. You are solid doctrinally, for the most part. And you also speak out of that knowledge, that doctrinal truth. And those are gifts. And he says, "I thank God" and he's going to get in Chapter 12 into a whole array of other gifts like healing and speaking in tongues, prophesies, he's got a whole bunch of things, and we'll get to all of that. There are two separate things: To have knowledge and to be able clearly to speak it and articulate it are two different things. When I was a student at MIT, I was surrounded by some of the most brilliant professors in the world. Some of them were good teachers. I'm not trying to be unkind. They all, as far as I can tell, knew their stuff but some of them were not so gifted in speaking it. I had a hard time understanding what they were talking about, but others, it was crystal clear. They're really just two different gifts. It's like the difference between being a super basketball player and being a coach, they're just different things. But they were good at both, they had a solid doctrinal knowledge and then really gifted preachers and teachers and otherwise, they're a gifted church. Now later, Paul is going to actually be criticizing some of them for their flaunting of spiritual knowledge, that they are flaunting their freedoms with the meat sacrifice to idols and their knowledge wasn't tied to love, and they're forgetting that their knowledge should be bound together with love so that they could care for the weaker brother and sister. And so we'll get to all that in Chapters 8-10 but he's going to criticize them in this area and say, "Look, you can have supreme spiritual gifts. But if you don't have love, it's worthless." You know exactly what I'm talking about, 1 Corinthians 13, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am nothing. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and I have all these deep knowledge, but if I have not love, I gain nothing. I achieved nothing. I am nothing." So we'll get to all that. But he's saying, You're blessed, you're spiritually gifted, but there's more to talk about. And so in Verse 7, they do not lack any spiritual gift. Everything needed for that local church to flourish in whatever ministries God has for them to do, it's there. And the same is true in this church, we are called on to fulfill a specific mission here in this church. We're not called to be everything for Durham and in Raleigh and in Chapel Hill. We're not called to be everything but we're called to be something specific, and the ministries that God has for us to do many of which I would contend haven't even begun yet. Haven't even begun yet. There are ways we could bless this region that we're not blessing yet. And some of you are going to have a vision for it. You're going to have a passion, not the elders, you. And you're going to move out and we are going to support that, and others are going to join you and we're going to see fruit, we're going to see people converted. You know what I want to see in baptism? I love all of the baptisms that we have, but they come in categories and I would like to see an increase in one category, someone that says, "I was lost until I met a member of your church who spoke the gospel to me and now I'm saved." Don't you all want to see lots of those? I want to see that happen. I was lost until I met so and so, they'd share the gospel and now I'm here. Pray for that. That's what I wanted because we've got thousands of people pouring into this area, thousands of lost people. Don't we want to see them converted? So that's what we're looking for here. But everything that we need to do the job is here already. And he says, "You do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly await for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." So he's talking about the second coming of Christ, the second coming of Christ, the unveiling of Jesus, it's the same Greek word. You're waiting eagerly for the unveiling of Jesus. There is no book that so clearly portrays all of that in the details as the book we just finished, the Book of Revelation. And isn't it interesting? You probably didn't notice this before but the Book of Revelation ends the exact same way 1 Corinthians ends. It says in Revelation 22:20-21, "He who testifies to these things, [Jesus], says, 'Yes, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen." So that's the end of Book of Revelation. Listen to the end of 1 Corinthians. "Come O Lord, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. Amen." It's amazing. So what it's saying? A vivid, eager expectancy to the second coming of Christ is part of a healthy church life. So foster that. God’s Faithfulness Now, in Verse 8 and 9, he talks about the faithfulness of God's sovereign grace. He, God, will keep you strong to the end so that you'll be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 9, "God who has called you into fellowship with his son Jesus Christ our Lord is faithful." Our souls are under constant assault by the world, the flesh, and the devil. We're in enemy territory. We are called on to make an escape from a POW camp 20 miles behind enemy lines, and they're sending out search party searching for us to kill us and bring us back to the prison. So it is with Satan and his demons in this world system. We're in enemy territory and your soul is being assaulted everyday to turn away from Christ, to turn to sin and to turn to wickedness and idolatry, and to turn your back on your confession. How do you possibly think you're going to make it through the next number of decades if God leaves you that long and still be blameless and trusting Jesus right to the end of your life? What is your confidence? How do you think you're going to do it? Don't underestimate the enemies that are arrayed against you. But here I'm saying to you, don't underestimate the far greater power of God to keep you. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear but with the temptation will make a way of escape. He's going to say that later. And so he is faithful and he's going to keep you strong to the end in Christ right to the end. And we trust in that. III. Paul’s Appeal for Unity (verse 10) Alright, now we get to the problems. We've had the greeting, Paul an apostle, grace and peace to you, I love you, praying for you. Now let's roll up our sleeves 'cause we have some problems to address and it's going to be a series of them. He's going to go from topic to topic to topic, and this is the first one. Verse 10, "I appeal to you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought." So of all the many problems that he deals with, the first that he deals with here are their divisions and factions, their unity. And when you think of the laundry list of problems that are coming, why would you start with this one? But this is absolutely vital. It's essential for Christ's church to be evidently, obviously united. And he's appealing to them to stop arguing with each other. Stop arguing. There are disputes. He's going to say in Verse 11, there are disputes. There are arguments going on between you, stop it. You're like, "Well, can you just stop arguing?" Yes, you can. I've said this before, you know what I'm talking about. Two of you in the family are having some kind of discussion. There's some heat involved, and then suddenly, a neighbor comes by to borrow something or the phone rings, and you suddenly become sweetness and light. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Just like that. So at least it's true, and it's theologically true. You don't ever have to sin again. You could be in the middle of sin, and not sin the next sin because you're not a slave to sin. You can just stop, say, "What are we doing? Come to my senses. I don't need to do this. We don't need to be divided. We don't need to argue. Let's pray together." And so he's deeply concerned about their unity because when we get to heaven, we are going to be perfectly united in mind and thought in every respect, just like the Trinity is. It's based on the unity of the Trinity: The Father, the Son, the Spirit are one. Three persons in absolute unity. And so Jesus prays in John 17, "O, Holy Father, may they be brought together to display the perfect unity that I share with you and you with me." "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me." So our evangelistic success will be tied to how united we are with one another, how much we obviously love one another. Perfect unity. And look at it, Verse 10, we're not talking about a sham unity, we're not papering things over, we're not going to acting school. We really do agree. We really do agree. Look at Verse 10, "That all of you agree with one another and that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought." Another translation, "Perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." So how do we do this? I would go over to Philippians 2:2. This is how you think and how you love. Your mind and your affections are totally one. That's what he's yearning for. Perfectly joined together. Like a beautiful piece of furniture where two pieces of wood come together so perfectly, like this pulpit, I can see it right now. I can see the different grains of wood, but I can't feel any two different pieces at all because the skill of the joiner, of the craftsman is so good. You know what I'm talking about? That we would have two different people or a whole group of people come together so united that there's no difference at all. Now you're saying, "How is that even possible? Can two individuals who are deep thinkers and have strong opinions actually agree about everything?" Not only is it possible, you're going to spend eternity completely agreeing with lots of strong individuals from all over the world. And we will agree about everything. The more we can be united now, the more powerful we will be evangelistically. IV. A Church Rent by Factions (verses 11-12) Now, what's going on is, somebody says, "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, I follow Christ." The ESV translation puts an "or" in between each of them. So he says in Verse 11, "My brothers, some from Chloe's household, have informed me there are quarrels among you." You're arguing, and what I mean is one of you says, "I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, [that's Peter], or I am of Christ." Those are my favorite ones. They're like, "No, no, isn't that right?" Not like that, it's not. Because you've got factions. "I'm of the Jesus party." Those are actually maybe the most dangerous of them all. "We have Jesus. You can have Paul, you can have Apollos, Cephas," is what it said. But at any rate, the body of Christ is rent, it's ripped apart by factions and divisions. And this was common in Ancient Greece. They would follow philosophers and their schools. "I'm of Plato," "I'm of Aristotle," "I'm of Socrates," "I'm of Epicurus," "I follow that way of life." They're used to this. And the problem with it is, it's way too arrogant and prideful and man-centered. You're focusing too much on Paul or Apollos or Cephas. You're focusing too much. Let's start with the Jesus party. Is Christ divided? We all have Christ, there's one body. So, no, Christ is not divided. We are all of Jesus. But you're immature in your thinking, he's going to say in Chapter 3, "Because you don't see who Paul really is or who Apollos really is." Look at Chapter 3:5-7, he says, "What after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who makes things grow." He says, "We're nothing. We are nothing. Everything is of God." So don't think too much of Paul or Apollos, whatever. A number of years ago, I went out to be in a wedding, I was the best man for a friend of mine from college. And brought me out to LA, then he and his new bride went off on their honeymoon, and I was there and I was so excited. I made a hour plus drive up to John MacArthur's church. He had been my mentor by radio and I'm going to go hear him preach Sunday morning. Drove up there, it actually took two hours to get up there, traffic and all, and even on Sunday. I got up there, I was there in plenty of time, and settled in at the church there, Grace Community Church, Panorama City. Settled in, ready to hear John MacArthur, only to be told Pastor John is going to take one week off, he'll be back next week. And I was crushed. And then I had this amazing experience through the Holy Spirit, who spoke to me and said, "I'm here." That was a convicting moment. Who are you here for? Truth be told, I was there for John MacArthur. And he wasn't there that day, but Jesus was there. And I'm not saying that God doesn't raise up some servants and make them extraordinary. Paul was extraordinary, there will never be another Paul, ever. But he's not indispensable. And when he died, the church of Christ went on and flourished. And we have some gifted teachers here. For the next five weeks, you're going to hear preaching from other gifted men, and I praise God for them. But there's going to come a time, if the Lord doesn't return in our lifetime, we'll all be gone. I yearn that this church still be here and healthy in this community. And so, we're yearning to see younger gifted men and women use their gifts, and younger gifted men preach and use those gifts. That's our desire. And so, don't focus overmuch on the human servant. And one thing you forget, he's going to say this in Chapter 3, if you say, "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos," and you put an "or" between it, it's like you get Paul, you can have Apollos. No, you misunderstand, you actually get them all. You get Paul and Apollos and Cephas and John MacArthur and any of the other teachers as long as they're teaching the truth. All of the truth comes from God, and you can get all of it. You don't have to pick and choose, you get them all because all things are yours. We'll get to that in Chapter 3. Well, I'm well aware of what time it is, and I'm also well aware how many pages I haven't covered yet. I have no idea what to do. But guess what? I've got five weeks to figure that out. So, I'm going to stop here, I'm going to just say this as we close. Factions and divisions have rent Christianity for centuries. Do you know how many Protestant denominations there are? I didn't know. 41,000. Any chance there's some sin in there somewhere? 41,000 different Protestant denominations. But when we get to heaven, it's going to be perfectly united. So, by way of application, let me just finish by urging all of you. Paul's going to say, "When I was with you, I was with you in weakness and fear, and much trembling, and I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified." If I take this whole book, I'm going to unify it under one thing. No matter how many and how severe the problems are in the local church, Christ and him crucified is sufficient for all of them. He's going to bring each of these problems to Christ, again and again. V. Applications So I appeal to each one of you. I don't know your spiritual condition. If you are here today and you know you're outside of Christ looking in, I believe God brought you here to hear that your sins can be forgiven through the death and the resurrection of Jesus, if you just have faith in Him. So trust in Him. Don't leave here unconverted. Come and talk to me. If you've got questions about Christianity. This is what I'm here for. And there are other brothers and sisters that will be happy to talk to you. So first and foremost, don't go to hell, don't be condemned. You don't know how much longer you have. Secondly, if I could just urge you also, just enrich your thankfulness. Enrich it in your marriage. Thank God for your spouse. And then your local church, thank God for this church. Thank God for the brothers and sisters here. Don't take Him for granted. Thank God for the grace you see in other people and express it to them. And don't allow your heart to become divided with other people here in the church. Take advantage. I would urge you, just go over these announcements and just look at them and look at VBS. And thank God for the spiritual gifts of Susan Fisher and others that just do this every year. I'm amazed. Do you realize how bad VBS would be if I were in charge of it? It would be awful. Not because I don't love kids, I do love kids. But specifically, the administrative things. I would not order the goldfish, I would forget to order the goldfish. And many other worse things would happen. So, I'm just praising God for that. Take advantage of the sack lunch thing. Let's draw together and love on one another. I'm going to close in prayer. Lord, thank you for the time that we've had, however brief, to study your word. Grateful for it. And Father, I just pray that you would take the word of God and pour it into our hearts, help us to know how much we need you to continue to save us. We have been justified, but you continue to make us holy. And help us to help one another. Draw us together in a remarkable, evident unity so that we can be a light shining in this dark region. As thousands of people are pouring in here to live here, help us to witness to them and show them the life that truly is life. In Jesus' name. Amen.

In this episode, Certified Story Grid editors Leslie Watts and Rebecca Monterusso critique “The Flight,” a science fiction short story by Scott Adam Gordon. They discuss the internal journey or change that characters experience as a result of external events in a story. Leslie and Rebecca then uncover which internal genres might be present in “The Flight.” This week's editorial mission offers questions to help you identify and craft the internal change at work in your stories.

Introduction: Treatise on Religious Affections Please turn in your Bibles to Revelation 3:14-22. This is the last of the letters from Christ to the seven churches. I have said with each letter we have studied, but this applies particularly with this letter to the church at Laodicea: We should all come, individually and corporately, with a sense of fear and trembling. This is arguably the worst-off of the seven churches in Revelation — the lukewarm church of Laodicea; this letter terrifies me the most as pastor of this church. Many godly leaders say that there is a spiritual disease, a contagious blight that is working its way through or spreading its way through the Lord's orchard of the churches in America. They say that the Laodicean church captures what has happened to so many churches in the West and in America. John Stott in commenting on this, puts it this way: “Perhaps none of the seven letters is more appropriate to the 20th- [and 21st-] century church than this one. It describes vividly the respectable, sentimental, nominal, skin-deep religiosity which is so widespread among us today. Our Christianity is flabby and anemic. We appear to have taken a lukewarm bath of religion.” The dread disease that Christ diagnoses this church with is nominalism, lukewarmness, a tepid pattern of religion in which outward forms are maintained without any real power. They were going through the motions, checking the “God” box through outward observances, while denying the life-changing, transforming power that genuine faith in Christ produces. The cause in Laodicea of their lukewarmness — the most terrifying aspect of this letter for me — is linked to their wealth, their prosperity. The result is spiritual complacency. The lukewarmness of the church at Laodicea was nauseating to Christ. What He has to say to them should terrify us out of any spiritual complacency in our lives; it should make us cry out to God against ourselves, to plead with God to save us from Laodicean lukewarmness. Jonathan Edwards wrote many great theological works, but none has affected me so profoundly as his classic Treatise on Religious Affections, which he wrote in defense of the powerful effects of the First Great Awakening, a revival of religion during the mid 18th-century, from its cultured critics. Whitfield, Tennant, Edwards and other preachers were preaching the fiery Gospel of the new birth, which was yielding conversions with outward, visible manifestations, physical effects of the preaching and the ministry of the Word on sinners who were being moved and affected by what they were hearing. These signs included outcries of overwhelming, bitter sorrow over sin, terror at the coming wrath of God, and shouts of soaring joy over assurance of salvation with genuine forgiveness and a right relationship with God. These critics were mostly cultured, aristocratic church leaders who denigrated the public display of “enthusiasm” and emotion, which they considered to be a negative thing. The critics had likely never experienced any of this before, and they stood on the outside bitterly criticizing the preachers of the Awakening for what they deemed excesses. Treatise on Religious Affections bears a powerful, timeless connection with Christ’s nausea over Laodicean lukewarmness. Edwards wrote this: “True Christianity consists in a great measure in vigorous and lively actings of the inclination and will of the soul or the fervent exercises of the heart.” True Christianity is lively and fervent. “That religion which God requires and will accept does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference: God, in His Word, greatly insists upon it, that we be good in earnest, ‘fervent in spirit’, and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion. Romans 12:11, ‘Never be lacking in zeal, but be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.’ If we are not in good earnest in religion, and our wills and inclinations be not strongly exercised, we are nothing. The things of religion are so great, that there can be no suitableness in the exercises of our hearts, to their nature and importance, unless they be lively and powerful. In nothing is vigor and in the actings of our inclination so requisite, as in religion. And in nothing is lukewarmness so odious [that is, hateful]. True religion is evermore a powerful thing; and the power of it appears, in the first place in the inward exercises of it in the human heart.” Thus Edwards felt, in preaching that he should do everything he could to raise the affections — the love and passion — of his hearers as high as he possibly could concerning these things. In a sermon on Song of Solomon 5:1, which says “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!” he preached, as many commentators do, beyond marital relations, into the spiritual realm of Christ and His church to illustrate passion for God. He drew the following doctrinal conclusion: “Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites.” In other words, there is no such thing as spiritual gluttony. “Eat, and drink, and be drunk with love for God, dear friends.” He admonished his hearers not to set limits or boundaries to their appetites when it came to Christ. “Rather, they ought to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures… Our hungerings and thirstings after God and Jesus Christ and after holiness can’t be too great for the value of these things, for they are of infinite value… [Therefore] endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement…” What an interesting statement: Put your heart in the path of enticement. If you are feeling distant and cold, be allured, be enticed. “There is no such thing as excess in our taking of this spiritual food. There is no such virtue as moderation in spiritual feasting.” This morning, I will challenge you to feed your zeal and your appetite for Christ. Feed the fire, brothers and sisters. In a nutshell, the Laodicean lukewarmness caused by prosperity and spiritual complacency is deadly. It should make us tremble at the affluence and comfort of our American lifestyle. We will be looking at the final letter of Christ to the seven churches. With God’s help, we trust that the Lord Jesus will work this warning into us, and that we will heed His warning, His counsel, and obey His commands and drink in both now and for eternity the sweet rewards that He promises. First, let us review our context of the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation. This sets the stage for the entire book. In Revelation 1, the apostle John, in exile in the island of Patmos, has a vision on the Lord’s Day of the resurrected, glorified Christ, dressed like a high priest in a white robe reaching down to His feet. He is moving among seven golden lampstands, which are probably about like floor lamps, about chest-high. He is trimming the wicks, working on the fires, symbolizing Christ tending the seven golden lampstands, which represent seven literal, physical local churches that existed at that time in Asia Minor. The number seven is the number of perfection and gives us a sense of Jesus’ active daily ministry in local churches all over the world; He cares about local churches and He is ministering as our great high priest. How Christ Describes Himself: Amen, Faithful, True, Creator How to Read these Letters In Revelation 2 and 3, He composes seven literal letters, one to each of those seven churches, but cumulatively, they speak a message to all churches worldwide in the 20 centuries that have followed. At the end of each one of the seven letters, He says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” We are meant to take in the cumulative effect of these seven letters, to heed the warnings, to drink them in as a healing tonic. Jesus spoke these words twenty centuries ago to a specific church in Laodicea at a specific moment in time, but through the Spirit and by the ministry of the Word, He speaks now to us. As it says in Hebrews 3:7-8, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” “He who has an ear, let him hear.” We must approach these seven letters, especially to this seventh letter, with great humility. Christ gives us grace so that we can humbly take in the stern word of warning contained in this letter. James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Isaiah 66:2 says, “This is the one I esteem, he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at My Word.” This word should make us tremble. Woe to any of us who say, “Spiritual lukewarmness could never happen to me,” or “First Baptist Durham could never become a Laodicean church.” Woe to us! We are well on our way to becoming so if we say that. We have the same sin nature they did. We are under the same pressures they were. We have the same challenges facing us. We should read with an ear to hear ways we need to grow in grace, ways that we are weak, and ways that we are sinning and deficient. Even if the Lord would speak a word of encouragement to us, we would hear it honestly as a word of exhortation, not as a point over which to puff up with pride: “You are doing this good thing, and I urge you to do it more and more.” Let us each humbly pray in our hearts, “Oh, God, speak to me.” In many ways, this letter to the church at Laodicea is the most terrifying of them all. Christ speaks not a single word of encouragement to this church, not one good about them at all. John MacArthur points to evidence in verse 20, depending on how you read it, that there was not a single born-again person within the walls of the church; Jesus was on the outside of the church, looking for someone, anyone who might open the door. If that is true, it was a very bad situation for that church. How does the resurrected, glorified Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest who was ministering to the seven churches, describe Himself in this final letter? Look at verse 14. He says, “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.’” (Some translations read “the source of God’s creation.”) The Amen First, He calls himself “the Amen.” We speak this word at the end of all of our prayers, maybe even thoughtlessly, as though it is simply the word used to let the people around you know that you are finished praying. The word is related to the Hebrew word for “standing,” but it came to be connected more with “truth.” In Deuteronomy 27, when the blessings and curses of the Old Covenant were read, the people were supposed to say “Amen” at the end of each one. It is a Hebrew word which translates to “Truly, truly” (or “Verily, verily, I say unto you” in the King James). As New Testament believers, we say “Amen” to give assent to a powerful truth. At the beginning of this book of Revelation, we see this very word: “‘Look, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him.’ [And John mixes in,] So shall it be! Amen.” In other words, “I want that [Second Coming] to happen soon.” Then at the end of the book, in Revelation 22:20, we get the same message: “He who testifies to these things [Jesus] says, ‘Yes I am coming soon.’ [Then John says,] “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” In the final verse of the entire Bible, Revelation 22:21, John says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” Now you know — the last word in the Bible is “Amen.” Jesus, who is God’s Amen, is God’s final word to the human race, the word of truth. Jesus speaks only the truth, for He is the truth. He says in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life…” Beyond that, Jesus is effectively the Amen that God speaks to all of the promises and all of the truth of the Old Covenant. 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For all the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him Amen.” In Christ, all the promises of God find their fulfillment. In effect, Jesus is saying “Amen” for us to all the promises of God. The Faithful and True Witness Jesus says He is the faithful and true witness. Everything He says is true; it is dependable and accurate. He testifies to His churches what is true, and we must hear Him as He speaks. He is also faithful, first and foremost vertically to God, His Father. He was faithful in everything God entrusted to Him. He is faithful to God, but also faithful to us: He will always testify solemnly to what we most need to hear. He loves us. He is our faithful high priest. The Beginning of the Creation of God Furthermore, He is the beginning of the creation of God. This phrase causes trouble for some because it seems to say that Christ is a created being. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have run with that false doctrine for a long time, that Jesus is the first of God’s creations. “There was when He was not — there was a time He did not exist, and then God created Him.” That is a heresy. That is not what this phrase means. Jesus is calling Himself the originator, or the source, of all of God’s creation. Paul makes this clear in Colossians 1:15-17, “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” He is the source of everything. Application: Cure from Lukewarmness Comes from Right Estimation of Christ I want to stop for a moment to give you an application as we are talking about lukewarmness. Lukewarmness is cured by drinking in the greatness of the person of Christ. We greatly underestimate His greatness and would do well to give ourselves a daily boost of the knowledge of Him. Picture what it must have been like in the upper room with the apostles when Jesus came in through the locked doors. Picture him showing His hands and His side, His nail marks, and saying, “Peace be with you.” How could you possibly be indifferent and lukewarm at that moment? The more you just drink in the person and the achievements of Christ, the more that lukewarmness is banished. The central cause is failing to esteem Christ, your Savior, as the radiant, majestic Lord of the universe; failing to see His beauty, His glory, His attributes, His person high above the heavens; failing to see Him as the source of all creation. The remedy must be to read these words and let them soak in to you. Savor His glory based on His word. Rescue from lukewarmness comes from Christ-centeredness. Seek Him. How Christ Diagnoses the Church: Lukewarm, Poor, Blind, Naked Jesus is about to give His church a clear diagnosis and prescribe a powerful therapy. What is the diagnosis? He says they are “lukewarm … [and therefore] wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.” The Church at Laodicea Geographically, Laodicea was close to Colosse, to whom Paul wrote the letter of Colossians. It was located in the Lycus Valley, about one hundred miles east of Ephesus. It was the southernmost of the seven churches, about 40 miles from Philadelphia. Laodicea was almost impregnable against direct assault because it was built on a wide plateau several hundred feet above the valley floor. However, because it had to pipe in the water for the city by aqueducts from several miles away, it was vulnerable to siege; invaders could easily sever the water supply. Three aspects of the Laodicean economy were noteworthy: money, wool, and eye medicine. First, money: Laodicea was strategically located in terms of commerce and trade. It stood at the junction of two important highways. There was an east-west road leading from Ephesus to the interior of Asia Minor, and then there was a north-south road going from Pergamum down to the Mediterranean Sea; those two roads crossed there at Laodicea. It was a powerful, wealthy center of finance, banking and commerce. It was so wealthy that when the earthquake I have mentioned before hit, and Rome offered to help rebuild Laodicea, they rejected the offer; they had no need to accept money from Rome. They possessed the means to rebuild the city with their own resources. Second, wool: Laodicea was famous for soft, glossy, black wool, which was woven into carpets and used for luxurious black clothing. This was a significant source of revenue. Third, eye ointment or salve: Laodicea supplied a Phrygian ointment that was known throughout the Roman world. It was useful in curing certain eye diseases; people came from all over the world to get the eye treatment, and it was also exported all over the Roman world. These three industries — finance, wool, and eye salve — will come directly into play in Christ’s stern words to this church. Christ’s Diagnosis Christ says in His diagnosis in verses 15-17: “I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.” So He begins with the statement, “I know your deeds.” He is going to talk about their heart condition of lukewarmness, but starts with their deeds. This is a regular pattern: “By their fruit, you will know them.” Matthew 12:33: “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.” Their deeds truly expose their heart. What is this lukewarmness all about? The word “nominalism” keeps coming to mind. What is the essence of nominalism? It is assenting to the right doctrine, Orthodox Christianity — “Yes, yes, yes, that is all true” — but without corresponding heart passion stirring them to sacrificial action. Jesus actually starts with the actions. He says, “I know your deeds…” “I see what you do. You are lukewarm.” He says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Some scholars and preachers interpret this in the context of the experience that all Laodiceans would have had with their water coming from miles away. Some nearby towns had hot steam baths, and others might have had cold water as from a mountain stream. The water in Laodicea was not good for refreshment or bathing. It most likely would have been tepid, foul-smelling, cloudy and repulsive. I heard of a South Carolina preacher who likens it to preferences of tea temperature, as though Christ were speaking in terms of beverage preference, saying that anything except lukewarm would be acceptable: “Some love hot tea. Some prefer sweet tea. I like cold tea. No one wants lukewarm tea.” I will not go in that direction, friends; it is best not to push it to that extreme, as though Christ were saying “Hot water is good, and cold water is good… but lukewarm water is useless.” He is not talking about different beverages like wine and milk and water, as in Isaiah 55. Rather, Jesus is speaking metaphorically, as He did with His parables. What is the essence of the temperature, of hot, lukewarm, and cold? I believe heat refers to zeal, passion, fire, ardor, love for the Lord. How can I, as a pastor, exhort you to cold for Jesus? If you came to me saying, “Pastor, I want to be cold and refreshing for Jesus, what should I do?” I would exhort you to love Him with all your heart. But that sounds like passion — like heat. Scripture, overall, supports heat as that which pleases God. God is passionate, so the strong emotions ascribed to him appear as heat — His wrath or anger as well as His motivation, His zeal. A human example would be the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In Luke 24:32, Jesus opened the Scriptures up to their hearts and minds. After He left, “They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’” Jesus says of John the Baptist in John 5:35, “He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.” It is said of Jesus in Psalm 69:9, “…zeal for your house consumes me [has burned Me up].” Romans 12:11, which we've already quoted, urges us: “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” Conversely, coldness is generally handled in Scripture as a negative condition, including, I believe, in our passage. We see a clear example of this in Matthew 24:12. Jesus was speaking about the end times, saying, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.” So how can I exhort you to grow cold? I will not do that. Then why is it better to be cold than lukewarm? My thought is this: a cold person is dead in his transgressions and sins, unconverted, perhaps has never heard the Gospel; he is on the outside, cold and dead, like a corpse. This is better than being lukewarm because a spiritually cold person makes no pretense at all to follow Christ. He knows he is on the outside. But in that state, he is easier to reach for Christ than someone who has heard the great things of God and responded with a lukewarm, nominal commitment to Christ, with its requisite ritual church attendance on Christmas and Easter, or even the habits of baptism and church-membership with no true godliness that are common in the Bible Belt. There have been many revivals over the years, resulting in many churches increasing greatly in membership and many others being planted; but at some point, people start going through the motions of evangelical Christianity without real power. Thus, this is a warning for all of us. In a parallel verse, 2 Peter 2:21, Peter talks about people who employ a self-indulgent, grace-as-license type of Christianity under false teachers. They are feasting and reveling and getting drunk and acting sexually immoral, and Peter admonishes them that such license is not the Gospel. “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: ‘A dog returns to its vomit,’ and ‘A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.’” The Gospel did not change them but now they were in real trouble since they heard the true Gospel, which had no effect on them. It would have been better if they had never heard it than to conduct themselves in such a manner. I see the same reasoning here — it is better to be cold than lukewarm. John MacArthur says this: “Smug, self-righteous hypocrites are far more difficult to reach with the Gospel than cold-hearted rejecters. The rejecters may at least be shown that they are lost. But those who self-righteously think they are saved are often protective of their religious feelings and unwilling to recognize their real condition. They are not cold enough to feel the bitter sting of their sin. Consequently, no one is further from the truth than the one who makes an idle profession of Christ but never experiences genuine, saving faith. No one is harder to reach than a false Christian.” Christ found the Laodicean church nauseating, saying he would vomit them out of His mouth. The Greek is like the word for “emetic.” “So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to [vomit] you out of my mouth.” Nominal Christianity, then, is utterly repulsive to Christ. Their Self-Assessment is Totally Wrong! In verse 17, He speaks to their self-assessment, which is completely wrong. This is where they put themselves in danger. They evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to the churches and individuals around them, saying, “That is not me — I am fine.” Verse 17 says, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.” The Cause of Spiritual Lethargy: Their Material Wealth The cause of their spiritual lethargy was their material wealth. They lived in a wealthy city, and they were wealthy people. That wealth had made them complacent and self-sufficient. Any biblical Christian should react to their statement of self-sufficiency by recoiling with horror. They are saying, “I do not need anything from Jesus.” Imagine yourself saying that; it is appalling, isn’t it? The proverb says, “The wealth of the wealthy is like a strong tower, and in it, they imagine they are safe.” They have a sense of safety or security in their wealth. But they forget another image that Jesus provided. In John 15:5, He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches… If [you] remain in Me… [you] will bear much fruit; apart from Me, you can do nothing.” The more you vigorously we grow into spiritual maturity, the more we will feel acutely just how needy we are, unable to carry out one iota of obedience without His help. “I cannot do anything today without Jesus. He must be in the center of my day, of my life. The only thing I can do apart from Jesus is sin. I do not want to sin! I want to be close.” If we are to do anything that the Lord delights in, we must abide in Christ. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. But here, these Laodiceans are congratulating themselves, saying, “I am wealthy. I do not need anything.” They are self-reliant. This is a great danger in America as well, with overwhelming prosperity such as the Christian world has never seen in history. Wealth among evangelical people is at an unprecedented, widespread level in church history, and it is dangerous state to be in. Their Real Condition: Instead, the “Amen, the faithful and true witness” was preparing to deliver the truth, as a physician would a patient, saying, “I have the results of your tests and you need to know your condition. You may feel fine, but you do not realize that…” and then come the words that render the diagnosis. Only a fool would not listen to such a diagnosis. What does He say? “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.” How terrifying, to have one’s self-assessment be so different from the Lord’s. I do not think you can say those words over genuinely born-again people. First of all, they are wretched and pitiful. They are not to be envied but pitied, spiritually like a homeless beggar shivering out in a blizzard. They are poor, impoverished though materially wealthy. They are in the exact opposite position of the persecuted church at Smyrna, who were poor from having much of their material possessions confiscated. But Jesus said to them in Revelation 2:9, “I know your poverty, yet you are rich!” The Laodiceans are blind in spirit, they're unable to see the truth to understand who Christ really is. Faith is the eyesight of the soul. They do not see the invisible spiritual realms properly. And finally, they are naked, shameful in their sin patterns, in need of covering, of an atonement. How Christ Counsels the Church: Come to Me and Buy Amazing: The Lord of Heaven and Earth Gives Advice Christ — the Lord of heaven and earth, God the Son — could have simply shut down this lukewarm church and disposed of them on Judgment Day. Instead, he humbles himself to give them sound advice. “I counsel you…” Amazing! This is Jesus, exalted to the highest place by Almighty God, sitting on the right hand of the throne of God, perfect in wisdom, awesome in holiness, saying, “Let me give you some advice.” Buy FROM ME… What is the advice? “Come to me and buy what I am offering.” Jesus was the source of everything that they needed. They greatly underestimated Christ, paying Him lip service, lukewarm worship, token prayers. It was time they understood their poverty and Christ’s riches, which He would supply. They needed to put to death forever this repugnant self-reliance, and understand that He is the vine, that apart from Him, they were dead. Why did He say to these destitute, spiritually empty beggars — “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked,” — that they should come to Him and buy from Him? What currency would they use? This same idea is expressed in Isaiah 55:1: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” The currency is the same in that passage: total emptiness, inability to do anything of eternal value apart from Christ. They were to bring that and say, “Here is my money — my emptiness. I am poor. Save me — help me — heal me.” That is how you buy from Jesus when you have nothing. It is not a small thing; most people are not willing to look at their resources, at their lives and conclude, “I really am poor, I really have nothing to offer and no ability to do any good thing in and of myself.” Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with these words in Matthew 5:3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit [spiritual beggars — in Greek, “ptóchos,” meaning ‘have nothing’] — for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Bring this currency to Jesus and humbly lay it at His feet, He says “Buy, I will give you everything you need.” What Should they Buy from Christ? Verse 18 says, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.” First, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by the fire, so you can become rich…” This is like the treasure hidden in the field, worth selling everything to obtain. This is the genuine spiritual wealth of salvation in Christ, the wealth of heavenly joy, the Kingdom of Heaven. “I will give you real gold which will last for all eternity — gold that was refined by the fire of my suffering on the cross, the free gift of wealth in Me. You will be rich.” Second, He counseled them to bring their nothingness, their nakedness, to Him. In return, He promised to clothe them with “…white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness…” This is a symbol of atonement, of the imputed righteousness of Jesus, given as a gift by faith in Christ. He perfectly obeyed the laws of God; you did not. In doing so, He wove a beautiful white robe of righteousness for the purpose of clothing our nakedness with it. On Judgment Day, we will stand in that righteousness and be truly righteous before God because of it. Third, He counseled them to buy “…salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.” He is speaking of the gift of the eyesight of the soul, spiritual sight, which is genuine faith — the ability to see the spiritual world as it really is, things in the spiritual realm that they had never seen before. “I counsel you to bring your blindness and I will touch your eyes,” — like the man born blind in John 9. “I will touch your eyes and you will be able to see. You will behold the glory and holiness of God; God the King sitting on His throne; Me sitting at the right hand of God, interceding for you; your shameful condition as it really is; Me on the cross, having atoned for your sins; the empty tomb and My bodily resurrection; the coming wrath of God as it will be; your future glory of walking in the new heavens and earth; the present world and its terrible status under Satan’s dominion; people enslaved in sin. For the first time, you will see things as they truly are. You will see and flee to Christ; you will turn from darkness to light, and from lies to the truth.” Christ alone can give all these things. John Stott said, “Here is welcome news for blind beggars! They are poor, but Christ has gold. They are naked, but Christ has clothes. They are blind, but Christ has eye salve. Let them no longer trust in their banks, their clothing factories, and their Phrygian eye ointment! Let them come to Him! He alone can enrich their poverty, clothe their nakedness, and heal their blindness! He can open their eyes to perceive a spiritual world of which they have never dreamed. He can cover their sin and their shame and make them fit to partake of the inheritance of saints in the kingdom of light. In a word, He can save them!” Christ’s Loving Discipline Verse 19 is a timeless word to all genuine believers and to every church: “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.” Christ cherishes us as genuinely born-again people, too much to let us wander off. Hold on to this truth, because we all have lukewarm days, perhaps even weeks. But if Christ is active in our lives, He will come after us, draw us back to Him; He will rebuke and discipline us if we drift into this kind of coldness. Though it is a stern word of warning, it is truly a comfort to those who love Him. It proves that we are genuine children, sons and daughters of God. He will speak in a way to get our attention, sternly, perhaps even harshly, when we are sinning. He will not give us over. Christ’s Clear Command “Be earnest and repent” True children of God will inevitably take these warnings to heart and repent. Christ calls on this church, “Be earnest and repent.” In terms of temperature, “Be on fire and repent. Get some fire inside of you; stop being tepid, lukewarm and weak in thought, word and deed. Get serious about what is happening and repent.” “Repent” means to turn away from all these old patterns, away from the sin, to see it for what it really is, grieve over it, feel ashamed of it. Moreover, it means to come to the light, on the path toward a vigorous walk with Christ. Remember the process that Thomas Watson outlined, which we covered in the sermon on the letter to the church of Thyatira: Sight of sin; sorrow for sin; hatred of sin; shame for sin; confession of sin; and turning from sin. What Christ Promises Those Who Open the Door: Fellowship and Feasting The Most Famous Verse in the Seven Letters To those who open the door, Christ promises fellowship and feasting. Look at verse 20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me.” This verse is frequently connected with evangelistic tracts. When I was a new Christian, I was trained by Campus Crusade for Christ to share my faith using a tract called The Four Spiritual Laws. Revelation 3:20 is one of the first verses I ever heard in my life and one of the first I memorized. In the Campus Crusade outline, those evangelizing would first go through the foundational doctrine of “God, man, Christ, response.” Then this verse is used to seal the deal: Jesus is here saying, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. It is the door of your heart and He wants to come in. If you will get up and open the door, He will come and live with you forever.” While this use of that verse is valid — ultimately, every individual person needs to have this kind of personal relationship of fellowship and intimacy with Christ — we must be careful not to push it into doctrinal error, implying that only we can open the door, that there is no means for Jesus to open it from His side. No, if we respond by opening the door, it is the Holy Spirit who moves our spirit and body to open the door; we can never get ahead of the Holy Spirit. He has made you born again so that you hear His voice and you get up. The Spirit is involved in that action; that is what regeneration is all about. Use this verse in evangelism, but use it correctly. Hearing His Voice The essence is the hearing of faith, “He who has an ear, let him hear…” If you are not yet a believer, perhaps you are hearing the knocking, hearing His voice speaking to you from the words of Scripture, personally calling you to follow Him. You know He is outside of your heart. If you hear Him knocking, know that it is a hearing power that only the Holy Spirit can give; only the Holy Spirit can cause you to open that door and let Jesus in. Open the Door to Him Therefore, open the door. There is an openness to faith, a desire to be open to Christ, to have Him enter and live within you. Christ said to the church of Philadelphia, “Behold, I have set before you an open door which no one can shut.” But human tendency is to set before Jesus a closed door and challenge Him to pry it open. No — open the door to Him. It is a heart response of love, of seeing that He is worthy of loving above all else, which should cause us not to challenge but to embrace what He is offering. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” The yoke is His kingly authority. Our response, our desire to open the door, to invite Him in, indicates that we desire for King Jesus to come in and rule our lives; we submit to His kingly authority, His just and loving rule; we declare our loyalty to Him. We are open to whatever he would do with us. The Promise: I will Come In to Him and Eat with Him and He with Me Jesus uses an image here of feasting: those who open the door will sit at table with Jesus. He belabors the point somewhat: “I will come in and eat with him — and by the way, he will also eat with Me.” That seems redundant at first glance. The repetition is intensive: He wants to feast with you, to sit at table with you; He desires your fellowship as much as we should desire His. In the ancient Near East, to sit at a table with someone implied intimate fellowship and friendship, like a covenant signified by breaking bread together. Jesus repeatedly enjoyed intimate times with His disciples around the table. John 1:35-39 says, “The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’ When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, ‘What do you want?’ They said, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ ‘Come,’ he replied, ‘and you will see.’ So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.” The inclusion of this account is puzzling. John kept out almost every one of Jesus’ miracle stories — he included seven miracles and seven extended teachings. How did this account make the cut? One scholar posited that the apostle John was one of those two disciples, and that was the first time he ever heard Jesus speak. It was the first time he had Jesus look at him, and they shared a meal together. Though he does not mention himself by name in the whole gospel, He includes many of his own significant moments with Jesus, His Lord and Savior. In John 13:23, we read that at the Last Supper, the disciple “whom Jesus loved” was leaning against Jesus’ breast so as to feast with His Lord sitting as close as possible to Him. What a picture. Are you experiencing that kind of intimacy of fellowship with Christ? We can experience it now by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. In John 14:16-17, Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.” When you open the door of your soul to invite Jesus to come in by the Spirit, you can feast with Him now in a foretaste of a feasting all believers will experience for eternity in Heaven. Fellowship with Jesus… and with God Our fellowship is not only with Jesus the Son and with the Holy Spirit, but also with the Father. 1 John 1:3 says, “…our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” We have fellowship with the triune God. How Christ Rewards Those Who Overcome: Enthronement In Every Case, Jesus Has Promised Lavish Rewards to the One Who Overcomes How does Christ reward those who overcome? Verse 21 says, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne.” He who overcomes, who fights the good fight of faith against the world, the flesh and the devil, will receive lavish praises and rewards. I like to go through the seven letters and collect in one place all of the rewards given to him who overcomes; I meditate on this list and marvel that we will receive them all. These are not only for the Ephesian or the Smyrnan or the Sardis overcomers. We are also the overcomers; we are also more than conquers. We will eat from the Tree of Life. We will receive a crown of life; protection from the second death; the hidden manna; a White Stone with a new name written on it; the authority to rule the nations; the morning star; white garments; the honor of having Christ confess our name before God the Father and the Holy Angels in Heaven. We will be made a pillar in the temple and will never leave it. We will have written on us the name of God, and the name of the new Jerusalem, and the name of Christ. What reward here? Ruling with Christ on his throne In the letter to the church at Laodicea, we see that we will reign with Christ on His throne. We will sit with Him on His throne, just as He overcame and sat down with His Father on His throne. John Piper gives us a rather awkward but appropriate and amazing image: We are in Jesus’ lap, and He is in His Father’s lap, running the universe. Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and He will reign forever and ever in the New Jerusalem. The conquerors will rule with him in the New Heavens and New Earth. If we overcome, we will not only sit at table and eat with him, we will sit on a throne and rule with him. This is amazing grace! Applications Let us quickly look at a few applications: To the Lost: Jesus is Calling to You Today… If you are cold, you are on the outside. You know that you are not a Christian nor claiming to be one. You may not know, though, and I want to tell you today, that you are dead in your transgressions and sins. You have heard the Gospel here today — you are a sinner, naked and shameful, like all of us. Like the Prodigal Son, you have been wandering in sin, seeking fulfillment in earthly pleasures, and becoming more and more spiritually impoverished — cold, dead, distant from God. You cannot survive Judgment Day on your own. Jesus’ diagnosis of the Laodicean church — “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked,” — applies to you; if you could see yourself in light of eternity, would see that that is true. Hear the promises that Jesus is able to solve each of those problems. Christ’s death on the cross can pay for all your debt and cover you. He can clothe you with garments of righteousness. Christ is offering you an incredible gift: full salvation, intimate fellowship. He can make you eternally wealthy. He can take away the wrath of God, and give you eternal life. You only need to hear His voice in this sermon — it is not just the voice of the pastor, but that of Christ, urging you to repent of your sins and open your soul to Him and allow Him to be your King, your Ruler, your Savior. If you do, He will come, and He will feast with you through the Holy Spirit. He will come into your life forever. Trust in Him. Beware of Lukewarmness To you who are already Christians, beware of lukewarmness. Do not think it could never happen to you. Perhaps are aware that it is already happening. I believe the Laodiceans were unregenerate. I am not saying that you are unregenerate; all of us go through lukewarm patches. We are wired to drift. Just be aware of it. It is not okay to be cool or lukewarm toward Jesus. You must fight hard to maintain the passion, the fire, the zeal for Christ. Look at your life. Is your private devotional life characterized by fire, by passion? Do you worship Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit? Do you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, making music in your heart to the Lord? Are you thankful for everything in the name of Christ? Do you read the Scriptures passionately and accurately and personally, as though the Lord Jesus Christ were speaking to you directly? Is the outflow of your life characterized by cheerful, sacrificial service to God and to others? Conversely, do you see Christian things, Bible-reading, prayer, church attendance as a burden? Do these things weigh you down? Are you holding on to religion because you have a tradition and a habit of it, but in truth, you are not moved in your heart toward these things? If you are more excited about a ballgame or a hobby or a vacation or a movie on Netflix than about anything spiritual, and you are only going through the motions, take heed; see the danger signs. Do you place your confidence in your wealth, and success, and health? Do you feel like you do not need anything? Or do you have a sense of how spiritually poor you are, which stirs a passion in your heart toward Christ? It is my duty to stir up your affections as high as I possibly can as a preacher. But my sermons will pale in effect compared to your sermons to yourself. Preach to yourself: “Why are you so… downcast, lethargic, listless, cold, distant… oh, my soul? Put your hope in God.” Do not allow your heart to grow cold and distant; do not accept lukewarm expressions of your Christian walk. Prayer: O. Hallesby I would also commend prayer. In 1931, Norwegian pastor named Ole Hallesby wrote a book simply called Prayer. He began this little booklet on prayer with an exposition of Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with Me.” He said this captures the essence of prayer. We open our nothingness and emptiness and hunger to Christ by opening the door; we bring Him into all of that in prayer. Hallesby says this: “It is not our prayer which draws Jesus into our hearts. Nor is it our prayer which moves Jesus to come into us. All He needs is access. He enters of His own accord, because He desires to come in. To pray is nothing more than to open the door, giving Jesus access to our needs and permitting Him to exercise His power in meeting them. That requires no strength. It is just a matter of our wills. Will we give Jesus access to our weakness and needs or not?” Start here in your prayer life. One final thought: In the book of Isaiah, we have a picture of Jesus, quoted in Matthew 12: “A bruised reed, He will not break, and a smoldering wick, He will not snuff out.” The smoldering wick is a fire that is about to go out. Jesus has the power to fan it into a flame. Ask Him to do this in your life. Closing Prayer Close with me in prayer. Father, I thank You for the things we have learned today in Revelation 3. I fear for my own soul, I fear for the church, fear for individuals that are here. Oh, God, deliver us from lukewarmness. Help us to read the Scripture passionately. Help us to pray as needy, broken, empty sinners, opening the door to Jesus. Help us to learn to feast with Christ, to realize that we have been enriched with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, and to quote those and to feel that we are rich in Christ, and that all of our nakedness has been clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and to celebrate, and to have fellowship with God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Spirit. Help us to feast. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Two Categories of Humans: True Worshipers and False Worshipers Alright, so we come this morning to the second last sermon, I'm going to preach in the Book of Isaiah, but the last chapter of the book of Isaiah, next week, God willing I'm going to give an overview of the whole Book of Isaiah I could go through this book all over again. I love the Book of Isaiah, I've loved this journey. But next week what I'm going to do is I'm going to trace out specifically Christ in the Book of Isaiah, and the Gospel, and we're going to go from Isaiah 1 to 66 one more time. But this is the last chapter, the final chapter in the book of Isaiah what a fitting conclusion it is Isaiah is the most visionary of all, the Old Testament prophets and take an average section of the Book of Isaiah, close your eyes and images come in vision right from the beginning, Isaiah 1:2 the word of the Lord that Isaiah son of Amos, saw it's a vision, And so this most visionary of prophets comes to an incredible and fitting end to his incredible book, and that is a revelation of the eternal state of both the righteous and the wicked, the final chapter of Isaiah divides the human race as we've seen again and again into two categories. I'm going to unify it around this one idea of true and false worship we're going to follow the idea of worship. There's different ways we could look at this chapter, but we're going to look at true worshipers versus false worshippers. And the outcome. It describes very plainly the heart and behavior of both the true worshippers, and the false worshippers, as well as their eternal destinies, heaven and hell, the Book of Isaiah, ends with the vision of the new heavens and the new earth with Zion the New Jerusalem eternally populated by true worshippers from every nation on earth who are going to be continually falling down before God and worshiping him. But Isaiah also ends literally ends with the last verse that you heard Joel just read, verse 24 it ends with a clear depiction of hell. The state of eternal death, in which rebellious human beings will suffer in plain view, of the redeemed for all eternity. And I think it's appropriate that this theme of worship, both true worship and false worship unifies this final chapter. Because the human race, we were created to worship. Our hearts our souls were made to find worth and value. And to esteem it and have it flow out in our words, we're made to worship. In Romans chapter 1, talks about how we have given over that heart to idols. We exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve created things rather than the Creator, who is forever praised amen Romans 1:25, the clearest the best definition of idolatry in the Bible. Idolatry has been front and center throughout the Book of Isaiah. We've seen it again and again. As has God's work of redemption his plan of redemption in reclaiming ex-idolaters healing us of our idolatry and bringing us over to worship God in spirit and in truth. I. True Worshipers Delightful, False Worshipers Detestable (vs. 1- 4) And so we come to this final book and we begin in an amazing way verses 1-4, we're going to see true worshipers delightful and false worshippers detestable. True Worshipers Tremble Before the Throne and Word of God Let's begin at 66:1-2. "This is what the LORD says: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?' declares the LORD. 'This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.'" So God declares right at the beginning of this chapter, once again he is ineffable he is immeasurable. He is infinite majesty, this immense God has been the center of the whole Book of Isaiah, and here He declares the impossibility of finite man, making anything suitable, any place suitable for him to dwell any suitable place for us to worship Him, and the impossibility really of making a finite container for this infinite God. The Jews were continually tempted to be overly impressed with their temple, their own structure, that they built for worship and with the religion that flowed from it. Before the exile, the Babylon after the time of Isaiah, but right before the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, in the book, of a book of Jeremiah, the Jeremiah the prophet had to stand at the gates of the temple and say to the Jewish people "Do not say in your hearts, we have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." Three times they said it, why? Because they were clinging to it, "God would never allow this city to be destroyed, he would never allow the temple to be destroyed." Religious people are always tempted to trust in their religion. To trust in their habits, the habits of piety and the beauty of their sanctuaries, that they made with their own hands, and they think that those actions make them righteous. But Solomon himself when he dedicated his beautiful temple, and he stood and he spread out his hands to pray. It came to a certain point I think, through the Spirit working on his heart, a point of humility First Kings 8:27 "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!" Well, that's just a beautiful humility that King Solomon had saying, "What is this structure?" And I love what he says "heaven, even the highest heavens cannot contain you" there's no container for God. There's no barrier, no boundary line to which God goes up and reaches and that barrier says, "This far, you may go God and no further." There's no such thing. God fills heaven and earth with his complete presence. This is the doctrine of God's omnipresence. We could also say the doctrine of God's immensity. They're really probably the same thing in the end. God is 100% present everywhere in the universe with all of his being. "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" He says. And so he declares his sovereign dominion over heaven and earth. "Heaven is my throne," he says, "It's the place where I sit to dwell." "The earth is my footstool." The Heavens, the physical heavens that we can see with telescopes are in-comprehensively immense. The astronomers tell us that the observable universe is 46 billion light years across. That's something that we have no conception of. They tell us that light year's the distance that light can travel in one year. Physicists tell us that light is the fastest thing there is in the physical universe. So 46 billion years, it would take light to go from one side to the other, but they don't really know. They don't really understand what they're talking about and neither do I, but the creator of the universe fills all that space with all of his being all the time. So any earthly temple, any soaring stone cathedral built over two centuries with European limestone or marble or anything like that with beautiful, majestic, stained glass windows or any modern steel and glass worship center, state of the art technology doesn't really matter. Any man-made place of worship anywhere on the face of the earth is as nothing to God. He asked in effect in this in this verse, "Where in the world could there be anything that you could make that would possibly house me?" He really does mean to put us in our place here. The Hebrew is emphatic. It puts us in our place. We desire to glorify God by building soaring edifices, mighty cathedrals, flying buttresses, all of that. And you go to some of those cathedrals in Europe and they'll just take your breath away. We are impressed, but God is not impressed. There's nothing about them that impresses him. He actually to some degree, says, "I have a hard time finding them. I'm not able to see them. That's not where I'm looking. Heaven is my throne. The earth is my footstool. If you were to decorate the place that where my feet rest and you were to find gold and silver and costly stones and pearls and all that kind of thing, it would still not catch my eye at all. It wouldn't captivate my gaze." Actually, all of the building materials you would use are already God's before you even started. They belonged to him. Look at verse two, "Has not my hand made all these things. And so they came into being." They all belong to me, God is saying. Every atom in the universe is already God's, including every atom in your brain and every item in your hands. So the brain by which you would come up with the blueprint for the dwelling place for God, and the hands by which you would build that dwelling place for God and the building materials that you would use. All of it already belong to God already. All of it, for from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever. So what captivates God's attention? What holds his gaze? What is he looking for? Well, he tells us here. This is the one to whom I will look. This is what radiant beauty looks like to me. You want to be beautiful. You want to capture God's gaze? He who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at my word. Humble and contrite and spirit means you're deeply aware, first of your creatureliness, you're created. He's the creator. And you're humble about that. There's an infinite gap between you and the creator, even if you have never sinned, but you have sinned. So secondly, that you're deeply aware of your sinfulness and God's holiness. You're deeply aware that your righteous acts cannot save you. And so Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with this statement, "Blessed are poor in spirit [the spiritual beggars] for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." You are destitute spiritually and you know it, and you tremble at his word. God's resting place is here. It's among his humble, brokenhearted people who have been saved from their sins by his grace in Christ. God is searching out such a resting place. He is seeking such a place where he will settle down finally and worship and live with his people. So what he really wants from us is humility here in this text, brokenness. And he says, those who tremble at my word. What does this mean to tremble at God's word? Trembling is a physical physiological reaction, can be caused by a lot of things, could be caused by disease. Physiologically, your nervous system could be sending signals to your muscles and you're trembling. But this seems to be a trembling that comes because of thoughts, ideas, something that you're thinking about. Well, in that case you could be trembling because you're a thief about to get caught. You're surrounded and you're trembling with fear of getting caught or you could tremble because the best thing in your life that you never thought could happen is about to happen. Maybe your wedding day, or maybe your husband was a POW and he's been released and you can't wait for him to come down the gangway. And you see him and your trembling and you run and embrace after years of being apart. There's a lot of different reasons that we tremble. I think the thing here is that we're trembling concerning our own sinfulness and God's holiness. We're trembling concerning the just wrath of God that we deserve. But we're also trembling with expectation and how great and majestic and beautiful this God is. And we want to see him. And so there's this trembling at all of these deep themes of God's word. But either way, no matter how you look at it, what it means is by faith, you're taking this word seriously. You know this isn't merely the word of man, but it is the word of God as it actually is at work in you who believe. So you tremble at it and you take it seriously and you're humbled. That's the one that God looks to. Does this Characterize You? Now, let me just stop and ask you a question, does this characterize you? This is my application right in the middle of the sermon. Does this honestly characterize you? Are you humble and contrite in spirit, and do you tremble at God's Word? Are you deeply humbled by your sin and God's holiness? Do you understand that if you are to be saved, it will only be by the grace of God in Christ, His shed blood on the cross, is the only way you're going to survive Judgment Day. Are you aware of that? Do you seek also dynamically humility more and more? Do you seek to be more humble, a year from now than you are now? Do you see actually pride as a big problem in your life. It's an ongoing issue. Do you see that actually its corrupting your relationships? If you're married, it's corrupting your marriage. The biggest problem you have in your marriage, is your pride. It's corrupting your friendships, it's corrupting everything you touch. The pride is there, it's like, "Oh God, would you humble me?" It's like you cling to the promise, no longer a threat but a promise. At the end of the Book of Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar learn when God changed his mind to the mind of an animal, then turned it back after seven years. Those who walk in pride, He is able to humble. Then do it, Oh God, humble me. I want to be genuinely broken and contrite in spirit, and I want to tremble at your word. Begin every day, say, "Oh God I want to capture your gaze, I want you to like looking at me, I want you to enjoy looking at me, I want to be beautiful to you. Would you please make me humble and contrite in spirit? Would you give me a heart of trembling after your word?" False Worshipers Make Detestable Sacrifices Now conversely, in verse 3, we have false worshippers. Who are making detestable sacrifices. And if I can just stop, the dynamic as we've seen again in Isaiah, it's going to go back and forth from the righteous to the wicked and back again. It weaves all the way through the chapter as it does all the way through our experience. This is a world of wheat and weeds, of good fish and bad fish, all gathered by the same dragnet. We are mixed together in this world, and so this chapter is mixed together as well. Look at verse 3, "But whoever sacrifices a bull, is like one who kills a man, whoever offers a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck. Whoever makes a grain offering is like one who presents pig's blood and whoever burns Memorial incense is like one who worships an idol." Now here God is condemning the false worship of Israel. Now, there's two possibilities in my mind as I look at that, either he's condemning the Pharisee, type person, who outwardly is following the laws of Moses, through these right sacrifices but inwardly is totally corrupt. He's a white washed tomb that looks good on the outside, but inside full of dead men's bones and everything impure and unclean. Full of pride and lust, and covetousness and murder and idolatry. But outwardly, he's doing what the law requires. "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Or he's talking about a syncretism, it was a big problem in Israel, where they mixed together, the pure religion that they got from Moses and the Canaanite religions that were there in the land, and they mixed them together. The Jews did this as well, syncretism, mixing together, the religion of the Bible with the religion of the world. Either way, it's a remarkable list, making lawful mosaic sacrifice is compared to the most vile things you could ever imagine to offer to God, to offer a bowl, if your heart is wrong, if you don't have that broken humble, contrite spirit, trembling at God's Word, and you're offering, a sacrifice that the law of Moses commanded, its corrupt to offer a bull, something as costly as a bull, that's an expensive animal, to offer a bull is as bad as killing a man to God. To offer a lamb is as bizarre as breaking a dog's neck. To present a grain offering is as repulsive God, as presenting pigs blood. To burn sweet smelling incense is as repulsive as bowing down to an idol. It's an interesting mix there. So the religious pattern, the external pattern means nothing if the heart's not right behind it. Now, this is a warning to us as Evangelical Christians. Again, I just want to stop and apply this right here. We have our own sacred list of biblically mandated duties, we have the Bible in the New Testament telling us to do certain things and we can become proud of them, and have corrupted lives and corrupted hearts, pray the sinner's prayer, realize that you're a sinner, water baptism follows, church membership, church involvement, attendance at worship, weekly attendance, daily quiet times. And then even some of the more advanced aspects of the Christian life, you could memorize scripture, you could be out doing street evangelism, you could be committed to missions, all of these things are good and right and beautiful but if they're done from a corrupted heart, they're not acceptable to God any more than these were back in the old covenant. So, it's a warning to us. None of these things can save us. False Worshipers Judged for Not Heeding God’s Word Now, the false worshippers. Are judged in verse 3 and 4 for not heeding God's word. "They have chosen their own ways and their souls delight in their abominations. And then further on, when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, no one listened. They did evil in my sight, and shows what displeases me." So the essence of false religion is independence from the Word of God. God told them what to do, He called, but they didn't listen. He made it very plain in His word, what He wants from us, but they crafted their own religion. This goes all the way back to Cain, remember where Cain offered up something God hadn't told him to offer. And he said, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?" He did what was wrong in offering that, he made up his own religion. So their punishment is extreme. Verse 4, "So I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring upon them, what they dread." They chose their path, they made up their own religion. But God is going to choose their end and it will be terrifying. Fundamentally, they did not tremble at His word, but they were deaf to his calls. Now, for us in the new covenant era, the call is this: believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, repent and believe the good news. That's the call. And so God is now calling He's saying, "Call on me while I'm near. Seek the Lord while I may be found. This is the day of salvation. Now is the time." But, people hear that and they go their own way, they have their own answers to life's ultimate questions. II. False Worshipers Persecute, True Worshipers Prosper (vs. 5- 14a) Now, in Verses 5-14, we see false worshippers persecute and true worshippers prosper. The rest of this chapter, God directly addresses His children. It's written to them, but He never stops talking about the wicked, the false worshippers are much in view but they're always referred to in the third person for the rest of the chapter. Their punishment is clear for His elected children to see. So true worshipper or false worshippers persecute the true, look at Verse 5, it says, "Hear the word of the Lord you who tremble at His word." So, He's talking to the believers, talking to the children of God, "Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word, your brothers who hate you and exclude you because of my name have said, 'let the Lord be glorified that we may see your joy, yet they will be put to shame.'" There is a deep-seated enmity between the children of God and the children of the devil, they're at war with each other in world view if not physically, even. We have radically different ways of looking at everything in the world, and we have to be in the same world. God addresses those who tremble at His word, the true followers of Christ. And He speaks of brothers, your brothers who hate and exclude you. Now, obviously that happened from the very beginning with Cain when he killed his brother, Abel over matters of religion because Abel's offerings were offered by faith and Cains were not, and he hated him. Now in redemptive history, the first followers of Christ were all Jewish so also were the first persecutors of Christians. And so we could really just stop right there with this verse, but we could make it more universal just in terms of other human beings who do not believe in the Lord. But here, within in the issue of Jews, Jesus said it was going to be this way. In John 16:2 & 3, speaking of Jews who do not believe in Christ, to the true followers, he said, "They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, your time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a sacrifice to God, they will do such things because they have not known the Father or me." So he's predicting Jewish persecution of followers of Jesus. Now, here in Verse 5, these false brothers so to speak, hated them who trembled at God's Word and they cast them out and they excluded them because of God's name. For Christ's name sake, ultimately, they excluded them, they kicked them out and they mocked them. Now, what they say is interesting, "Let God be glorified that we may see your joy." I don't know what that means, it sounds good to me, but in the context it's clearly mockery. So they're using this kind of religious slogan to mock their faith but look at the outcome. False Worshipers Destroyed by the Lord The false worshippers will be destroyed by the Lord, verse 5 & 6, "Yet they will be put to shame." Verse 6, "Hear that uproar from the city, hear that noise from the temple, it is the sound of the Lord repaying his enemies all they deserve." So in the end, God brings judgment on these mocking adversaries. He did it in the time of Jeremiah by destroying the temple, He did it after the New Testament era in 70AD by destroying the temple again. And so it's a double fulfillment of this prophecy, hear the uproar from the city. Listen to the noise from the temple, what is the noise? What's the uproar? Destruction, wrath. So also is the final condemnation that comes at the end of the chapter. In the new universe, the eternal destination of the wicked, that also a clear display of the wrath of God. True Worshipers Born Instantly by the Lord Now we go back to the true worshipers verse 5:7-9 he says, by contrast, even while the markers are persecuting in the church, the church is exploding in size among the gentiles. There is a nation getting born in an instant, miraculously. Isaiah 7-9, "Before she goes into labor, she gives birth, before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son." Now all you women who are mothers or future mothers, you're like, "Amen, let it be, Lord, minimize my labor pains, oh please." Pray the prayer of Jabez concerning that, "Oh God, minimize my pain." But here we have this incredible image, "'Before she goes into labor she gives birth, before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet, no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children. Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?' says the Lord, 'Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?' says your God." Now for me, I just am doing all the work that we've done in the book of Isaiah to understand this properly. Jewish people could just say, "this is talking about the restoration, the Jew is back," I think this is so much bigger than that. We've seen this image before. Isaiah 54 talks about a woman Zion who's going to be in labor and give birth to more children than she can possibly imagine. She has to have a bigger tent. Enlarge the place of your tent, you're going to have more children than you can count. So this I think is the same image, this must be friends, the explosive spread of the Gospel from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth, that's what we're talking about here, a nation born in an instant. And the effects of the curse are gone, the woman Zion gives birth instantly and seemingly with no labor pains, she gives birth to an entire nation in a single day. So we got to go to the beginning of the church age, the day of Pentecost, remember that day began with 120 believers in the upper room ended with 3000, plus 120 believers. What a day. Perhaps the greatest single day in gathering, nothing ever like it of its kind. And who was it that came in? Their geographic spread was laid out for us in Acts 2, 9-11, "Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs." All over the Mediterranean, they were there. They had Pentecost came to faith in Christ, a nation born in a single day with no labor. And so the Gospel started spreading like wildfire across that region, across Rome conquered Rome spiritually within three centuries, really short time and it's been spreading ever since. And these Gentile converts that are in view here, being brought in, they become sons and daughters of Abraham. Galatians 3:7, even better. There's sons and daughters of the living God. It is written in John 1:12-13 that Jesus "came to that which was his own, but his own people did not receive him.. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, He gave the right to become children of God. Children who are born not natural descent, nor of human decision or of a husband’s will, but born of God." And so a nation gets born spiritually in an instant. And the sovereign power of God's on display here. Look at verse nine. "'Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?' says the Lord. 'Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?'" There's no miscarriages here. No one... No stillborn. No one dies in labor. When God pours out His Spirit on the elect, they will come to faith in Christ. No one gets left behind. No one gets lost. Jesus said in John 6:37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never drive them away… and I will raise them up at the last day." Isn't that beautiful? So he said, "I'm not going to bring to the point of birth and then they don't get delivered." They're going to get born again because God is powerful. True Worshipers Prosper Richly in Zion Now in verses 10-14, these true worshipers prosper richly in Zion. The river of converts are going to be flowing into Zion, the new Jerusalem. Making her amazingly wealthy. Again verse 10 through 14, "Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her. For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance. For this is what the LORD says: 'I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. 13 As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem. 14 When you see this, your heart will rejoice and you will flourish like grass; the hand of the LORD will be made known to his servants.'" So it's just a river of blessing flowing into Zion from the ends of the earth. These Gentile converts, these adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, adopted sons and daughters of God are going to become delighted in the new Jerusalem, ultimately. Paul says very plainly in Galatians 4 that it's not the Jerusalem that's below. She's in bondage with her children. But we're talking about the Jerusalem that's above. And we'll be delighted in it and we can't wait to see it. This radiant city that will last forever. And this river of converts coming from every tribe and language and people and nation are going to be deeply, richly, comforted by her and they will enrich her with all of their hearts, all of their souls, giving the treasures of their heart to Christ ultimately in worship. And as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also the comforts of Christ flow over and we are comforted. And we know we're going to a world where there'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. We will be comforted by that and we will see the glory of God in all of those things. Verses 10 through 14, that's what's coming. III. False Worshipers Condemned, True Worshipers Commissioned (vs. 14b-21) But halfway through verse 14, we switch again to the false worshippers that are condemned. The wicked continue to be in view in this chapter, but this is a world of both wheat and weeds. And so look at 14B, "The hand of the Lord will be made known to His servants, but as fury will be shown to his foes." Verse 15, "Behold, the Lord is coming with fire and his chariots are like a whirlwind and he will bring down his anger with fury and there's rebuke with flames of fire." Verse 16, "For with fire and with his sword, the Lord will execute judgment upon all men and many will be those slain by the Lord." God's mighty hand to save will be on display to his servants. They will see how He will save them but they will also see the judgment and wrath will bring to his enemies. So these verses speak with terrifying clarity of the future vengeance of the Lord on the wicked. God's going to pour out His fury on them. The Book of Revelation to which God willing, we're going to go next after next week's sermon on Isaiah one more. But then we're going to begin a journey through the Book of Revelation. And it depicts more clearly than any book of the Bible what this verse is talking about. Like when the sixth trumpet blows in Revelation 9:18. It says "A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths." A third of mankind. Two or three billion people dying at one time. It staggers the mind. And then at the second coming of Christ, Christ comes back with the sword coming out of His mouth. Not literally, but metaphorically because that's the weapon. All he has to do this is to say to His enemies "Be dead and be damned" and that's it. He has that kind of power. And so Revelation 19:21, it says "The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse and the birds came and gorge themselves on their flesh." This is terrifying. This is the terrifying wrath and vengeance of God and it's real and it's coming. And the elect are the only ones who take it seriously. The elect are the only ones that take this seriously and this is part of what it means to tremble at his word. Pagan worship of the enemies is singled out here. Look at verse 17. "Those who consecrate and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following the one in the midst of those who eat the flesh of pigs and rats and other abominable things, they will meet their end together." I think this is just talking about the disgusting religions of the world. The religions of the world have led people to do bizarre disgusting things. And I think to some degree, you'll get Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, the animistic religion, the tribal religions, they lead people to do repulsive disgusting things. I think it's Satan's mockery of us who are created an image of God. He can deceive us and get us to think clever thoughts and do degrading, degrading things. But the end will be judgment from the Lord. But then we turn back to true worshippers, in verse 18-21, these true worshippers are commissioned to bring in the nation. So here we have missions again, one last time in the book. There have been many examples of great commissions in the Book of Isaiah. Jesus said this after his resurrection, he rose from the dead, he goes to the upper room. Luke 24: He opened their minds, so that they could understand the scriptures, [including Isaiah] He told them, 'This is what is written: that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. And repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem, you are witnesses of these things.'" it's written. So here we have this prediction plainly. Look at verse 18: "And I, because of their actions and their imaginations, am about to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory. I'm going to gather them and they're going to see my glory. Look at verse 19: "I will set a sign among them. And I will send some of those who survive to the nations, to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians, famous as archers, to Tubal, and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. And they will proclaim my glory to the nations." Friends, that's missions. Do you see it in Verse 19? |I'm going to send a remnant out to the ends of the Earth, and they're going to proclaim my glory. I'm going to set a sign among them. Verse 20: "'And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations to my holy mountain in Jerusalem, as an offering to the Lord, on horses and chariots, and wagons, and mules, and camels,' says the Lord. 'They will bring them, as the Israelites bring there grain offerings to the temple of the Lord in ceremonially clean vessels. And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,' says the Lord." So God, I think speaks plainly in these verses about the spread of the Gospel from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the Earth. And God's going to assemble all the nations and tongues to come and see. But we learn from John 4, Jesus said to the Samarian woman, "Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father." You don't need to go anywhere geographically. We don't have to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. We don't have to go anywhere physically. The coming and seeing is done by faith alone. We come to God when we see the glory of God in Christ, when we hear the Gospel. That's how we come and see. And God's going to set a sign among the nations, and that sign, a sign is like a miracle, something like that, that sign is Jesus, the life of Jesus. From His miraculous conception, the virgin conception, virgin birth, through his sinless life, through the river of miracles that he did, all of the healings, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the healing of a man born blind, the walking on water, the feeding of the 5,000, and the final capping greatest miracle all, his own bodily resurrection from the dead. I'm going to set a sign among the nations and they're going to believe, they're going to believe. And some of the survivors, the remnant, the Jews chosen by grace, they're going to be sent out. Salvation is from the Jews. So all the 12 apostles were Jews and the apostle Paul was a Jew. And they were sent out of this remnant as messengers. And they're going to be sent out to these distant lands. Look at the small sampling of those nations listed in Verse 19, Tarshish is distant Spain. Put and Lud or Lydia is Northern Africa. Tubal is North in the caucuses, like maybe the Republic of Georgia or on up into Russia. And they're described as archers, they're really good archers. They're warlike and scary, but some of them are elect. I'm thinking you're going to have martyrs that will be necessary to die, but the elect will be brought. The gospel is going to spread. And these Gentiles, what they have not heard about them, they will see. And then what they were not told, they will hear. Isaiah 52:15: They're going to hear about Christ, and they're going to begin their spiritual pilgrimage. And how are they going to come? Well, I know it says on horses and chariots, and litters, mules, and camels. I didn't say that every word was easy to interpret. I've never been on a litter. I have been on a mule. I've never been on a camel. But again, there's that physical language. But we know based on the New Testament teaching, you don't need to go anywhere. And so, this just might talk in symbolic language of the different ways that people come to Christ. They're just different stories, and we're going to hear them on testimony night, or day, or whatever in Heaven, that'll they'll be going on forever. I want to hear those stories. Tell me how you came to Christ. I want to hear those stories. Now, the ministry of the Apostle Paul, they're going to come as offerings, it says, like the Israelites used to bring grain offerings. The Apostle Paul said, "That's what my ministry is like, I'm Apostle to the Gentiles." Romans 15 and 16: With the priestly duty of proclaiming the Gospel to them, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He's like, "I'm offering the Gentiles up to God." This is a direct fulfillment of the words here. Do you not see the harmony of the Bible? This is staggering. By the way, I knew when I practiced the sermon this morning, I would be laying on you something like 196 ideas. Just go back and listen and look at it carefully. This is a river of truth, this one chapter. It's incredible. And verse 21: "'I will select some of them, [the Gentiles] to be priests and Levites' says the Lord." What does that mean? The resources for the multiplication of the harvest, the harvesting is in the harvest. The future laborers are present harvest field. And so you go and you share the gospel, and those people come to Christ, and then they multiply, and they go out to their own people. Some time ago, I was watching an incredible video called EETaow! It's one of my favorite missionary stories ever, magnificent. And it's a story about New Tribes' missionaries, Mark and Gloria Zook, who went from rural Papua New Guinea. And they led the Moke people to faith in Christ. A careful, patient explanation of redemptive history culminating in Christ, death on the cross, his resurrection. Finally, the Holy Spirit opens their eyes, they understand why the Zook's are there, and they believe in Christ. And they go crazy. And for something like an hour, they start chanting, "Etah, etah. It's true, it's true." And they realize that they're freed from their dark pagan religion, they're free from animism and fear of the spirits, and they are just celebrating their forgiveness and they're going crazy. But that wasn't the end of the story. The sequel is in some ways even more beautiful. They sent some of their own people out to the neighboring villages and some of them went across some language barriers in Papua, New Guinea to reach the next villages. "I will select some of them to be priests and Levites." That's what it says, and they're going to do that priestly duty of proclaiming the Gospel. IV. True Worshipers Eternally Live (vs. 22-24) And so we finish in verse 22-24 true worshippers eternally live, but false worshippers eternally die. This is the new Heavens and the new earth. Verse 22 and 23, "'As the new heavens and the new earth that I WILL make will endure before me,' declares the LORD, 'so will your name and descendants endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD.'" The New Heavens and New Earth Endure Eternally So this text says two things will endure eternally. The new universe will endure eternally, and the people of God will endure eternally. "As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure, so will your name and your seed endure forever. Now this is the universe that God in some ways has yet to make. But I believe it's related to the present universe as our bodies are related to our future resurrection bodies. I think it's a direct analogy. We will be raised from the dead. So there's continuity but difference. This universe will be raised from bondage to decay into a glorious new universe. I believe that. Others think God's going to create a whole new universe. I get that too. Either way, we're going to get a new universe. And unlike this present creation which has been groaning in bondage to decay, winding down, breaking down, constantly dying, always dying. No, those days are over. The living things will live forever and only become more robust and more glorious and more worthy of study as the display of the glory of God that they are. And in the same way, so will His people endure forever before him. Your seed and your name will remain forever, the seed of the people. And their name will remember... Will endure forever. What does that mean? Name is reputation. This is what I think. We'll be discussing one another's name. And what does that mean? What you did, your works. The ones that survive Judgment Day. Your gold, silver, costly stones, not the wood hay straw. That's gone. But we're going to celebrate your crowns and your emblems of faithful service and I'm going to find out your stories, you're going to find out mine, we're going to talk to a multitude greater from anyone could count from every tribe, language, people, and nation and their name will endure forever, and we're going to learn their stories and see how God was glorified in their lives. I could go on about this forever. This is amazing, but we're going to say, "Not to us, to our name, but to Your name be the glory," Psalm 115:1. We're going to celebrate our name as a subset of God's glory and his name. V. False Worshipers Will Die Eternally (vs. 24) Conversely, and here we end. False worshippers will die eternally. Verse 24, "They will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me. Their worm will not die. Nor will their fire be quenched and they will be loathsome to all mankind." Now Jesus, our Savior, used these very words to describe the eternity of Hell, eternal, conscious torment in Hell. That's what He taught. Mark 9:43-48, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into Hell where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you sin, then cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than have two feet and be thrown into Hell, and if your eye causes you to sin, then pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown in Hell, where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched." Jesus is quoting the last verse of the Book of Isaiah. Eternal, conscious torment. That's what the Bible teaches is the future of the wicked. When it says the worm does not die, the worm gnaws on a corpse. It gnaws on the dead body and it keeps eating until there's nothing left to eat, and then the worm dies. Jesus said the worm will never die. So God sustains existence and the fire, it never goes out. Some people teach annihilation, even some good teachers in the church have been deceived in this regard. It's hard to understand, but this is what the Bible teaches. It's what Jesus taught. And it says, "They will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me." Who's they? The worshippers, the redeemed. We will be well aware of them. And why is that? Well, we know in Revelation 14, it says in verses 10-11, "He too will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath and he will be tormented with burning sulfur." Listen to this, "In the presence of His holy angels and of the lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night." The holy angels see it happening. It goes up before them, they know what's going on and the Lamb, Jesus knows about it, and it goes up before Him. It doesn't say it openly, but it does here in verse 24, They will go out and look. We will be well aware of them. And there's no grieving, none. There'll be no mourning in Heaven. But this is what's taught, because it's a display, an internal display of the justice of God. And for us, the redeemed, it's an eternal display of the mercy of God, isn't it? And forever we will realize that we were saved by grace. We were saved by mercy. It teaches us in Romans Chapter 9. You might ask, "Why does God create people who end up in Hell? Why would he do that?" Romans 9 is the answer, the chapter that answers, especially verses 22-23. It says, "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-- prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory." At least in part, they're there for our education, and we learn that we are saved by grace. And when you're in Heaven, seeing Heaven's version of Amazing Grace, you'll know exactly what you're talking about. VI. Applications Alright, applications, we've already done some. I just want to do a few before we go to the Lord's Supper. The first is flee to Christ now. I don't know if I am speaking to any who is as yet un-redeemed, but I expect that I am. This is the time, a window of opportunity for you to drink of God's mercy and grace and favor through Christ. God sent Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, to live a sinless life and die on the cross for sinners like you and me. He shed his blood that we might be forgiven that the wrath of God might be pro-pitied, might be removed from us. All you need to do is trust in Him. Repent of your sins and trust in him. Secondly, for you Christians, humble yourself before God and worship Him. I can't get enough of verses 1-2, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot stool. What kind of house will you build for Me?" I love that, I love to be humbled. Where will my resting place be? Has not My hand made all these things. And so they came into being... This is the one I esteem. he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles in my word." Just say, "Oh God, make me beautiful, make me holy, make me humble, let me tremble at your word. I cast myself down before you. I think you should do it daily, in your quiet time. Work humility in me, Oh God. Thirdly, despise nominal religion. It's danger for us as it was for them, the outward machinery of religion without any heart behind it. Despise it, it's dangerous, God hates it. He looks behind it and says, "Offering of a bull, it's like killing a man to me, if your heart's not in it." Fourthly, tremble at the fate of the wicked. It's hard to read the final verse of Isaiah. It's hard. It should make us cry. Paul said, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart." This is the time to grieve over it, it won't be grieving in heaven, not at all. But now's the time to have sorrow and unceasing anguish, and be motivated in evangelism and missions. Fifthly, embrace missions. This is the story, this is what is happening in the world. He's going to send out messengers to people who have not heard of His fame or seeing His glory, and they will proclaim His glory, He will set a sign among the nations and they'll believe in that sign, Jesus, and have eternal life. We need to be a missions-church, we are, we need to be even more. Send more missionaries, more money, more prayer, more focus, more concern. And we need to be more passionate about evangelism here in the Triangle region as well. Let's share the Gospel. And finally, as I've said many times before, let's yearn for the New Heavens in the earth. Let's set our hearts on things above and things to come. And we get to do that now with the Lord's Supper. For me, when I go to the Lord's supper, I eat it in a kind of an eschatological or end-time perspective. I look forward to feasting with Jesus with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. I look forward to that. And so we're about to partake of this, and as we do, we get to... We get to look upward to God and see his greatness, we get to look inward and see our sinfulness and confess it, we get to look back to Jesus who died on the cross for us. We get to look around to brothers and sisters in Christ who are partaking with us. And we get to look ahead to the second coming and the new heavens, and new earth, and feasting. Now, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, and you've testified to that by water baptism, you're welcome to come. If not, we ask that you refrain, and we hope that you'll partake next time. Having come to faith in Christ, we would love to have you. But I like to ask the Deacons to come now, I'm going to close the sermon in prayer and we'll partake in the Lord's Supper. Father, thank you for what we've learned through the journey of 66 chapters in Isaiah. It's been overwhelming and amazing and as we have one more chance next week to look at it, give us grace to take in the message. As we turn now to the Lord's Supper, we pray that you would send forth your sovereign Spirit to make this not a bare memorial, not an empty ritual, but something in a genuine experience of God's grace through Christ and His sacrifice in his name, we pray, Amen.

Fool’s Gold Amen. In 1577, English privateer and explorer, Sir Martin Frobisher, led the first English mining expedition in Canada, on the rocky and freezing Kodlunarn Island in Baffin Bay. Now, on an earlier voyage to that same part of Northern Canada, he was looking for the Northwest Passage through to the Orient. Didn't find it, but found this island, went on it and found there a mysterious, large, black rock that had gold specks all the way through it. And he was intrigued. And he took it with him back to England, and brought it to an assayer that he knew about, who studied it and told him that it was gold. Whereupon the Crown, the English Crown, funded a massive mining expedition back to Kodlunarn Island. And they extracted over 1,000 tons of similar black rocks, and sent them back to England, the largest shipment ever, as far as I know, of iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold. Completely worthless. Needless to say, Frobisher's reputation took a beating. I would think the assayer that told him it was gold, his reputation would take a beating. But the fact of the matter is, it became a display of a well-known slogan, "Not all that glitters is gold." And just because it glitters, does it look... Does it actually turn out to be the genuine article? The assaying of the ore, the testing of it to determine its worth is a picture of what awaits all of us on Judgment Day. We are told in 1 Corinthians Chapter 3 that all of our works are going to be tested with fire. And they will be proven to be what they truly are. Are they wood, hay, and straw, on the one hand, or are they gold, silver, and costly stones on the other? Our own individual faith and our life practices are going to be tested. Is our faith genuine? Is it worth more than gold, or will it be proved to have been fraudulent, a deception in the end? I. Fool’s Gold: The Deception of Religious Machinery (vs. 1-5) Now, in Isaiah 58, the prophet exposes, I think, many religious people, Jews, in his day, who appeared to be godly, who appeared to be religious, but who actually weren't. They had heart problems. They were going through the motions of a religious system. And he calls them away from that pattern of fasting and praying and other religiosity to a genuine fast that he defines in the chapter. And we talked about a lot last week. Now beyond that, this illustration of fool's gold and the assaying of it and the testing of it could also serve a different purpose for my sermon today. And that is, our evaluation of the world as it comes to us. Not all that glitters is gold. And we can be enticed into worldly things, worldly patterns and habits that we think are going to be satisfying to us, and are really actually impoverishing our souls in the end. We can be drawn into patterns of behavior that we think are going to satisfy us and they're going to leave us weak spiritually, defective spiritually. Now, Isaiah 58 calls on the people of God, of his time, to a Sabbath rest, a fast to some degree, from the world once a week, for the purpose of recalibrating their souls to the still small voice of Almighty God, to the delight of intimate and healthy fellowship with God. That's what I want to talk to you about today. Now, the fool's gold of their false religiosity, we went over last week. I'm not going to have time to go over in detail. But look again at verses 1 through 5. These were religious people going through the motions. "Day after day, they seek me out, they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God." They seem eager for God to come near them. Verse 3, "'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'" These were a religious people who did the fasting thing, but on the day of their fasting, it ended in quarreling and strife and striking each other with wicked fists. That's not the kind of fasting God wanted to see. This was another example of something we've seen again and again in the Book of Isaiah, of a religious machinery that was set up. And they were just going through these religious motions day after day, but the actual heart of the matter was far from the truth. Isaiah 29:13, And Jesus quoted this, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teaching is just rules taught by men." So we saw that last week, that was fool's gold, it wasn't genuine piety. II. Pure Gold #1: The “True Fast” of Mercy Ministry Instead, he calls them to the pure gold of a genuine mercy ministry. We went over this in detail last week, just want to remind you. Verse 6 and 7, "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter? When you see the naked, to clothe them, and not turn away from your own flesh and blood." God calls this the fast he wants from them. This is the religion that he accepts as pure and faultless in his sight. And we saw verse 10, in particular, it was a challenging call for us to spend ourselves on behalf of the poor and needy. Not just give of our money alone, but invest our souls, our hearts in the condition of people who are suffering. That is genuine, not fool's gold, but genuine piety. III. Pure Gold #2: The “True Fast” of Delighting in the Sabbath Now we come to pure gold number two, verses 13 and 14, the true fast of delighting in the Sabbath. This is a second condition in the text, not just caring for the poor and needy, but honoring the Sabbath. Look at Verse 13, "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, and if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words." This is the "if," it's the condition, and he's defining, it seems in the old covenant, a true, genuine-heart Sabbath observance, what it means for God to observe the Sabbath, that's what... How God is defining it. God calls the Sabbath, in this text, "My holy day," and also, "the Lord's holy day." So he calls it holy twice, and he commands the people to call the Sabbath a delight. And it would be a weighty or honorable or massive thing, this Sabbath observance. "It's a weighty thing," he says. "I want you to think of it that way," he said to his people. Now, the word "holy" here, I think means, "set apart unto God as His own prized possession." The word "holy" is a very important word in the Bible, in the Old Testament. So in effect, it's like... It feels like this to me, like God is saying, to the Jews, "Although all nations on Earth are mine, you are my holy people, set apart unto me for my own pleasure." And again, in the Old Covenant "Although all the Earth is mine, this holy ground, this temple is my space, set apart unto me to be my Holy Place, where I will meet with you. And although all time is mine, this day, this seventh day is set apart unto me as holy, belongs to me." I think that's what he's saying, it's holy ground. Negatively: Do Not Break the Sabbath! So negatively, he commands on them to not break the Sabbath, that they would not violate the Sabbath with their footsteps. "Keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath" I think would be a better translation there. Daily lifestyle choices, almost like the Sabbath is holy ground and you're supposed to, "Take off your sandals, for the place on which you're walking... " So "Don't just tramp on my holy day. "And not doing as you please," he says, very challengingly to us. We're going to take this concept over to some of the confessional statements in the New Testament. But it comes, I think, right from this verse, not just doing whatever you want or not doing your pleasure. I think, specifically, what it means here is not... It's not talking about sin, we know that's out, it's not like God's saying, "Six days you may sin but the seventh day is a holy day, on that day you must not sin." We know we're not talking about wicked things that we should not be doing, but good things, things that bring us pleasure usually, things that are usually delightful, that we would not do those things. That seems to be what it means, not doing your own pleasure. And not speaking idle words, doing whatever you want and speaking idle words. And then, in the end, the "then statement," he says, "These are what your rewards are going to be, this is what will happen if you do that, if you meet this condition." Then Verse 14, "You will find your joy in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of the Lord has spoken." Wow, it's an amazing promise, if you do what verse 13 says, if you meet those conditions, then you will learn, you will find your joy in the Lord. It's almost like the psalmist in Psalm 73. You remember the one who was so jealous of those prosperous wicked people, and he wanted to become like them, remember? Until he went into the temple and understood their final end, and he said, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you." It seemed like the Sabbath, for them, was a time to say that to God. "There's nothing else I want here, but you. You're what I'm going to... " You're going to find your joy in the Lord and not in earthly things. And he says, "I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land." So I get the picture almost of being up on Mount Pisgah and looking out over the Promised Land, and you can see the beauty of it, a land flowing with milk and honey, that Old Covenant blessing language. And you're going to be enriched, you're going to be made rich by the inheritance of your father, Jacob. I would actually go even back to the inheritance of your father, Abraham. Remember how he turned away from the loots, after the defeat of the kings, and the King of Sodom and Gomorrah and all that, just turned away from that, didn't want any of it. And then the Lord appeared to him and said, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." It's about a powerful thing, and then, in that, in Genesis 15, he shows him the covenants and all that. So you're going to feast on the blessings of the covenant, which ultimately is the blessings of God, you're going to feast on your inheritance, God himself. "The mouth of the Lord has spoken." What a great way to end the chapter. In other words, "Take this seriously." Or like in the Book of Revelation, "Write these words down for they are trustworthy and true." This is just the true statement here. So that's the chapter, walking through it. The phrase "call the Sabbath a delight" is very provocative isn't it? Very intriguing for us. Walter Chantry wrote a book in 1991 about it, about Sabbath observance for Christians, and he chose that as the title. It's very intriguing, it should draw us in, and it's going to be worthy of our full attention for the rest of the afternoon, so...Yeah, you missed that one, didn't you? Just want to see if you're paying attention. This is an elaborate, difficult, complex, theologically weighty issue that we're about to walk into here. I'm not going to stand up here and make simple pronouncements and make a bunch of assumptions that I don't support and just say, "This is what you all should do." That's not how I'm going to preach this. And that's what took me so long to work on this this week. And so let me lay out plainly what I think we're going to do now with this time. I believe that learning in some spiritual way that connects with the truth of the New Covenant, that we've learned in Jesus, to call the Sabbath a delight and to cheerfully and willingly refrain from work and secular pleasures, not because you have to in a legal sense, but because you want to, will give you power, spiritual power, a level of intimacy with Christ that you haven't known before. And will greatly enrich and empower you the rest of the week, in a way that you will in no way regret. But I cannot come so far as to say that the Sabbath observance should be handled the rest... The same way the rest of the nine commandments of the 10 Commandments are handled. I can't go that far, so I'm laying my cards on the table. I do not think this is a legally binding command like the rest of the 10 Commandments are, but I really do respect others that do think that. So in the end, I'm going to say to you several times in here, "You will have to make up, O church, your own mind on this. But I'm going to give you some principles that I hope will enable you to make a wise decision by what you do on Sundays. IV. Understanding and Delighting in the Sabbath So let's try to understand the Sabbath, what are we talking about? What do we mean by the Sabbath? Well, this Hebrew word literally means to cease or desist or stop or rest. The focus then is on stopping something. That's what the word... The Hebrew word means. And of course, the first time this comes in in the scriptures, right at the beginning of the creation account, in Genesis 1 verse 31, it says, "God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And it was evening, there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day." Then Genesis 2:1, "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And by the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing, so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." So that's where it first comes in. That becomes a very significant weighty pattern for us to consider as we look at the Sabbath. That's where it all starts. Now, obviously, we should not imagine that God rested on the seventh day because he is, in any way, depleted or drained by all the work he had done, He wasn't tired, God is omnipotent. He does not grow weary, ever, Isaiah 40, he never gets tired. So we shouldn't imagine that. The resting of God here, I think, is some kind of a display of his total, complete satisfaction in the world that he had made. He loved it. He thought it was very good, he delighted in it. Other theologians have, I think, helpfully given us the picture of God moving through his creation, both spiritual and physical, and going up where the throne is, turning around, looking at his creation and then sitting on the throne. So it's an enthronement-image for some of the theologians. I like that. It's the idea of God sitting in rulership, over all the things that he has made, in a final resting of God on his throne. Now, after the Exodus, after the Jews were delivered from bondage, from slavery in Egypt, where their lives had been an unending blur of slave labor. There was no difference from one day to the next to the next to the next. Seven straight days without a rest they were made to feel the lash of the taskmaster. Then God brought them out with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, brought them through the Red Sea, and brought them to Mount Sinai where he gave them the law, the essence of the Old Covenant, law, at Mount Sinai. And the fourth commandment, reads this, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. On it, you shall not do any work. Neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates, for in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." So that's the fourth of the 10 Commandments that are so well known. Then 40 years later, when they're about to enter the promised land, in the book of Deuteronomy he gives the law a second time. And the fourth commandment is stated similarly but a little bit different. I won't read the whole thing, but I'll pick up in the middle of it, Deuteronomy 5:14-15, "On it, you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien that is within your gates so that [now this is new] your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day." Now there, he links it to redemption. So here we have these two glorious, massive theological themes, creation and redemption, both of them linked to the Sabbath observance. It's very powerful. Now the Sabbath regulation that we're describing here is an old covenant law, a rule for Israel. It was also for them, something that was a mark of the Covenant, it was a way you marked the Jews out in the city, they had the Sabbath rhythm. And on the Sabbath day, they would meet together in the synagogue and study the Scriptures etcetera. They were, the Jews, to labor for six days, but on the 7th they were to cease, they were to stop laboring. That's the essence of the Hebrew word. Now, the implication would... There would be worship in that time, there were... It was consecrated to the Lord, so they would turn their hearts, their minds to God, and they would consecrate that day and make it holy by worshipping and focusing on God. Because the commandment begins with the word "remember" they were to look back at God's creation, "remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy." They were also to look back, "remember that you were slaves in Egypt." So you're supposed to think back in the old covenant observance and remember it. I think the Sabbath also had a vertical looking up aspect because it's consecrated to the Lord, you're looking up to God and thinking about God enthroned, God the King. I think also we should notice in the commandment that there's a special focus on leaders on heads of households, fathers kings masters employers to be sensitive and aware to what's going on with their sons and daughters and their manservants and maidservants, and to set up the system so that they can rest. Not just you. So that brings us into that social justice theme of Isaiah 58. Don't just fast yourself while your workers are having to slave away. You need to extend that rest to them as well, so that they can rest as you do. How Does the Sabbath Translate to the New Covenant? Alright, now this is an old covenant regulation and Christians have had long and rancorous debates on whether this is still binding for us, so we come to the issue of the law in the new covenant, how are we to understand the law of Moses in the New Covenant? Well first, in Christ, thank God we have been delivered in some mysterious sense, from the law we've been set free from the law and then we're told that in multiple places like Galatians 2:19, "for through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God." That actually is stated also in Romans 7 and Romans 8. We have died to the law. In some sense, it says that. Roman 6:14 says it a little differently, it says, "Sin shall not be your master, because you're not under law, but under grace." So where you're now in some sense, delivered from the law. We're not under the law, etcetera. We also know that forgiveness of sins can never, does never come by observing the law. We know Galatians 2:16 a person is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Christ because by observing the law, no one will be justified. Our sins are forgiven by faith in Jesus. We're actually really ultimately trusting in his law-keeping not in ours. We're saying he actually perfectly kept the law, and then substituted himself under the law's penalties for us who didn't perfectly keep the law so that there's that beautiful transfer of our wickedness to him and he dies, his perfect righteous law-keeping to us, and we live in that righteousness, forever. So that's how we get saved. So, if I can just say simply none of us is going to be saved our eternal destiny, is not going to depend on what we do on a Sabbath day, or a Lord's Day. So that's, in some sense, it means that we're free from the law. I think we all agree with that. We're free from the fact that the law has the power to send us to hell, we're free from that. Christ nailed that to the cross. The law is not going to send us to hell. Praise God. It could have, apart from Christ, it would have. But we're free from that. However, there are some other things we need to say about the law. There are aspects of the law as we look at, that we know are obsolete, there are details in the law that we know we don't have to do anymore. There's a whole thing in Galatians and in Acts on how we don't need the circumcise our boy babies on the eighth day, we're done with that there is no spiritual reason to circumcise a baby anymore. That's done it's been fulfilled. Also there's the dietary regulations, Jesus declared all foods clean, so we can eat. We can eat bacon, praise God, we can eat ham, we can eat pork. We can do that even though there's clear prescriptions against it in the old covenant. We know that, we're free from that... And then there's obviously, quintessentially the sacrificial system, the animal sacrificial system with the Levitical priesthood that whole thing has been fulfilled, that's one good word. And another powerful word in Hebrews 8, it's obsolete. So not only is it true you don't have to offer a lamb or a bull or a goat for your sin, you better not, thinking that God's going to accept it. What an insult to Jesus. So we're done with that. Furthermore, we know that there are national laws that had to do with the life of the Jews in the promised land, that we don't need to do anymore, like the three-time annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which would be very costly. We don't need to do that. There are parts of the taxation system and the kingship and all that that are fulfilled, it's done, we don't need to do that anymore. Yet we know that there are, what some theologians call the "moral aspects of the law", that are going to be binding till Jesus returns. Like, "I'm the Lord, your God, You shall have no other gods before me." Tt's not like, "Well thank the Lord now that we're Christians we can have as many gods as we want". And we can take the name of the Lord in vain, and we get to do that now that we're free from the law. And now that we're free from the law we can dishonor and disobey our parents. Kids, that's not what I'm saying. We don't have the freedom to do that, we must honor and obey our parents when we're minors and then honor them, the rest of our lives, we know that those other 10 Commandments, we understand that they're binding, we're not free now to murder, free now to commit adultery. Or just take the summary of the law that Jesus gave us so beautifully, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." That's the law, we're not free from that, we are now able to do it finally by the power of the Spirit, we can actually love God with all of our hearts and we can love our neighbors ourselves. So, we're not free from that. The question then comes is the fourth commandment binding on the Christian so that we now must say "I am not permitted by God to work on the Sabbath/Lord's Day?". That's the question that's in front of us. Christian Views of the Sabbath Now, there's been lots of debates on this. I greatly shortened this part of the sermon right here, you're welcome. Don Carson and some others that wrote with him, DA Carson wrote a book that basically said they see... What they call transference theology. Moving from the seventh to the first day, clearly articulated in the New Testament. Neither do they say a world-wide trans-cultural command of the Sabbath? He doesn't see that. He says basically Christians are free to do what you choose to do on that... Whatever it is that's DA Carson and others that wrote with him. John Calvin a little I would say a little stricter. He said that there were three lasting principles about the Sabbath for Christians to listen to. First, the Lord meant for his people in every generation to have a day of spiritual rest in which they lay aside their earthly work and let God work in their souls. So spiritual rest, stop working and God can work in your soul. So that's personal, you and God. Secondly, he wanted his people corporately to assemble together for worship, corporate worship, and for the hearing of God's word, there's a practicality to that. We need a time we can gather together for corporate worship. And then thirdly, he wanted to make provision for laborers and those under authority to cease from their toil as well. Just simply to... So for them not specifically a worship aspect, but it was there. Now, of course, those labors, free from needing to come work for your company are also now free to come to your church. You can see why Chick-fil-A and other companies have done this, "I can't really require you to work on Sunday morning and schedule some workers there and then also ask if you would come and visit my church" because the person's lost, you're trying to reach them. So they just saw it better to shut the business down on Sundays. Now my professor at Gordon-Conwell, Meredith Kline, taught this about the Sabbath, basically essence of the command was ceasing. It was stopping work and that's the fundamental... He's not saying, he's against worship or any of the worship themes, he's saying it's not intrinsic to the word or to the command. So for him it was just rest, physical rest, taking a long nap going for a refreshing walk in the woods, a nice bike ride... Whatever would renew you. That would be meeting the Sabbath regulation, Meredith Kline. The Puritans on the other hand, were what we call strongly Sabbatarian, and no one articulated Sabbatarian thinking better than they did, especially in the Westminster Confession of Faith. This is what they wrote: "as it is the law of nature, that in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God. So in his word, by... " listen to this, "a positive moral and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, he has particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him. Which from the beginning of the world, till the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week. And from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as a Christian Sabbath, this Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and an ordering of their common affairs beforehand." So you get your heart ready and you get your house and everything, ready beforehand, like on Saturday. When you do that, do not only observe a holy rest all the day from their own works, words and thoughts about their world employments and recreations but are also taken up the whole time, in the public and private exercise of his worship and in duties of necessity and mercy. That is your full-on Sabbatarian statement. Well thought out, like everything the Puritans ever did. The Baptist faith and message, which is the Baptist statement of faith or confession of faith, that we had as a church, First Baptist Church had as a church when I came here in 1998 was Sabbatarian. Bet you didn't know that. So you all were Sabbatarians, I guess. Now this what it said, 1963 Baptist faith and message. This is what it said "The first day of the week is the Lord's day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should be employed an exercise of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, and by refraining from worldly amusements and resting from secular employments works of necessity and mercy only being accepted". Baptist faith, and message 1963 First Baptist Church's statement of faith until the year 2000. In the year 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention convened and changed a number of aspects of the Baptist faith and message including this statement on the Lord's day. This is what it now reads, "The first day of the week is the Lord's day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, that's all the same. Now listen, "activities on the Lord's day, should be commensurate with the Christians conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ". So that's a very different statement. Basically, whatever your conscience tells you to do on the Lord's Day, you are free to do. V. Applications Alright, so what applications can we take from all this? Well, first, let me just begin as I always do by proclaiming the Gospel to you who are lost. But in the context of what I'm saying now, it doesn't really make a difference what you do on Sunday it doesn't make a difference actually, what you do, any day of the week if you have not yet come to Christ. This is the work of God for those that are as yet unconverted, believe in the one that God sent. And by believing in Jesus alone are all your sins forgiven and if you will trust in him and turn away from your wickedness, turn away from sin, you will receive the gift of the forgiveness of sins and not only that but you'll receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and then you'll be given an exciting life to live. Now, let's talk about the Sabbath or Lord's Day aspect of that life. First of all, can we just look again at the text at Verse 13? Do you see the delight aspect, call the Sabbath a delight. Look again at Verse 14, "then you will find your joy in the Lord." If I can just say right at the beginning, the whole issue here is one of delight and joy. So friends let us not drag our feet into this theological discussion with groaning, and rolling of eyes and a sense ultimately coming down to some drudgery that God did not intend. This is meant to be about delight. The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. Then you sell everything you have and buy that field out of joy in the treasure. Now I got to tell you something, I thought about this this morning. I was like, for many years, I thought, "Hey I got a good deal where I can kind of gain the whole system here." Sell everything you have to like a pawn shop, go buy the field, now you got treasure, take a portion of the treasure and go buy back everything you had. Good deal, huh? I think that misses the point of the parable, don't you? It sure doesn't work with the pearl. Remember, you're selling everything and buying a pearl. What, are you going to cut off a portion of the pearl and get your possessions back? It would destroy the pearl. So the treasure and the pearl are supposed to be what delights you. So the real question I want to ask is, "Oh, friend, what delights you? What really delights you? What really makes you happy?" That's the question. So now, second, is the Sabbath... "Dear pastor, is the Sabbath a binding commandment on Christians today in the new covenant?" I'd like to ask that you would turn to Romans 14, and we're going to finish up there but, let me weigh it on one side. First, this sabbath commandment is a weighty thing. It is a weighty thing that God rested on the seventh day of his creation, and basically took his throne over that and set apart the seventh day and called it holy. That's weighty. It's not to be taken lightly. It is a weighty thing that clearly the other nine of the 10 Commandments are still binding on the hearts and souls of Christians, that's weighty. It is weighty to me that in no clear way does Jesus ever abolish the Sabbath. He just defines it and makes it clear how it's best to be spent. He didn't set it aside, he doesn't declare all foods clean when it comes to the Sabbath and say, "Hey you don't need to do the Sabbath anymore." Yet on the other hand, it's also significant that after the book of Acts, basically the Gospels and Acts are still in the old covenant era. Jesus is still operating under the old covenant, and then as the Gospel spreads out and goes from city to city, they're going on the Sabbath to Jewish synagogues to preach. But after that, the word Sabbath doesn't appear again in the New Testament except in two places, in Colossians 2, 16 and 17, we're told, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to religious festival and New Moon celebration listen or a Sabbath day. Don't let anyone judge you by what you do on a Sabbath day. So what that means is, I think elders, the leaders of a church can never set up a church discipline system connected to the Sabbath. It's therefore definitely going to be a matter of private conscience. It's never going to be a matter of sin that we're going to say, because we can't judge anyone by what they do on a Sabbath day. Then he goes beyond that and says, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality is found in Christ." That's exactly the kind of language that the author to Hebrews used about the whole Old Testament. Then in Hebrews 4:9-11, it says, "There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest, also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." Lots of ways to interpret that statement, but the home base of that is, by faith in Jesus and coming into our salvation in Christ, we have entered our Sabbath rest. In some beautiful full complete sense we have rested from our works in Jesus. We have a perfect righteousness, can't be improved on, and we rest in that. That however doesn't mean we shouldn't have a Sabbath observance. So Romans 14 seems a powerful and helpful guide. Now understand Paul is writing, Romans 14 to a mixed assembly of Jews and Gentiles. So that means that the Jewish Christians would have had a regular pattern of one day in seven, worship in the Synagogue, right? The Roman Christians, the Gentiles would have had no such pattern at all. So what are they going to do now as a local church? How are they going to do that? And so he writes Romans 14 to talk about various issues of meat sacrifice to idols and other debatable issues. Look at verse five and six. "One man considers one day more sacred than another. Another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." That is where the Baptist faith and message 2000 statement got its doctrine from. You need to be fully convinced in your own conscience, what the Lord wants you to do on a Sabbath day. That's all. Now let me tell you something, if verse 5, Romans 14:5, I think, this is my opinion, If Romans 14-5 is in fact talking about the Sabbath, that settles for me whether that commandment is treated differently than any other commandment of the 10 Commandments. The answer is, it is. Because you're not going to say similar things about any of the other nine commandments. You're just not. So clearly, it's just treated differently if this is talking about the Sabbath. I think it is, others don't. Other think it's just one of those Jewish ceremonial type days. So you need to be fully convinced in your own mind. At the end of the chapter, Verse 23, it says, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." So you have to be fully convinced in your own mind and be sure it's done in faith, and that means tied to the word of God. So the one application I can give you is, don't blow this thing off, that's all. Just, if you can just take that from Romans 14, don't just blow it off. But take it seriously. Be fully convinced that the Lord does or does not want you to get in some extra work at the company on Sunday afternoon. Be fully convinced that Lord does or does not want you to watch NFL football, on Sunday afternoon. Be fully convinced that the Lord does or does not want you to take part in a soccer league that has Sunday games. Just be fully convinced, work it through. Be sure that you're operating in faith. Then in verse 7-8, it says that whatever you do, you're going to give an account to Jesus. It says, "None of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord" and verse 10 and following says, "We're all going to stand before God's judgment seat. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." So whatever you do, not just in general, but specifically, you're going to give an account to Jesus. Be sure it's real gold and not fool's gold, that's all I'm saying. At the time of us saying, when your works are tested with fire, be sure that it will survive. It was gold, silver, costly stones. So stop, pray, consider, ponder. Is the Sabbath regulation a binding one, like all the rest of the 10 Commandments? I will not give you an answer. I say, you have to be fully convinced in your own mind, work it through. Thirdly, we are never allowed to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Corporate worship needs to be part of our lives, the rest of our time as long as we are able-bodied. As long as we are able to get around, you're able to go do shopping, you're able to go to work during the week, you're able to play golf on Saturday, as long as you're able to do these things, you should be in corporate worship. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, "Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as some are in the habit of doing." Now, does that mean every single Sunday? No, there are some times in which necessity, you can't be in corporate worship. The issue there is forsaking and habit, that's the issue. So as long as you are alive and able-bodied you need to be there. Fourthly, you need rest. "Nah, I can crank it out with the best of them." You're over-estimating yourself, you need rest. And you don't just need physical rest, you need soul rest. I love the songs that we sang, there's so many resting, like, "Jesus, I am resting, resting and my soul finds rest in God alone." That was beautiful, wasn't it? You need rest, you can't keep going forever under the lash of perhaps even your ambitions or desire for money, or even a company or boss that's driving you hard. And if you want to get ahead in this company, you're going to be at that Sunday afternoon meeting. You can't relentlessly drive yourself or your employees, you have to consider your manservants and maid servants, which translates now to people who are responsible to you, your sons and daughters, and your employees forcing them to work. And your souls need to be refreshed, you need time alone with Jesus. Psalm 62:1, "My soul finds rest in God alone." Listen to this, this one came alive a little for me this morning. "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." What's the next part, remember? "He makes me lie down." Ponder that one, just spend the rest of the afternoon pondering that. "Makes me"... You mean against my will? No, hopefully not, but he's like, "You need to rest." Stop, rest and lie down and be refreshed. There's a practical side to it, "Come away," Jesus said in Mark 6, "And get alone and let's have some time of refreshment." Fifthly, let's consider not merely, what am I permitted to do? What is it lawful for me to do? But what is it best for me to do. Alright. Look, Martha was lawfully permitted to make 17 different dishes to serve to Jesus when Jesus came to visit that day. Mary was lawfully allowed to sit at his feet and listen to him. But I think Jesus says effectively that Martha chose a good portion but Mary chose a better portion. So it's just good, better, best in the Christian life. So over the next 10 years if God lets you live, you may have over 500 Sundays and you get to decide what to do with them. Let's assume you're going to go to church, let's just start there, that you agree with what I just said, you're going to get home around 1 o'clock or maybe today around 2 o'clock. Alright, so you're going to get home, and so in general, you're going to have eight hours of discretionary, what do I do with it, time. And you say, "We have home fellowship." That's a choice you make, I think it's a wise choice but it's a choice you make, you don't have to go. It's not like you lose your church membership if you don't go to home fellowship, you're just making choice about your time. So, you'll have about 4000 hours. You could spend all 4000, I'm convinced... Well, no, no, there's a season end, but you could spend all 4000 watching spectator sports. I was about to say football, but the season does end in February or March or whenever it ends. And there's three football games, one after the other, after the other now, it wasn't always that way, but there's the 1 o'clock game, the 4 o'clock game and the 8:30 game. Now, you could do that. The question is what's best for your soul? Not what am I lawfully allowed to do? But what would it be best? At the end of those 4000 hours, what will I be glad that I invested in? Six. We have to avoid legalism and judgmentalism on this topic. The quickest thing that groups tend to do is define work, once you start defining work, welcome to Pharisee land. Calvinistic reform traditions have struggled with this for years. I remember here Joel Beaky talking about this, he saw some other reform guy and they're both in an airport on a Sunday and they're like this...Both feeling ashamed, they're violating their churches' prescriptions. I don't think churches should make those kind of prescriptions on what is work, what isn't work. I think that's where you head to legalism. Furthermore, some of you are probably going to come to stricter convictions on this topic than others. Easiest thing to do when you come to a stricter conviction on a certain matter of Christian freedom is to export that through judgmentalism, and you start saying, "Oh, you do that," and start judging people. Seventh. This is a chance for you to evaluate what you really love, what really brings you pleasure. And if the answer is honestly, the world, you're in danger spiritually, that's all. If you would consistently rather watch an NFL football game or binge watch on Netflix or some other secular amusement, if you would consistently rather do that than spend time in prayer, singing praise songs, rich Christian fellowship, reading good Christian books, or just walking through the woods and looking at the foliage and thanking God for it. If you would really rather do the one than the other, shouldn't you be afraid of worldliness in your soul? "All things are lawful for me," 1 Corinthians 6:2, "But not everything is profitable." All things are lawful for me but I will not be enslaved, let's put it that way. I will not be enslaved by anything. How can you tell whether you're being enslaved by something? Fast from it. Just try one Sunday say, "I'm not going to do X." If it's inordinately difficult, you're sweating, like you're having DTs, and like its the afternoon's crawling by, and it's like, "I can't wait till next Sunday, I can go back to my usual pattern." Just be afraid of the state of your soul, that's all I'm saying. Eighth. Practical steps for those who want to do this, you say, "I actually would like to do something different." Okay, just some different things. I would suggest work harder, days one through six, the first six days. Set your clothes... Get them ready and hang them up like a fireman. I think that's a symbol, I think about the firefighters, and they have their coat, and their boots, and the door of the fire engine is open and everything's lined up for a quick getaway. So just get your church clothes ready like that and let that be a symbol. I'm going to try to clear out the day as much as I can. So women that cook for a home fellowship make simpler meals, make them on Saturday. It's not a requirement, it's not lawful, it's just so that you can rest. It's not like, "I'll be breaking the 10 Commandments, so I don't... " it's just... I want to try to have a spirit of a simplicity on Sundays. Consider the possibility of electronic fast or maybe even electronic reduction. I'm not going to feed on this stuff, I want some time to have my soul refreshed in Jesus. I want to go to a beautiful place, I want to see nature, I want to go look at lakes, I want to walk through woods, I want to reconnect with my family, I want to spend time with my kids, husbands and wives, praying together, walking together, talking about Jesus together. Taking Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3 and praying over those rich prayers that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you would know the hope of your calling, and that you would know how wide and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ for you, and you end the day saying, "I know more now than I did before this day started, how much Jesus loves me." Final word to fathers and mothers, parents, heads of households. You may be saying, "Do I have the right to say, As for me and my house we're going to do X." You do. Now, the earlier you do that in your kid's developmental process, the better. If they're infants they're not going to have any idea, but if they are well-attuned or accustomed to like teenagers or whatever, accustomed to certain secular patterns on Sundays, it may be very hard to change. What I would do is I would just start by saying, "Let's just talk about our souls, let's talk about soul inventory." Maybe give older kids freedom to choose but say, "Look, We are going to do this. I would urge you to do it." rather than setting the law, but others may say, "I think for me and my house we're going to do this." And you have the right to do that, but if you do that, be sure that you as a father enrich that day, think about it, how to make it fascinating, how to make it delightful, how to make it a joy in the Lord. Close with me in prayer.

One the Greatest Verses In the Bible So as we come this morning to Isaiah 57, I'm going to bring us immediately right to the middle of the chapter. Verse 15 this is one of the great verses in the Bible. And without any delay, I want to go right to the marrow of the bone or the colonel of the nut. I want you to look with me at the words of the text that you just heard read, Isaiah 57:15, "For this is what the high and lofty one says. He who lives forever and who's name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." So in this amazing verse, the God of the universe, infinitely high, infinitely holy, describes himself for us. He tells us what he's like. And not only that, he describes his dwelling place, he describes where he lives. And beyond that, and this is incredibly gracious, he describes people he's willing to live with in that high and holy place. People who are contrite, broken hearted because of their sins. Now this verse is going to occupy a good deal of our attention right at the beginning of the sermon, but really just going to look on it for just a few minutes. We're only going to have a few minutes to swim in the sea of this truth, to drink in the beauty of it and the glory of it. But it's vast and soaring truths are going to occupy our minds for all eternity. We're going to spend actually eternity thinking about these things. We will see in eternity how pure and holy and exalted and lifted up God is. We'll see it with our own eyes. And not only that, but we will have a sense even in heaven, I believe without any regret, without any pain, a sense of how sinful we were and how much we needed a redeemer, Jesus. And that understanding of the holiness of God and our own sinfulness will work together to make us eternally peaceful and filled with praise and glory to God. That'll go on for all eternity, I believe. We are going to fall down in humble adoration at the amazing grace that saved us and brought us to such a holy place. We're going to be amazed, and we're going to fall down as an Isaac Watts' hymn that we're going to sing at the end of this worship time. How sweet and awful is the place? How sweet and awful is the place with Christ within the doors. While everlasting love displays the choices of her stores, while all our hearts and all our songs join to admire the feast, each of us cry with thankful tongues, "Lord, why was I a guest?" As we unfold, Isaiah 57 we're going to see how sweet and awful heaven is. Awful, I think Isaac Watts meant they're breathtakingly are inspiring, something like that. A kind of holy awe should come over us. I think it came over Isaiah as he wrote these words, when he saw the holy exalted lord on his throne. We sinners can say with Isaiah, "Woe is me for I am ruined. Why am I not destroyed by such exalted holiness? We sinners, how would we ever be permitted to enter such a holy place? Lord, why was I, why was I a guest? How could it be that I would be a guest?" Now this chapter continues the rhythm that we began seeing last time I preached to you, Isaiah 56. The two chapters really go together is there's this rhythm from the wheat to the weeds and back to the wheat again into the weeds. The righteous and the wicked, the righteous and the wicked because this goes back and forth between the two. Remember how I talked about that a few weeks ago from the parable of the weed and the weeds? Matthew 13, Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a field that a man sowed with good seed, but at night the enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. And then when the wheat sprouted and formed heads in the weeds were also made evident, and this gives us that sense of the mixed up nature of the world we live in. Much of the distress we feel as Christians, even in the political process is because of the mixed up nature of the world. The wheat and the weeds in close proximity. And we know that in the end, as the text says in Matthew 13, the son of man will send out his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all of those who do evil. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. That's where we're heading. That's where it's going. Now when we are there in that high and holy place and when we are shining radially with the glory that's not ours. It's the glory of Christ in us. And we will be mindful of the fact that our sins were as great as those that were condemned, no difference ultimately. And we will be filled with awe at God and this high and holy person in this dwelling place. Now the more we can do that now the better. So that's just the whole thesis of my sermon here. The more we can just have a sense right now of the exalted nature of God and of his holy place and of our sinfulness and the grace he's shown us in Christ, the better. II. A Stunning Invitation from the Infinitely High and Holy King (vs. 15) So let's start and look in detail at verse 15. We have a stunning invitation here from the infinitely high and holy king. I actually think verse 15, if you look at it rightly, is a Gospel invitation. Look again at the words of verse 15, "For this is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever and whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite." So as I've said, God describes himself, his dwelling place, and the people he delights to dwell with. Now you may ask a pastor, "Those are three points. Why don't you just preach that as your sermon?" It would have been a great sermon, but there's more in that chapter than that. And I want to see all that there is in the chapter. So we're not going to be able to spend as much time on each of those three sub-points as I'd like to. But first, look at how God describes himself. He says he is the high and lofty one. God is infinitely greater than we are. He's so much vastly above all of his creation that the gap between God the creator and every creature is infinite. The gap exists between God and even his holy angels that have never sinned, and there's no defilement in them at all. That's why the seraphim I think in Isaiah six, cover their faces and their feet in His presence. They'd never sinned, they'd never violated any of God's laws. And yet they recognize the holiness of God means that He is infinitely above them. A. W. Tozer, put it in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, he said, "Forever God stands apart in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel is above a caterpillar. For the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar, is but finite. While the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite." That's the holiness of God. It's the very thing, the exalted nature, of God that Isaiah saw in his calling to be a prophet. "In the year the King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. And above Him there were Seraphs each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two, they were flying and they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And at the sound of their voices the door posts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." Holiness of God. And it's portrayed often in scripture, as exaltation, lofty-ness, height. I remember years ago, I was in Pakistan 1987, I was in the North-West Frontier province. I saw the second highest mountain range in the world, the Karakoram mountains. And I took the Karakoram highway and went through those mountains from Pakistan and China. In order to make that journey cross that border I went through the Khunjerav pass. The Khunjerav pass is the highest border passing between two nations on earth. It's 15,397 feet above sea level, almost 16,000 feet above sea level. It's the highest I've ever stood on the ground. And yet for all of that, as that highway snaked its way up to that pass, and then down into China, for much of that journey, the Karakoram mountains were right up against the highway, and towered vastly above the highway hundreds even several thousand feet right up off the highway. That has the power to make you feel real small, insignificant. Now listen, if finite mountains can do that, how much more of this infinite God who made them. The greatness of God. So the loftiness of God, the exaltation of God is meant to make us feel small, it's meant to humble us. This is what the high and lofty one says. That's how He identifies Himself. He is high and lofty. He also says that He inhabits eternity. I like that translation a little bit better than lives forever. He inhabits eternity. It's kind of like eternity is His personal playground. He's very at home in eternity, it's His living room, that's what eternity is like for God. He dwells in eternity. The eternality of God, He lives unchanged forever and ever. There are no limits to God. He is an infinite being. This is beyond anything we can comprehend. One thing we simply can say, is He cannot die, He is immortal, He inhabits eternity, meaning He will live forever and ever. Hebrews 6:18 says it's impossible for God to lie. I think this text says it's impossible for God to die. He is immortal. He inhabits eternity. He lives forever. His kingdom will have no end. As the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar wrote, "I praised the Most High, I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion as kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him, 'What have you done?'" That's the kingship of God. That was the most powerful man on earth. Daniel chapter four. Nebuchadnezzar writing those words, he was in awe of the eternal king, and that is God. His kingdom, will never end because He lives forever. Also he says His name is holy. That means His reputation is holy. His name is set apart, it's a unique name, a special name. So His reputation, because of His person and His accomplishments because of who He is and what He's done, His name is Holy. It's set apart. So in the 10 commandments we are not permitted to take His name in vain. We should honor and revere the name of Almighty God. And so in the Lord's Prayer, we say "Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be thy name," may your name be held in honor, on earth as it is in heaven. That's the sense of the greatness of the holiness of the name of God. And His name is holy, it means that He is a holy being, separate from all creation, but especially separate from evil, from all wickedness. His eyes are too pure to look on evil, He cannot tolerate wrong. Habakkuk 1:13. "God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." 1 John 1:5. And it says in Hebrews 12, "Let us worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." The picture of God is a consuming fire, has a sense of His Holiness. This is the God of the Bible, this is how He describes Himself. God Describes His Dwelling Place But He also describes in this verse his dwelling place. He says, "I live in a high and holy place." Let me tell you about my home, let me tell you about my throne room. I want you to picture it in your mind, I want you to understand where I live. God's dwelling place is as lofty is exalted as He is, it is unreachable, absolutely unreachable by any creature-ly efforts. Satan tried didn't he, tried to scale the heights. He tried to scale the heights of divine grandeur and topple God from His throne, he didn't make it. He was cast down to the earth, and condemned. Arrogant humans tried to build a tower to reach God and they didn't come close. God had to go way down and see this little tower that they were making, this tower of Babel. I mean, God dwells in a high and holy place, we can't reach Him through human efforts we can't even scale there in our minds through philosophy. It's just impossible for God to be reached by human wisdom. God dwells in a high and holy place. He's completely set apart from all creation. He's pure, he's set apart from sin, free from any kind of evil, and his capital city in the coming world, the new Jerusalem, will be as holy as He is. Absolutely free, radiantly glorious, free from all evil. Revelation 21:27 says, "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life." Those are the only ones that will enter that Holy City. So this is the dwelling place, the throne-room of God. Now, I want you to picture this in your minds eye. I often talk about this in evangelism. I picture the throne-room of God in a kind of a physical way, because that's about all my mind can do. So I picture it this way: A majestic throne-room, like maybe one of those great oriental polatench, something like that. And he's up on this beautiful exalted throne, a glorious throne. There's this Heavenly courtroom with holy angels all around. I always in this image picture a perfectly white, beautiful, silk carpet just filling the throne-room. I picture it that way. And there's a guardian at the door with a fiery sword flashing back and forth to guard the entrance. The place is perfectly clean, it's free from all the filthiness. But here I come, I am a pig farmer. I've been feeding pigs. I'm covered with pig filth, I'm covered with dung, I'm covered with mud, and I approach the throne-room and I'm immediately stopped by the guardian with his flaming sword. You can't get in here, not like that. I'm aware vaguely at that moment of my filth. So I reach into my pocket and I pull out a mostly clean handkerchief, and start to wipe my brow and my face and my hands. "Stop", the guardian says, "There's nothing you can do to clean yourself up. Nothing." This is the plight of the human race. God's described what kind of place he lives in, and we are the prodigal sons and daughters who have traded our Father's inheritance for riotous living with whores and banquets and alcohol, and all manner of wickedness. We squandered the wealth until it was gone, and we found ourselves starving and feeding pigs and covered with filth. And can we clean ourselves up? Now we cannot. The wonder therefore of the Gospel is not that everyone doesn't get saved, it's how does anyone get saved? How does anyone of us, we race of pig farmer, how does any of us get in through the door? How do we end up in that high and holy place? Well, this is the grace of God in Christ. If you will humble yourself, if you will, with broken-hearted repentance look to the atonement of Jesus Christ, His blood shed on the cross is sufficient to clean us of all of our filth. If you will just simply by faith confess that you are a defiled sinner, and you have no hope of making it into that throne-room, but that God can cleanse you and fit you for heaven, and if you'll just accept it as a gift, he will give it to you freely. That's the Gospel, that Jesus shed his blood to clean up filthy rebellious sinners like us, and He will escort you into that high and holy place, and He will dwell with you forever. I live in a high and holy place, but also with Him who is humble and contrite in spirit. To revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite, that's the God that we worship. He will dwell with the humble broken-hearted sinner. You remember the parable Jesus told of the Pharisee and the tax collector that went to pray, remember that? Luke 18, "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself." I always felt that must have been a favorite topic. "Prayed about himself: 'God I think you that I'm not like other men: Robbers, evildoers, adulterers, even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all that I get. But the tax collector stood off at a distance, beat his breast and would not even look up to Heaven, but said, 'Be merciful to me oh God, the sinner.' I tell you, this man went home justified and not the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Do you not see it's the same teaching. It's the exact same teaching. God dwells with people who will humble themselves, and by repentance and faith accept His grace. God actually will live with sinners. The question is, what about you my friend? What about you? Has that happened to you? Have you seen in the law of God, in the mirror of God's law that you're a defiled broken sinner, no different, no better than anyone else. Have you seen that? And do you realize you have no way, no hope of getting yourself cleaned up enough for Heaven? You can't, it's just too pure and perfect, and you're defiled. Have you seen that God sent his Son to be a savior, the savior, the only savior for sinners like you and me. And have you put your trust in Jesus for the cleansing of your soul and the forgiveness of your sins, and the gift of righteousness? I'm going to talk more about that one more time at the end. III. Righteous People Rescued by Death (vs. 1-2) Now that's verse 15. We've already gone to the kernel of the nut and eaten it, we've already drawn the marrow from the bone and received sustenance from it. Now let's look at the whole chapter briefly. He begins at verse one and two by speaking to righteous people. Now friends, pay attention to these verses. These are some of the most helpful verses for those that grieve at the loss of Christian loved ones. Let me say that again, these are some of the most helpful verses you will find in the Bible for those that grieve at the loss of Christian loved ones. Look what he says, "The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart. Devout men are take away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace, they find rest as they lie in death." Oh, those are comforting verses aren't they? Is talking about the death of the righteous, it begins right away that chapter begins the righteous perish by this we don't mean like John 3:16, perishing eternally, just means they die, they die, maybe of cancer, maybe of a tragic car accident, maybe of some other way, maybe just simply of old age, they die, the righteous perish and some people do not fully understand why, they are troubled by it, they don't think about it, they don't ponder it properly. No one ponders it properly, they don't take it and ponder it in their heart, they misunderstand what God is doing. They know that death should have been and was in some sense defeated by Christ, they don't ponder that death is the final enemy to be destroyed and we're going to have to co-exist in some mysterious way with death until the very end of the world and so death is going to hurt us again and again and again death is the final enemy, it's an enemy but it's the final enemy. Now Jesus destroyed that enemy at the cross, praise God, Hallelujah! He destroyed it. Hebrews 2:14, 15 says, "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." So this thing of death has been removed by Christ 1 Corinthians 15, says, "Where O death is your victory, Where O death is your sting?" death has been swallowed up in victory. Thanks be to God He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The ultimate triumph over death is given as a gift to those who have faith in Jesus. He said, "I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Now, the text says that the righteous perish, they actually die. Godly people die, upright people who walked in righteousness die, we know that. And this verse God shows His gracious kindness to them, they die to be delivered from evil, do you see that? God is being good to them. Effectively the text says, you've suffered enough dear son, dear daughter, it's time for you to come home. No more suffering, no more death or mourning or crying or pain you're done with that forever, you'll never have a divided heart again, you'll never struggle with sin again. The world, the flesh and the devil can touch you no longer, you're free, you're spared from evil, that's why God does it and it's good for us to celebrate that. For me said Paul, to live is Christ and to die is what, gain hallelujah. So what does that mean for us? Don't grieve like those who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4, "We don't want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, that is die or grieve like the rest of humanity that has no hope. We believe Jesus died and rose again and so we believe God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him." So yes, we must grieve, we will grieve we must weep, It's appropriate to cry but don't cry like those who have no hope, it's kind of a mystery its sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Hope filled tears, maybe you're just weeping for yourself, I think you probably are, you're weeping for yourself because you weren't delivered yet. And now you have to deal with the world of flesh and the devil minus one of the greatest helps God's ever given you that Godly person and it is going to be harder for you and so you grieve and it's appropriate but just know this, God is with you, He'll never leave you, He'll never forsake you, He will continue to protect you and someday He's going to do for you what He did for that person, He's going to deliver you from evil. Verse 1 and 2 hold on to it, go back to it later study it, it's going to be useful to you sometime in the future. IV. Idolatrous People Exposed and Blown Away (57:3-13a) Now, in Verses 3-13, he goes back to the weeds, he talks about the wicked. We go from the wheat to the weeds to the wheat to the weeds back and forth in these two chapters. Look what he says here in Verse 3 and 4, "But you come here you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes, whom are you mocking and whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?" Now I don't deny that Isaiah is a challenging book to read but I think here he's turned away from the topic of the righteous perishing and how they're delivered to talk about the wicked who were probably at least in part, instrumental in making life miserable for the righteous. And he calls them false worshipers, he calls them sons of sorceress, Now the Jews of Isaiah's day and beyond were constantly tempted to mingle Canaanite pagan religions with the true religion, that's called syncretism, to mix together the religion of the surrounding culture with the biblical religion. And they mixed it together and they generally leaned more and more toward pagan Canaanite-ish type practices in their religions and it was very tragic. God is a jealous God, He's jealous over the affections of his bride and He becomes very passionate and angry when His bride Israel gets drawn away into wickedness and paganism. And so these Jews who are following these Canaanite pagan worship practice, are called out here. They mock the true worshippers, they stick out their tongues in mockery, they sneer, they attack, they slander, they lie and they live lives of rebellion against God's commands and they are summoned in verse 3 and 4 to judgment by Almighty God. "Come here, you sons of a sorceress" He calls them for judgment and He exposes their idolatrous worship in Verses 5-13, these Verses describe the wickedness of the pagan worship practices of those days, they included sexual immorality, they included child sacrifice, they included occult practices and pagan rituals, dark things. Look in verse 5-10, He says, "You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree. You sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags. The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion. Yes, they are your lot. Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings. In the light of these things, should I relent? You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill. There you went up to offer your sacrifices. Behind your doors and your door posts you have put your pagan symbols." You see this hidden paganism in this wickedness and sexual immorality and child sacrifice. That's what He's calling them out for. "I see everything you do. I see it all." And God speaks as a spiritual husband who is deeply offended by the adultery, spiritual adultery, of His people. Look what He says. "Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened wide. You made a pact with those whose beds you love and you looked on their nakedness. You went to Molech with olive oil and increase your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away, you descended to the grave itself. You are wearied by all your ways, but you would not say it is hopeless. You found renewal of your strength and so you did not faint." Isn't it amazing? All this wickedness, these bad religious practices, this immorality. And they grew weary of it, but they didn't repent. They said, "All right, we got to try harder. And these things are not satisfying us, so we'll do them even more. Maybe they will satisfy." The wickedness and the foolishness. They refused to give them up. They renewed their strength in sin and they kept on doing it. Now verse 11 in the NIV I think is very, very helpful. I know it's different than the ESV, but just follow the NIV translation for a minute. It is very powerful. This is God speaking to unbelievers. "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?" It's powerful, isn't it? Let me say it again. "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?" It's because God seems to do nothing. It's like He seems to not even exist because he doesn't respond, especially to evil. He just seems to just do nothing. And they misunderstand the apparent silence of God. Atheists think that because God doesn't speak and strike down the wicked right away that He doesn't exist. Some time ago I came across the story of an atheist public speaker named Robert Ingersoll, and he used to do these challenging debates and discussions in which he would challenge God and he would utter horrible blasphemies and he culminated in this display. He said, "Now I read in the Bible how God struck blasphemers dead for their blasphemy. I'm going to give God five minutes to strike me dead for all of the blasphemies I've spoken today." And it's very dramatic, you know, he counts off the minutes. One minute, two minutes. Five minutes is a long time for public speaking. If I did it right now, you'd be like, "Please don't do that, pastor." That's a long time to wait in silence. But it was very dramatic at that point. I mean, people fainting, people screaming, all of that. Well, at any rate, the five minutes passed and Robert Ingersoll was not struck dead. The story was later told to Joseph Parker, a British pastor, who said this. "And did the American gentleman think that he could exhaust the patience of the infinite God in just five minutes?" Now you can't, even by great wickedness, exhaust God's patience in five minutes, but at some point it will end. Ingersoll's dead, he's been dead for a century and a half. "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?" Elie Wiesel, a Jewish writer after the Holocaust, wrote his book called Night. I saw this in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. This is what he wrote. "Blessed be God's name," question mark. "Blessed be God's name? Why, why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including the Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz and Birkenau and Buna and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations, yes, chose us to be tortured, day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, ended up in the furnaces? But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I now felt very strong. I was the accuser and God was the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God and without man." Well, I think Isaiah 57:11 addresses that. It's because God was silent and seemed to do nothing that he did not fear Him. The hiddenness of God, especially when so much suffering happens in the world, is distressing to many. It's distressing to Psalmist. How many Psalmists basically complain about why God seems to do nothing? It's in there a lot, like Psalm 44, "Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep? Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?" But here God says, "That's why you don't fear me, because I seem to have done nothing. But someday, though now I only speak through the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms and I speak through Scripture, someday I will speak plainly and you'll see what I think of wickedness. There'll be no doubt at that point what I think, and it will be clear. In the meantime, what you have is you have the Scripture." And God will speak to you through that Scripture and you'll hear Him speak in Scripture, or you will not hear Him at all and you'll think that He's silent. Idolatrous Worshipers Blown Away with their Idols Now, these idolaters worshippers are going to be blown away with their idols. Look at verse 12 and 13, "I will expose your righteousness and your works and they will not benefit you, and when you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you. The wind will carry all of them off a mere breath will blow them away." So, idolaters who follow idols are light weight and the wind of God's judgment will blow them away, and there'll be nothing left. Nothing left of all of their efforts and their works, all of them gone. Now, right in the middle of verse 13 do you notice he switches back to the weed again or back to the righteous, "But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain." V. God Dwells with Humbled and Healed Sinners (57:13b-19) And so, there we have in the middle of that section, this beautiful verse 15, that we begin with. The humble and contrite are welcome to dwell with God. God addresses the man who humbles himself, and makes God his refuge his true refuge. He will not be blown away in the judgment. The wind of judgment will not blow him away. He will survive that. He will inherit the land and possess God's holy mountain. More than that, he will effectively build up roads or highways along which the righteous will travel. Look at verse 14 and it will be said "Build up, build up, prepare the road, remove the obstacles out of the way of my people." Now you may think he's talking about the restoration of the Jews back to the promised land, and it may be, but let me tell you these words soar far above that. Why? because the very next verse. Look at the combination of verse 14 and 15. And it will be said "Buildup, buildup prepare the road remove the obstacles out of the way of my people. For this is what the high and holy one says, He who lives forever and whose name is Holy: 'I live in a high and holy place. But also with the contrite and lowly.'" The connection between the two verses is the highway that's built up in verse 14 is the journey by which we get to that high and holy place. And friends. I'll tell you his name, His name is Jesus. He says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And I get to be, and so to all of you who are believers in Christ, the righteous road constructors who lay the road of Jesus in front of lost people and say, this is the road travel in it. This is Jesus. This is the way you're going to get to the high and holy place. There's no other road that leads to heaven. We get to be spiritual civil engineers and build these roads for lost people." That's what's going to happen. Now, these contrite sinners, they have a lot to be contrite about. I remember Winston Churchill was talking about a fellow member of Parliament. He said he's a humble man with much to be humble about. I thought, "Man, he's a mean guy. I would not want him as a friend, a humble man, with much to be humble about." Well, we are contrite people with much to be contrite about. That's the point of verse 16 through 19. Do you see it? I will, this is God speaking about the righteous. "I will not accuse forever nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me, the breath of man that I created." Look at Verse 17, "I was enraged by his sinful greed. I punished him and hit my face and anger yet he kept on in his willful ways." Verse 18, "I have seen his ways but I will heal him. I will guide him and restore comfort to him." Verse 19: "Creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel, 'Peace, peace to those far and near' says the Lord 'And I will heal them.'" So this is talking about the righteous who are the humble and contrite that God will spend eternity with. He was really angry with them. He had a record of their sins. They were wicked in his sight. They pushed his patience. So they were idolaters. They had a record of sins that was standing against them and it says in Colossians 2, that God took that record of sins that stood against us and was opposed to us and nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ and were free. And God's anger is gone forever. He is propitiated. His wrath is gone. He is not angry at us. He will not always accuse and instead He will heal us of our wayward ways. I have seen God is saying "Your wayward crooked ways and I will heal you." You already said how in Isaiah 53. Jesus "was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him." What's the next part? "By His wounds we are healed." I've seen his ways. Isaiah 57, "And I will heal him through Jesus, through his wounds I will heal you." That's the promise he's making here. It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. Jesus came to heal us of sin and He will. And so in our text. Look at Verse 18, and 19 "I have seen his ways but I will heal him, I will guide him. I will restore comfort to him creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. 'Peace, peace, to those far near,' says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them." So, the result of all this? We get to spend eternity at peace with God and praising him for our salvation. He's going to create praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. We're going to spend eternity mindful of our sins, but not hurt by them, instead worshipping God for our salvation. He's going to create praise on our lips and we're going to be at peace with him forever. For it says in Romans 51, "Having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And not only that. But he's going to do it for those near and far. Do you see those words there? Oh, don't miss significance of that. "Creating praise in the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace to those far and near. For me as a gentile adopted son of Abraham, I'm really excited about that." You know from Ephesians 2, it speaks to Gentile believers in Christ, Ephesians 2-12-13, it says, "Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." That's who you were, you were far away. "But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ," creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Those both near and far, that's us Gentiles and Jewish believers in Christ praise for God for the salvation He has worked. And He will heal us. You know what? He's going to give peace to the healed. The healing goes together with the peace. Go on in your willful wicked idolatrous sinful ways, He will not give you peace. There's no peace in that way. But as He is healing you through sanctification, He's strengthening your righteous living, he pours out a sense of peace in your conscience and a sense of the peace of God, the peacefulness that comes from your status of peace with God. He heals you and you know you have peace and some day you're going to be totally healed. Like I've already said, when you die and you depart from evil, you'll be free forever. VI. God Condemns the Wicked to Endless Restlessness (57:20-21) Now, the chapter ends going back to the weeds one more time. Look at verse 20 and 21: "But the wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 'There is no peace' says my God for the wicked." Friends, these words describe the world. Do you not see it? This is a churning tumultuous wicked difficult world in which we live, and these two verses at the end of Isaiah 57 describe why. These people, these lost people that we live with have no rest, no peace inside their hearts. They're churning and restless and never satisfied. They don't find what life is all about. And so they are restless like Satan roaming over the surface of the earth or like the demons that go through the... Go out of the man in Matthew 12 and they go through arid places seeking rest and they don't find it. And they're restless and they're looking for something. Think about all the political unrest in the world. Think about the riots and the demonstrations and the violence. Think about the restlessness of the Muslim world leading many young Muslim men in particular, to seek an outlet for their restlessness and their rage in Jihad and terrorism. Think about the constant turmoil of nation rising against nation, a series of wars after wars after wars and it never seems to end. And why? Because people are restless in their hearts. Think about the simple restlessness of the world as seen in the nightly news reports, local news and CNN, whatever. Local and worldwide, restlessness, no peace. They are like the churning sea casting up mire and muck. They're looking, constantly looking for something. Think about the restless hearts of people who are addicted to prescription, pain medications. And they can never get enough. They seek their peace in the narcotic. Stunning levels of people who are addicted now to these opioids. Also, more and more people addicted to heroin and morphine, they're seeking peace in the drug. It's not any different than those that seek it in alcohol. They're looking for an escape, peace and they're not finding it. Think about restless people who look for peace through psychiatry and psychology and counseling. It's estimated over 600 million people suffer from anxiety or depression, clinical depression, 600 million. Many of them are literally restless, they can't sleep at night. They have chronic insomnia. They're filled with anxiety, they go to psychiatrists and counselors and psychologists and get drugs, and there's no peace. Think about the relentless drive and ambition of even successful, wealthy people who attain all their goals and they don't satisfy them. Some time ago, I saw an interview and many of you perhaps have seen it, with Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback after he won his third Super Bowl. There's a 60 minutes interview with journalist Steve Croft and he said these stunning words. When I was going over the sermon this morning, it's hard for me to read this even without crying. Brady said this. This is Tom Brady: "So a lot of times, I think I get very frustrated and introverted and there's times where I'm not the person that I want to be. Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people say, 'Hey man, this is what it is, this is it.' I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think. God, there's got to be more than this. I mean, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be, can it? I mean, I've done it. I'm 27. And what else is there for me?" I mean, he's saying this on tape. Croft said, "What's the answer?" And he said, "I wish I knew." I wish I knew. Friends, I'm telling you there are people like that around you every day. They're like, "I don't... Even when things go well, for me, I know there's nothing in it. It's emptiness." I mean, this man's as successful as you could ever want to be in a worldly sort of way but he says, "I wish I knew." Well, I'll tell you what it is. It's living in a high and holy place with God by faith in Christ. That's what is satisfying, nothing else. What else matters? Few verses capture the reason for the world's misery better than this one: "The wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no peace says my God for the wicked." Now that last verse of the chapter seems to read to me like a decree. There can be no peace says my God for the wicked. Not as such. VII. An Invitation from the High and Holy So God gives us an invitation. Go back one more time, as we close to verse 15. This is what the high and lofty one says. He who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place but also with him who is humble and contrite in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite. God has promised in this text, He's seen all your ways, he's promised to heal you. He knows how you live, he knows what you do, he knows everything. He said I'm going to heal you, verse 18, I will guide you, and I will restore comfort to you. And I will not always accuse, I will not always be angry. Effectively, the New Testament invitation that lines up with this, is this one, Matthew 11. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened said Jesus and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am humble in heart and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So that's my appeal to you as non Christians. For you Christians, I would urge you to meditate deeply on verse 1 and 2. Get it ready for when you lose a loved one in Christ. Just get ready for it, or when you face your own death. Just realize God is good to take righteous people out of this sinful world. He's just... He's just good. Secondly, see if there's any restlessness in you like that of the wicked, and repent from it. God's not going to bless that kind of wickedness, even in his own children. He will discipline you out of it, so the sooner you repent from it, you will find peace in your repentance. Thirdly, meditate much on the staggering words of verse 15. I just give them to you as a gift, they're not mine to give, but I just like, here they are, read them. Just read verse 15 and swim in the ocean of greatness. And then finally, at the very end, the last two verses, understand the turmoil of the world is essentially spiritual. It's because people are out of fellowship with God that they don't know what life is about and they are so churning. We need to give them peace in Christ. Whatever happens on Tuesday, whatever happens with the election, just understand this, true peace is found only in the kingdom of God. Close with me in prayer.